RAS LANOUF, Libya — Moammar Khadafy’s loyalists escalated a lethal counterattack Sunday, heightening assaults on rebel-held cities near his western stronghold of Tripoli and pushing back opposition forces attempting to advance toward the capital.
Khadafy’s expanding campaign, including a ground assault on Misurata, the nation’s third-largest city, appeared to dash rebel hopes to put a swift end to his 41-year rule.
Though the opposition has claimed most of the eastern half of the country since Feb. 17, the display of the government’s superior firepower had loyalists celebrating in the streets of Tripoli. State television showed them unfurling the green flag of Khadafy’s Libya and firing machine guns into the air.
The intensity of the government assault suggested the nation was plunging deeper into a bloody civil war, with a regrouping Khadafy lashing out at his enemies. On Sunday, a ragtag band of rebels boldly advanced from Ras Lanouf, a desert oil town 410 miles east of the capital, toward Khadafy’s hometown of Sirte, with their sights on Tripoli further down the road. They returned in the late morning, shaken by what they described as a merciless attack by government forces with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy artillery.
Retreating rebels said they took significant casualties in the assault, interrupting a string of recent opposition victories in their westward push toward Tripoli.
“We got smashed. They are much armed,” said Jamal el-Guradi, a U.S.- born baker of Libyan descent who came to fight with rebel forces. Fighters seeking to unseat Khadafy managed to recover, however, and held regime forces to an apparent standstill by day’s end.
In the still largely government-controlled west, meanwhile, Khadafy’s forces appeared to be sending a message to rebel-held towns that resistance would be met with ruthless force. In Zawiya, a city 27 miles west of Tripoli that is vital to Libya’s oil industry, witnesses said dozens had been killed and hundreds wounded in a bloody siege Saturday. Eyewitness reports said government forces were again bombarding the city Sunday. The Internet, electricity and phone lines appeared to be down.
About 130 miles east of Tripoli, the government targeted rebel-held Misurata with mortar fire as tanks rolled into the city about 10 a.m. After a raging five-hour battle, residents and rebel officials there said the opposition had managed to expel the loyalist force with weapons taken from army depots, seizing two tanks and five armed trucks — a statement supported by al-Jazeera television footage showing rebels celebrating atop the vehicles.
A rebel spokesman at a Misurata hospital, Abed el-Salam Bayo, said 21 opposition fighters and civilians were killed, including a 3-year-old boy, along with 19 government soldiers. At least 88 were wounded.
One resident, Mohamad Sanusi, 44, said he watched government troops “randomly open fire” on people from the back of a Red Crescent ambulance.
“Khadafy is a butcher,” said Sanusi, whose neighbor was killed in the fighting.
In Tripoli, sustained rounds of gunfire erupted just before 6 a.m., along with the sound of heavy artillery, according to a resident reached by phone and other news reports. Journalists’ access to the city has been strictly limited by the government.
Government officials in the capital denied that fighting had broken out. Televised images and reports showed hundreds of Khadafy loyalists rallying in the streets, apparently prompted by government announcements of strategic advances.
Mohamad Abed el-Wahhab, a Khadafy supporter in Tripoli reached by phone, said, “We were in Green Square today celebrating the victory. Praise the Lord; our leader is beloved by us. We shouted, ‘Long live Moammar,’ ‘God is great’ and ‘Only Libya.’ We came in big numbers to celebrate the liberation of our lands.”
On the road to Tripoli that passes through Sirte, a band of rebels found their bold march west toward government forces met with superior numbers and firepower under heavy assault. On Sunday, a group moving toward Sirte passed through the village of Bin Jawad, an area rebels said they had liberated the night before. As residents stood outside their houses cheering for the revolution, snipers opened fire from rooftops, said rebel fighters.
“There were locals waving their hands and locals with weapons,” said Abdulaali Abduljalil, who suffered a scalp wound. “They trapped us.”
Seven fighters were killed. At least 59 wounded were brought to a hospital at Ras Lanouf, and a doctor there said four of the wounded were not likely to survive. “We are not equipped to handle this,” said Haitham Gheriani, a volunteer physician.
The chaotic retreat illustrated the often pell-mell nature of rebel operations, in which laborers and teachers with little training are left to find rides to the front in private vehicles. Some of those who charged through Bin Jawad early Sunday, standing in pickup trucks and flashing the ubiquitous two-fingered victory salute, were moving faster than commanders wanted.
“We have a good plan in our fight against Khadafy. Unfortunately, we don’t control all the volunteers,” said a former Libyan general who is now a member of the revolutionary military council and asked not to be identified by name. “Sometimes, they let emotions rule.”
But the rebel army responded to the blow earlier in the day by pouring reinforcements into the fight. By afternoon, their cars raced toward Bin Jawad. From a truck with a loudspeaker came a request for anyone with a four-wheel drive to haul a rocket launcher to the front. A man pulled to the side of the road, handing out RPGs from his open trunk to the quickly growing crowd.
The engagement continued until dark, with no decisive winner.
