Rebel forces have gained control of the central square in the strategic western city of Zawiya, NPR’s Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reported Saturday.
It’s a major victory in the rebels’ march on Moammar Gadhafi’s stronghold of Tripoli, just 30 miles to the east.
Taking Martyr’s Square was also a symbolic victory, Garcia-Navarro told Weekend Edition Saturday guest host Jacki Lyden.
“It was where the initial uprising took place in March. It was where it was brutally crushed, where they made their last stand,” she said. “Now that they have it back, they really do feel that Zawiya is within their grasp.”
The territory remaining under the Libyan ruler’s control has been shrinking dramatically in the past three weeks, with opposition fighters advancing on the capital, Tripoli, a metropolis of 2 million people.
The momentum in the six-month-old Libyan civil war now appears to have firmly swung in the rebels’ favor after months of near deadlock. The coastal city of Zawiya would be the biggest prize so far in the rebels’ offensive. They also claim to have captured three more towns — Gheryan, south of the capital, Zlitan in the west and Brega in the east.
“What we’re seeing now is the noose tightening around Tripoli,” Garcia-Navarro said. “The main roads from the east, west and south are effectively cut off.”
She said the situation in Tripoli is increasingly dire, with a lack of electricity and food.
Besides the battlefield gains, the opposition also received a political boost Friday with the defection of Abdel-Salam Jalloud, a close associate of Gadhafi who took part in the 1969 coup that brought the Libyan ruler to power.
Rumors have been circulating that Gadhafi and his family have left the country or are about to leave. Garcia-Navarro said it’s unclear where he is but that Libyans feel his departure is imminent.
“It seems very unclear at this point how Gadhafi’s forces can rally,” she said. “The rebels have the momentum.”
As the battle continued in Zawiya, opposition fighters elsewhere reported major advances.
Residents in the city of Gheryan, which straddles the main road south from Tripoli, held an impromptu parade Friday after the rebels captured the city.
“The town was heavily fortified by Gadhafi, and Gadhafi’s forces basically crumbled there in a matter of hours,” Garcia-Navarro said. “It’s a sign that his troops there are on the defensive. They’re extremely weak and they’re on the run.”
In the east, rebels said they captured all of the strategic eastern port city of Brega, which has repeatedly changed hands in the war. Brega is home to Libya’s second-largest hydrocarbon complex and is where the country’s main oil fields feed into for refining.
In the west, rebels also claimed to have taken control of Zlitan, 90 miles southeast of Tripoli.
In the United Kingdom, Major General Nick Pope, the Chief of the Defense Staff’s Communications Officer, said that RAF planes as part of NATO’s mission in Libya had attacked two staging areas used by Gadhafi forces in Zlitan.
He told reporters Saturday that RAF aircraft returned to Tripoli on Friday evening and bombed the main operations room for the Ministry of Interior’s security forces, which NATO intelligence had identified as located in a compound in the Abu Salim district.
NATO has played a large role in the rebels’ success.
“In fact, there is some debate as to whether claims of victory should go to NATO or indeed to the rebels on the ground,” Garcia-Navarro said.
The bombing in Tripoli is a sign that the battle will be coming to the capital soon, she said. Opposition cells within the capital are preparing for the assault and waiting for their cue to begin an uprising.
Hundreds of miles east of Libya, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman visited the rebels’ de-facto capital of Benghazi to announce the opening of the U.S. Embassy in the city.
“Gadhafi’s days are numbered,” Feltman told reporters on Saturday. “The best case scenario is for Gadhafi to step down now … that’s the best protection for civilians.”
>Discuss in Forums – click here >
.
.
