Libyan rebels capture 100 pro-Gathafi fighters

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

BENGHAZI - Libyan rebels said Thursday they had captured some 100 fighters loyal to the country's ruler Moamer

Beating Gathafi's fighter jets

Rebels repulse attempt by Libyan government forces to recapture eastern city, its oil refinery.

 

 

Gathafi in fighting in the key oil port of Brega.

The clashes took place Wednesday as the rebels repulsed an attempt by government forces to recapture the eastern city and its oil refinery.

"We have taken a lot of prisoners, as many as 100," a spokesman at the courthouse, the rebels' nerve centre, in the main eastern city of Benghazi, said.

Abdelfattah al-Moghrabi, director of supplies for Brega hospital, said those captured included three Libyans and two unidentified "Africans," adding that they had been taken to Benghazi for questioning.

Several sources said, meanwhile, that forces loyal to Gathafi captured at least five people in Brega during their counter-offensive.

"Five men, two elderly and three youths, were abducted by Gathafi's troops on the site of the Brega refinery," a rebel guard at the refinery, Abdel Jalil Abdelrazzaq, said.

He said they included refinery workers or relatives living on the site. It was not known what had become of them.

Moghrabi spoke of seven people being captured and taken away.

Pro-Gathafi forces with heavy weaponry attacked Brega at dawn on Wednesday in their biggest counter-offensive yet since the uprising against Gathafi's 41-year rule erupted on February 15 in eastern Libya.

Moghrabi said at least 12 people were killed in the fighting, nine of them rebels and three pro-Gathafi fighters, including one who had identity papers from Niger and three other Africans without documents.

Despite air strikes throughout the day, the rebels managed to push the regime's forces out of the town, sparking celebrations -- which were themselves targeted by Gathafi's fighter jets.

A new air attack Thursday saw a plane drop bombs near the refinery but no casualties were reported.

Hundreds of people buried six of the rebel dead in Benghazi, as some 1,000 people turned out for the ceremony.

 

 

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