Libyan rebel forces launched a furious 'final offensive' on the loyalist stronghold Sirte on Friday, battling to clear the city of men fighting for the former regime.
A Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) fighter fires with a heavy machine gun during a battle in the streets of Sirte Photo: AFP
By Ruth Sherlock, Sirte
4:48PM BST 07 Oct 2011
"Today this is finished. We are going to end this now. Sirte is ours!" shouted Commander Amin El Turki to his men, their rows of heavy machine guns pointed to the city.
Battered T55 tanks, rocket launcher trucks and fighters moved in formation across the expanse of flat scrubland towards the southern city gates.
In scenes reminiscent of a full-scale war hundreds of rockets ripped across the dawn sky and the deafening boom of tank rounds filled the air. Men in battered green metal helmets hunkered in the sand as streaks of red tracer fire from the incoming enemy bullets strafed the field.
"Ciao Ciao Gaddafi!" screamed rebel fighter Salah Ismail manically, exhilarated as he sent a Milan rocket crashing into a building on the horizon.
In the largest coordinated onslaught yet, thousands of fighters and armed pickup trucks from dozens of rebel brigades had gathered on roads around the besieged city before dawn.
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In the simultaneous attack, brigades from eastern Libya pounded their front, and another brigade advanced along the coastline.
"The fighters from eastern Benghazi have five front lines on one side, and we are manning four," Ali Iswad, a member of a brigade from the west Libyan city of Misurata.
By early morning dozens of buildings were burning, and a thick black smoke enveloped the city.
"They are screaming that people are dying everywhere," said a man listening into loyalist radio frequencies.
Nato planes whirred overhead. "Since yesterday NATO has sent messages on the enemy's radio frequencies telling them to drop their weapons, and leave their tanks," said field officer Mohamed Shebti.
The battle for Sirte is the culmination of the Nato supported eight month Libyan civil war. National Transitional Council Chairman Abdel Mustafa Jalil has pinned the full 'declaration of Libya', marking the start of a period of political transition, on the fall of the city.
On Thursday night, in the opulent home that had belonged to the brother of Col. Gaddafi's spokesperson Moussa Ibrahim, military commanders had held conference. Pouring over giant maps of the area Col. Turki and others had planned the offensive, as their men cleaned and prepared their massive arsenal of weapons.
But the NTC fighters were met with stiff resistance from inside the city.
Loyalists hit back at the entrance to the Wagadugu conference centre, a military fortress two kilometres from the centre. Snipers bullets hissed thick and fast through the air from all directions and rocket propelled grenades exploded overhead.
Ambulances sped forward to evacuate the injured, and a paramedic died, shot in the head as he loaded a patient. Terrified men crouched close to the complex wall, trapped and in constant prayer as they watched comrades fall to the ground and their offensive fall to pieces.
Four hours into the attack over 125 were wounded, and eight were confirmed dead. Col. Turki, who that morning had roused his men to fight, was among those killed.
"There are other bodies on the ground but we cannot reach them because of sniper fire," said Dr Mohammed Mustafa at a field hospital close to the front line.
Loyalist fighters fired mortars from Ibn Sina, Sirte's central hospital, the nerve centre of the military operation. Others fought from the military complex and 'hundreds of snipers' occupied fortified buildings of a newly built university rebels said.
'All these are full of snipers," said Shebti, pointing to buildings less than a mile across the field.
The men fighting inside the city know the streets better and they have the advantage of fighting a defensive war.
"If they hold their positions despite our artillery attack, we will have to make another plan. Maybe we will have to go in on foot. We will lose many lives, but we have no choice," said Ali Shah, 30 grimly.
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