March 30th, 2011 
admin Muammar Gaddafi’s forces have continued their rapid advance despite continued coalition air strikes, retaking much of the territory gained by rebels at the weekend.
“Gaddafi hit us with huge rockets. He has entered Ras Lanuf,” one rebel fighter, Faraj Muftah, told Reuters after pulling out of the oil port.
“We were at the western gate in Ras Lanuf and we were bombarded,” said a second fighter, Hisham.
Their advance also threatens to humiliate the western coalition by again coming within striking distance of Benghazi, the rebels’ de facto capital that Paris, Washington and London launched the aerial campaign to defend.
People who had returned to the strategic town of Ajdabiya after it fell to the rebels on Saturday again fled as the government’s army seized two important oil towns further along the coastal highway, Ras Lanuf and Brega.
In Washington, Admiral James Stavridis, Nato’s supreme allied commander in Europe, told the Senate intelligence reports had suggested “flickers” of al-Qaida or Hezbollah presence within the rebel movement.
A UK diplomat, Christopher Prentice, the ambassador in Rome, met rebel leaders in their stronghold of Benghazi on Monday and Tuesday, the Foreign Office said.
Cameron told the Commons during prime minister’s questions: “In terms of the situation on the ground, it is an extremely fluid situation, but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the ceasefire is still being breached and it is absolutely right for us to keep up our pressure under UN security council resolution 1973.”
No Tag
