Rebels cling to high ground in Libya's west

09 May 2011 10:40

Source: reuters // Reuters

A Libyan refugee standing beside her tent at a refugee camp near the southern Libyan and Tunisian border crossing of Dehiba May 8, 2011. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

* Fight intensifies for Libya's Western Mountains
* Rebels hold key border point, loyalists in desert plains
* Indiscriminate shelling by forces loyal to Gaddafi

By Matt Robinson
DEHIBA, Tunisia, May 9 (Reuters) - The flow of rebels to the small clinic in this Tunisian frontier town speaks of an escalating war for Libya's Western Mountains.
Most had been shot in close-quarter fighting to hold back loyalists east of the rebel-held town of Zintan.
Eleven died trying on Saturday alone, their names displayed at a refugee camp housing their families.
"They are heroes, they are Mujahideen," said Jamal Maghroub, whose nephew was among those killed. His weathered face and lean frame in military fatigues gave him the look of a man far older than his 47 years.
The Western Mountain region, home to the Berber ethnic minority, was among the first to rise up against Muammar Gaddafi and his 41-year rule.
The fight here has intensified since the rebels seized the Dehiba border crossing into Tunisia last month, opening a key artery for supplies.
But their hold on these flat-topped mountains is precarious at best, and there is no sign they can advance against the superior firepower of forces loyal to Gaddafi.
Zintan, around 150 km (90 miles) south-west of the capital Tripoli, is surrounded on three sides, according to rebel fighters and medical workers ferrying the wounded out across the border.
The front-line is fluid, at some points coming to within 15 km (9 miles) of the town in recent days. Gaddafi's forces hold the desert valleys, lobbing mortars and rockets at the mountain tops above them.
Much of the artillery fire appears to be indiscriminate. Dozens of rounds thumped into the desert near the Tunisian border and Dehiba on Saturday.
New York-based Human Rights Watch on Monday accused loyalist forces of launching "repeated indiscriminate attacks" on residential areas in the mountain towns of Nalut, Takut and Zintan.

INDISCRIMINATE SHELLING
It said refugee accounts "describe a pattern of attacks that would violate the laws of war", with mortars or rockets striking mosques, water facilities, homes, a school and outside a hospital.
A Reuters reporter saw some evidence of this in Nalut, a 70 km (40 mile) drive from the Tunisian border, where the front side of a house and the grounds of a mosque had been struck by shelling.
"The scale of the attacks... suggests the government has made little or no attempt to focus on military targets," the rights watchdog said.
In Nalut, a group of men sat on rocks looking through binoculars at what they said were loyalist positions near the electricity grid in the valley below supplying the town with power.
The position was likely chosen to dissuade attack from NATO planes, a tactic seen elsewhere in this two-month-old conflict.
In the besieged rebel-held city of Misrata, Gaddafi forces have positioned artillery and tanks in residential areas of the outskirts, knowing NATO will be unwilling to strike for fear of civilian casualties.
The Western alliance appears to have focused its air strikes in this region on loyalist weapons depots to the south of Zintan. As in Misrata on the coast, they have yet to silence Gaddafi's guns.
More than 40,000 Libyans have fled the Western Mountains in the past month, some to refugee camps but many to Tunisian homes in Tataouine province. They say those who stayed behind are running low on food, water and medical supplies.
Ominously, the border crossing has changed hands several times, though the rebels now appear confident in their control, lounging in the shade and greeting the barrage in the mountains to cries of "Allahu Akbar!"
Ambulances frequently cross, speeding to the clinic in Dehiba, where the Tunisian army set up a military field hospital two weeks ago. They have treated dozens of wounded rebels since then.
At a refugee camp, a man who gave his name as Yousef said he had four brothers fighting near Zintan. Having brought their families out to safety, he said he planned to return to join the fight.
"Gaddafi is a dictator, and a criminal and he has no hint of Islam in him," he said.
"Now, all the mountains and the towns are standing up against him." (Editing by Giles Elgood)