Qaddafi Retreats from Rebel Town

The Guardian reports:

Nearly 12 hours of allied air strikes have broken the Libyan regime's five-day bloody assault on the key rebel-held town of Misrata.

Residents said the aerial bombardment destroyed tanks and artillery and sent many of Muammar Gaddafi's forces fleeing from Misrata, ending a siege and attack by the regime that cost nearly 100 lives from random shelling, snipers and bitter street fighting.

Mohammed Ali, an IT engineer at Misrata's main hospital, said that waves of air strikes began shortly after midnight on Wednesday.

"They bombed a lot of sites of the Gaddafi army. There is a former hospital where his tanks were based. All the tanks and the hospital were destroyed. A column of tanks was destroyed on the edge of the city," he said. "After that there was no shelling. We are very relieved. We are very grateful. We want to thank the world. The Gaddafi forces are scattered around. All that is left is the snipers and our fighters can take care of them."

Ali said people in Misrata wanted the coalition to keep up the air strikes until all Gaddafi's forces were driven away from the town to ensure that those who were able to escape with armoured vehicles and guns did not return.

A doctor in the town, who did not want to be named, said snipers were continuing to sow fear by targeting not only rebels but civilians.

"The sniper problem is a big one. A lot of people are still afraid to leave their homes," he said.

The apparent breaking of the siege will be a blow to the Libyan ruler's attempts to reassert control over the entire west of the country.

It may also serve as a further deterrent, along with the destruction of Gaddafi's tanks, artillery and soldiers that were attacking Benghazi, to those still fighting for the dictator.

But it did not stop the regime's forces from continuing to put up stiff resistance around the strategic town of Ajdabiya in the east, despite repeated coalition bombing raids.

Ali described the past five days of attack on Misrata as "hell". ...

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