Many NTC fighters abandon their positions at nightfall for more comfortable quarters further from the front line. When Misrata units get close to Benghazi units “it gets harder,” he said. “We have lost a lot of martyrs in recent days,” said Mustafa Salim from a Misrata brigade. “What we are trying to do is to limit attacks from the east and west to avoid friendly fire, and instead attack from the south,” said Mohammad Al Sabty, a field commander.
There is also anger between government forces from Misrata to the west and Benghazi to the east, who have accused each other of hitting their allies in “friendly fire” incidents. Some fighters are irritated their commanders have not ordered a big push to take the rest of the city. Libya’s new leaders say they will only begin the transition to democracy after they capture the city.įrustration is growing on the front line. NTC tanks and rockets bombarded a small area of central Sirte where they have boxed in the remaining Gaddafi loyalists. The town has been under siege for weeks, with hundreds of Gaddafi loyalists dug into its steep valleys and hills resisting advancing interim government forces. The Warfalla number about one million out of the country’s six million population and were traditional supporters of Gaddafi. Ahmed Bani, the interim government’s military spokesman, told reporters in the capital Tripoli: “Ninety percent of Bani Walid has been liberated.”Īlong with Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, Bani Walid is one of the last places in the vast North African nation where there is still armed resistance to the rule of the National Transitional Council (NTC).Ĭolonel Abdullah Naker, head of the Tripoli Revolutionist Council, had told Reuters on Sunday: “We have reached the city centre and have raised the flag”.įighters taking part in the assault on Bani Walid told Reuters they had entered the town, which is nestled in rocky hills some 150 km (90 miles) south of Tripoli.īani Walid is an ancestral home to the Warfalla, Libya’s biggest tribe and one of its most politically influential.
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