Rebels Repel Assaults By Loyalists in Libya

 

The fighting — with rifle, machine-gun and mortar fire — was at times pitched, but Colonel Qaddafi’s forces did not break through the lines held by the rebels, who celebrated their successful defense in the evening, driving through the village and firing rifles into the air.

The bodies of at least five pro-Qaddafi soldiers were hauled away by the rebels, along with others who were wounded, including Mahmoud Ben Aros, 27.

Mr. Aros, who said he was from Ziltan, a city to Misurata’s west, had been shot through the left femur. He writhed on a gurney as doctors tried to stop his bleeding and set the bone, and he was soon whisked away, to an uncertain fate.

“We will treat him; he needs surgery,” said Dr. Mohammed Muftah Alajnaf, at the small clinic here.

On the western border with Tunisia, rebels and loyalists fought all day Thursday for control of a strategic crossing that the rebels seized in a surprise move last week. After a seesaw battle, the rebels retained control late in the day, said a rebel spokesman, who also confirmed reports that ordnance fired by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces had landed in Tunisian territory, prompting a protest by the Tunisian authorities.

The fighting turned after the arrival of reinforcements from the Nafusah mountain range, said the rebel spokesman, Mazigh Abouzakhar, speaking by telephone from the nearby town of Jadu. It remained unclear what had become of Colonel Qaddafi’s forces there, Mr. Abouzakhar said, but rebel fighters had captured at least one armored vehicle.

Rebels in the region, now calling themselves the United Forces of the Mountains of Nafusah, control the cities of Nalut, Jadu and Zintan, Mr. Abouzakhar said. But Colonel Qaddafi’s forces have surrounded the cities of Yafran, Gala’a and Kiklah and begun advancing on them, with ground forces and tanks surrounding the hospital at the edge of Yafran.

As the rebel fighters there and in Misurata made gains against government troops, rebel leaders in Benghazi said on Thursday that they had lost the isolated town of Kufrah, in southeastern Libya about 280 miles from the border with Chad, after it was overrun by Qaddafi loyalists who advanced in dozens of cars on Thursday morning. The rebels played down the loss, saying the town had switched hands several times since the uprising.

“It was quite a sizable force,” said Jalal al-Gallal, a rebel spokesman. “They’ve managed to hoist the green flag. We have sent reinforcements to claim it back,” Mr. Gallal said, adding, “It’s not the best of news.”

About 9 a.m. Thursday, the ferry Red Star 1, traveling from Misurata with hundreds of migrants along with dozens of people wounded in the fighting, docked in Benghazi after a 20-hour journey. Many of the more than 40 wounded people had been hit by shrapnel and bullets, according to Dr. Anas Toweir, the chief medical officer on board. He said the victims included a 9-year-old boy and a French photographer and blogger who was shot in the neck by a stray bullet from Misurata’s front lines.

In the port in Benghazi, more than 850 migrants, mostly from Niger, hauled blankets, bundles and suitcases onto buses that would take them to the Egyptian border, according to Roberto Pitea of the International Organization for Migration, which chartered the boat.

In Misurata in recent days, since the Qaddafi forces withdrew under pressure from the center of the city, the fighting has shifted to the outskirts and is now often waged on rolling and sometimes open terrain.

But as clashes between gunmen have moved out of the residential neighborhoods and into areas like the dunes and low-slung buildings of this city, Misurata has remained in suspense.

Loyalist forces, out of the range of most rebel weapons, have been firing ground-to-ground rockets and mortar rounds into the city, and have staged at least two ground attacks against Misurata’s flanks, threatening to re-enter the city or cut off its supplies.

An attack from the east toward the city’s harbor was thwarted by NATO airstrikes on Tuesday night. On Thursday, Colonel Qaddafi’s forces were stopped by the rebels in a head-to-head fight. At least 13 rebels were wounded and 2 killed in the afternoon alone. The wounded included a local photographer whose forehead was grazed by shrapnel.

Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Tunis; Kareem Fahim from Benghazi, Libya; and Elisabeth Bumiller from Washington.