Ras Lanuf (Libya):
Rebel fighters fled this strategic refinery town on Thursday under ferocious rocket attacks and airstrikes by forces loyal to the Libyan leader, Colonel Moammar el-Gaddafi.
The retreat capped several days of fighting as bold plans of a westward drive to Tripoli by the undermanned and ill-equipped rebel army were dashed by the superior Gaddafi forces, which are seeking to retake several eastern oil cities that had slipped from the government's control in the first days of the uprising. Heavy shelling here seemed to presage a final assault by government troops.
Under a steadily escalating barrage, rebel fighters in dozens of trucks mounted with heavy weapons retreated east along the coastal road. In a chaotic scene at a checkpoint five miles east of town, fighters shot anti-aircraft guns randomly and ineffectually into the sky while arguing whether to flee or to try to establish a new defensive front.
As NATO member nations met in Brussels to discuss military options for Libya, the rebels cursed the United States and its allies for failing to impose a no-flight zone. Morale among the fighters seemed to be weakening, even as Agence-France Presse reported that the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had recognized the opposition Libyan National Council and was said to be prepared to propose airstrikes on Colonel Gaddafi's command headquarters.
"There is no comparison between our weapons and theirs," said Mohammed al-Houni, a 25-year-old economics student. "They're trained, they're organized. They got their training in the Soviet Union or someplace. It's tough these days, but we still have God."
Explosions rocked a mosque and a hospital that workers abandoned in the early afternoon, leaving behind only the body of a man in civilian clothes who they said had been shot in the head by a sniper.
The blast near the mosque sent clouds of dust over dozens of worshipers at noon prayers. Sirens howled, anti-aircraft gunners blazed away at clear skies and two ambulances speeding from the hospital crashed into each other.
Rumors ran through crowds of fighters, residents and medics that the bombardment had been unleashed by naval vessels off shore, but no such ships could be seen in the blue Mediterranean waters, and other fighters said the barrage had consisted mainly of surface-to-surface missiles.
From a minaret, the mosque's loudspeaker, which has not been silenced by the bombardment, carried the words of a cleric chanting: "When you side with God, God will support you." But the amplified promise competed with staccato ground fire and the boom of an explosion. At least one person was killed, doctors said as they evacuated wounded from the hospital.
For days, Ras Lanuf -- the frontline between loyalist and rebel forces -- has been fiercely contested at a time when NATO officials in Brussels are pondering whether to impose a no-flight zone over Libyan air space. There were also new reports of loyalist air strikes much further east towards the rebel headquarters of Benghazi. One government airstrike seemed aimed at an insurgent checkpoint on the eastern approaches of Ras Lanuf, but bombings were also reported at a checkpoint in the town of Brega, about a hundred miles to the east of here. If confirmed, the attacks on Brega would suggest that loyalist forces were ranging further towards Benghazi, possibly attacking rebel supply lines.
On Wednesday, the budding opposition army fired back with missile fusillades and rocket-propelled grenades to the west of Ras Lanuf. Backed by their heavy weaponry, the rebels managed to advance on foot for a few miles to the west, witnesses said, until the fighters were frozen by fire from government mortars and heavy machine guns and forced to retreat in trucks. At least five rebels died in the fighting.
In the western half of the country, elite government troops continued to pound the besieged rebel-held city of Zawiyah, only 30 miles from Tripoli, the capital and Colonel Gaddafi's stronghold. While the government claims to have subdued opposition in Zawiyah there has been no independent corroboration of that assertion and reporters are barred from even approaching the town.
The rebels have held out against a withering assault by Colonel Gaddafi's forces, including snipers and tanks in close-quarters urban combat. Witnesses in the city have reported heavy damage to buildings from tank shelling around the city's central Martyrs' Square, the scene of heavy fighting in recent days. Government tanks lined the square on Thursday, the witnesses said, but there was still fighting in the streets.
Throughout the uprising, the government has gone to great lengths to appear open to independent reporting by the international news media. However, as the fighting has intensified, reports have surfaced of intimidation of journalists by Libyan security services.
On Thursday, it emerged that correspondents for British and Brazilian newspapers who were traveling together to the embattled city of Zawiyah had been detained on Sunday and were still in custody. Their release was said to be imminent. On Wednesday, the BBC said that three of its editorial employees had been seized by sedcurity forces and beaten and terrorized with mock executions.
Besides tightening the leash on reporters, the government has made numerous ham-handed efforts to distort their coverage.
On Wednesday, Libyan state television broadcast scenes of what it said was a wild celebration by Gaddafi loyalists cheering, pumping fists and waving green flags. But the scene was later determined to have been shot on a highway outside the capital.
On Wednesday night, the government brought vans of foreign journalists to a sports field miles from the center of town at midnight, where about 200 young men protected by a heavy military guard cheered for Colonel Gaddafi and set off fireworks. The rally ended about an hour later when the Gaddafi forces began handing out bags of rice, cartons of olive oil, cases of soda and boxes of other groceries, apparently in payment for participation in the rally.
After The apparent rout of the rebel forces in Ras Lanuf and the evident superiority of Colonel Gaddafi's forces and their willingness to use airstrikes to press their advantage, seemed to confront Western nations meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday with an ever more insistent choice between aiding the rebels, perhaps with a no-flight zone, or standing by as Colonel Gaddafi reasserts his grip on the country.
The urgency of the issue was underscored in Washington on Thursday where the United States top intelligence officer, James Clapper, said that Colonel Gaddafi "appears to be hunkering down for the duration." Moreover, Mr. Clapper added, the government's advantage in military and logistical resources would ensure that, "over longer term, that the regime will prevail."
European countries like Britain and France seem to favor a no-flight zone, while the United States defence secretary, Robert M. Gates, has underscored the difficulties of imposing such a ban, though he has seemed to soften his resistance in recent days.
Britain and France are working on a United Nations resolution to authorize a no-flight zone, although it was unclear whether such a measure could gain the necessary votes of Russia and China in the Security Council.
At an appearance in Congress, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cautioned on Thursday against any rush to impose a no-flight zone over Libya, particularly without broad international backing.
"Absent international authorization, the United States acting alone would be stepping into a situation the consequences of which would be unforeseeable," Mrs. Clinton told a House Appropriations subcommittee.
Past no-flight zones have had mixed results, she said. The one over Iraq "did not prevent Saddam Hussein from slaughtering people on the ground and it did not get him out of office," she said. Nor, she added, did a no-flight zone in Bosnia drive the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosovic, from power "until we had troops on the ground," according to news wire accounts.
Mrs. Clinton will be traveling next week to two countries flanking Libya - Egypt and Tunisia - and plans to meet with members of the Libyan opposition in what will be the highest-level contacts between American officials and the forces opposing Colonel Gaddafi.