By C.J. CHIVERS
Published: May 11, 2011
MISURATA, Libya — Rebels in the contested western city of Misurata stormed the city’s airport on Wednesday afternoon, swarming over the grounds from the south and east and reclaiming it from the military of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
C.J. Chivers/The New York Times
A rebel fighter searched the edge of the runway at Misurata airport on Wednesday, walking past the abandoned uniforms of loyalist soldiers.
Seizing the airport in Misurata, Libya’s third-largest city, which has been under siege for nearly two months, marked one of the most significant rebel victories in the Libyan conflict.
The airport and its approaches were the last remaining pieces of significant terrain in the city to be controlled by the Qaddafi soldiers.
With these soldiers pushed back, the western area of Misurata appeared by nightfall to be out of range of the most common of the Qaddafi forces’ heavy weapons, including self-propelled artillery, Grad rockets and 120-millimeter mortars, with which the loyalists have fired cluster munitions.
“Now we are safer,” said one rebel commander, a former army officer who had defected to join the rebels when the uprising began in February, as he strutted through the airport’s departure terminal, where the abandoned green uniforms of Qaddafi soldiers rested across several luggage carts.
The rebel commander added that the rebels, who now have physical control of all of Misurata, had given the citizens of Libya something that could endanger Colonel Qaddafi’s hold on Tripoli, Libya’s capital. “Any victory we make here will encourage the people of Tripoli,” he said. “They will say, ‘Qaddafi is weak. Why can he not keep Misurata?’”
By evening, after what seemed the last pockets of resistance at the airport had been silenced by rebel fire, Misurata was in celebration. Ambulances roamed the city, sirens wailing, as convoys of machine-gun trucks drove past with gunmen cheering and occasionally firing in the air. “God is great!” they chanted.
In western Misurata, where many families have been hiding, residents emerged by hundreds, then thousands. Once lightly trafficked roads were clogged by traffic jams.
“Qaddafi down!” people shouted. “Qaddafi is finished!”
The outpouring of emotion was understandable for a city that has endured fierce house-to-house fighting and absorbed week-after-week shelling and ground-to-ground rocket fire.
It also risked being premature. At the city’s two eastern fronts, Qaddafi soldiers were believed to remain within Grad rocket and artillery range of several neighborhoods and the city’s seaport, which is its sole route for medical evacuation and resupply.
The city’s roughly 500,000 residents remain isolated and in need of food and medical aid.
The commander, who asked that his name be withheld to prevent retaliation against family members elsewhere in Libya, also said that the rebels were worried that the Qaddafi military had regrouped and gathered reinforcements about 25 miles away, and might counterattack any time.
Nonetheless, the events at the airport underscored the rebels’ new momentum this week, and led to a palpable lightening of the city’s mood.
Late last month, Misurata’s rebels forced the Qaddafi military from the city’s center in a bloody building-by-building fight. Since then, the lines had largely been static. The Qaddafi forces had taken up defensive positions at points around the city, and shelled it at will.
On Sunday, after a stepped-up campaign of air strikes by NATO warplanes, which have been bombing military targets under a Security Council mandate to protect civilians, the Qaddafi lines began to break anew.
The rebels, riding their machine-gun trucks and fighting on foot, pushed westward several miles by Monday, reaching the outskirts of Ad Dafiniyah.
On Tuesday the rebels then attempted a plan model in part on their successes in April on Tripoli Street, one of the city’s main boulevards.
There, by gradually building barricades of sand and blocking roadways with shipping containers and large cargo and dump trucks, they had cut off their enemies’ routes of reinforcement and resupply. Then, building by building, they tried the same tactic, writ small—cutting of structures and storming the Qaddafi soldiers trapped inside.
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Theo dõi từ Cuộc Cách Mạng Hoa Lài Tunisia được nổi lên từ Ngọn Đuốc Sống Muhammet Bouazizi, đuổi tên độc tài Ben Ali ra khỏi Tunisia sau 23 năm cầm quyền, tiếp thep Cuộc Cách Mạng Ai Cập Lật Đổ độc tài Hosni Mubarak sau hơn 33 năm cầm quyền và nhiều Cuộc Nổi Dậy của người dân Syria, Yemen .. và cụ thể từ bản tin này là Cuộc Chiến Đấu Lật Đổ độc tài Gadhafi đã ngồi trên đầu trên cổ người dân Libya ròng rã 42 năm .
Những người dân Bắc Phi và Trung Đông đã nổi dậy, xuống đường và đã đem MÁU XƯƠNG của họ để Chiến Đấu cho Tự Do Dân Chủ và giành lại QUYỀN LÀM NGƯỜI mà những tên độc tài bạo ác vô lương tri đã TƯỚC ĐỌAT của họ .
Với ý chí, quyết tâm và lòng TỰ TRỌNG của "con người", để sống như những con người đúng nghĩa, chắc chắn những Con Người quả cảm này sẽ THÀNH CÔNG .
Rõ ràng, họ không phải cúi đầu van xin, hay thấp nến cầu khẩn mà có được Tự Do, Dân Chủ và Quyền Làm Người .
Người VN bị MẤT NƯỚC vào tay bè lũ thổ phỉ phản quốc CƯỚP NƯỚC diệt chủng BÁN NƯỚC csVN có thấy NHỤC trước các dân tộc Bắc Phi, Trung Đông và thế giới, khi phải tiếp tục cúi đầu để bè lũ Việt gian thổ phỉ csVN chà đạp như những con vật và tiếp tục u mê để lũ súc sinh csVN tiếp tục ngang nhiên bán dân, bán nước ?
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
12052011
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CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
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