SULTAN, Libya — Moammar Gadhafi’s warplanes bombed a military airport in Benghazi on Wednesday, the first assault on the eastern rebel stronghold since a revolt by inexperienced fighters with looted weapons began one month ago in an attempt to topple the Libyan strongman.
The airport attack came as government troops moved to tighten their grip on Ajdabiya, 95 miles south of Benghazi, while rebels armed with rocket-propelled grenades and traveling in speedboats fired on Libyan ships off the Mediterranean coast.
A succession of pitched battles sent refugees fleeing as government soldiers pushed to crush the uprising. Gadhafi’s son scoffed at the threat of a Western-backed no-fly zone and predicted that the fighting against an often erratic and confused insurgent force was about over.
A siege of Benghazi would test the tactics and tenacity of rebels who have often fled under heavy onslaughts by better-armed government troops. There are almost no defensive fortifications around Libya’s second-largest city, but opposition leaders say they would fight a guerrilla war, and Gadhafi lacks the soldiers and supply lines to triumph.
Guards at the military airport said two bombs struck outside the base and three exploded inside shortly after dawn. There were no reports of casualties. A crater along the airport’s outside wall was quickly filled in by rebels, who have been loath to acknowledge their setbacks. One insurgent raised his rifle to force journalists from the airport’s entrance.
Government troops attacked Ajdabiya on Tuesday, holding it for hours before withdrawing to the outskirts as rebels launched a counteroffensive.
By Wednesday morning, with warplanes circling high overhead and rebels racing down desert highways in pickup trucks, Gadhafi’s forces surged on the city again. Smoke plumes rose on the horizon and civilians gathered their belongings and fled.
“The shelling went on until 3 a.m.,” said Mari Atiya, who was escaping in a truck with his wife, two children, five sheep and cartons of diapers. “When it stopped, we saw people dead in the street and cars destroyed. There were snipers on rooftops with red lasers on their guns, and they shot teenage boys who raised their arms.”
The government’s strategy has been to advance during the day and pull back at night, when the rebels counterattack. But each day Gadhafi’s forces have edged closer to Benghazi.
Gadhafi’s son Seif Islam claimed in a television interview that the fighting was nearly over. “In 48 hours, everything will be finished.”
He said it was too late to impose a no-fly zone.
But supporters of a no-fly zone over Libya called for a Security Council vote today on a U.N. resolution aimed at preventing Gadhafi’s planes from conducting aerial attacks on the Libyan people, The Associated Press reported.
Britain and France put a draft resolution that would impose a no-fly zone in a final form late Wednesday. The text will be sent to capitals overnight and can still be changed before being put to a vote in the 15-member council.
China’s U.N. ambassador, Li Baodong, the current council president, told reporters, “We hope we will have real progress tomorrow.”
