TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - September 25, 2011
The cross-border attack on Saturday shows loyalist forces have
managed to escape Libya and regroup and collect arms, bolstering
fears the North African nation could face a protracted insurgency.
Fighters who took up arms against Gadhafi have seized Tripoli
and have gained control of the rest of the country, but they are
still battling forces loyal to the ousted regime on several fronts.
Libya officials also announced on Sunday the discovery of a mass
grave believed to hold the remains of 1,270 inmates killed by
Gadhafi's regime in a 1996 prison massacre. The site - a desert
field scattered with bone fragments - was found outside the walls
of Tripoli's Abu Salim prison, where the victims were killed on
June 26, 1996, after protesting conditions at the facility. A
demonstration by women demanding justice for the victims of that
prison massacre was one of the things that touched off the uprising
against Gadhafi in February.
A Tripoli military spokesman, Khalid al-Sharif, said authorities
found the site after getting information from witnesses and former
security guards who had been captured after the capital fell.
Officials will ask for international assistance in excavating and
identifying the remains because the Libyans don't have sufficient
expertise and equipment to test the DNA, he said.
Libyans are eager for those who committed crimes under the old
regime to face justice and have been moving forward with efforts to
account for the past even as fighting continues in parts of the
country.
Col. Ahmed Bani, a military spokesman for the transitional
government, said the attack on Ghadamis occurred Saturday but
revolutionary forces had intelligence that cars filled with weapons
had crossed the border a few days earlier. Ghadamis is about 280
miles (450 kilometers) southwest of Tripoli.
He said the loyalist forces were believed to belong to a unit
that had been under the command of Gadhafi's son Khamis, who was
reportedly killed in fighting before the revolutionary forces
seized Tripoli.
Bani said revolutionary forces had repelled the attack but the
assailants escaped back across the border.
An official from Ghadamis, Ali al-Mana, however, said fighting
was ongoing. He told The Associated Press that six people had been
killed and 63 wounded.
"We are sending a plane from Tripoli to evacuate the wounded,"
said al-Mana, who is the Ghadamis representative on the National
Transitional Council, which is acting as the country's government.
Al-Mana said Ghadamis has a small runway for the plane to land.
Gadhafi's wife and three of his children, including his daughter
Aisha, fled to Algeria through Ghadamis after Tripoli's fall late
last month. The whereabouts of the fugitive leader remain unknown
and he continues to try to rally supporters. That has raised
concern that he could stoke violence as fighting continues between
revolutionary forces in his hometown of Sirte and two other
strongholds.
Aisha Gadhafi, who played a key role in her father's inner
circle, said in an audio recording broadcast Friday that her father
is in high spirits and fighting alongside his supporters. She
called the country's new leaders traitors, noting that some of them
were members of Gadhafi's regime before defecting in the civil war.
"I assure you, he is fine, a believer in God, in good spirits,
is carrying his gun and is fighting side by side with the
warriors," she said in the recording broadcast on the Syrian-based
Al-Rai TV, which has become the mouthpiece of Gadhafi's resistance.
In other developments on Sunday, Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte
came under an extremely heavy NATO bombardment as anti-Gadhafi
forces laid siege to the city. An AP reporter in Sirte said there
were dozens of airstrikes throughout the day in and around the
city, possibly softening up the loyalists for a new push by
revolutionary forces in the coming days.
An offensive by anti-Gadhafi forces on Saturday failed to
dislodge die-hard loyalists of the fugitive leader.
Anti-Gadhafi fighters set up new checkpoints and posted snipers
in strategic areas on the outskirts of Sirte. But they said they
were not planning another assault immediately after facing fierce
resistance on Saturday that left seven of their comrades dead and
more than 150 wounded.
"It's unlikely we'll attack today unless we are attacked,"
said Aiman Majub, who helps coordinate revolutionary forces. "The
idea is to catch our breath and regroup so we can be more strategic
instead of blasting our way in."
Saturday's battle for downtown Sirte was the first significant
push in a week and included close-range gunfights with loyalists
hiding in apartment buildings and throwing hand grenades from
windows. The fighters pushed east along the city's main
thoroughfare into its urban center, overrunning a TV station as
NATO warplanes supporting anti-Gadhafi forces roared overhead.
Osama Nuttawa al-Swehli, a revolutionary logistics officer, said
the goal on Sunday was to squeeze the city and prevent any former
regime figures believed to be holed up inside from escaping.
Al-Swehli said he has heard Gadhafi's son Muatassim communicating
by radio with loyalist forces inside Sirte.
"We have to make sure that no supplies get in and that none of
their assets escape," he said.
"The priority today is to hold our positions while pounding
their targets," he said, adding that they needed to take out
loyalist rocket launchers before making another push to take the
city.
He said that seven men were killed and 152 wounded, 17
seriously, in Saturday's fighting.
Sirte, 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli on the
Mediterranean coast, is the Libyan city most associated with
Gadhafi.
---
Hubbard reported from Sirte. Associated Press writer Rami
al-Shaheibi contributed to this report from Benghazi.
