Rebels Running Out of Weapons

Al Jazeera reports:

Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi are resisting an advance by Libyan rebels towards the embattled Libyan leader's hometown of Sirte in the fiercest clashes since the start of a sweeping offensive that has brought a string of coastal towns under opposition control.

The rebels, backed by international coalition air strikes, have advanced largely unchecked since Friday but claims in Benghazi, the rebel's eastern stronghold, early on Monday that Sirte had also fallen were premature.

Opposition fighters were engaged in clashes about 100km east of the city, with pro-Gaddafi forces shelling their front lines.

Fighting is ongoing at Nawfaliya, about 180km east of Sirte, where opposition forces say they have come upon a heavily mined road. Pro-Gaddafi forces have dug into positions near the front line, and are shelling opposition fighters.

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid, reporting from the east of Nawfaliya, said: "They [rebels] managed to get really close to Sirte but they didn't get in."

"Sirte will not be easy to take," said General Hamdi Hassi, an opposition commander from the city of Bin Jawad. "Now, because of NATO strikes on [the government's] heavy weapons, we're almost fighting with the same weapons."

Fawzi Bukatif, the commander of the Martyr's Brigade, part of the forces battling Gaddafi, told Al Jazeera: "We're manoeuvring ... we are starting ... we are checking what kind of forces they have there but we are standing at Hagela now - almost 100km from Sirte."

Bukatif said the rebels' progress has been hampered by a lack of weapons as they rely on "old Russian weapons".

"The ... problem we have is we have run out of weapons," he said.

"You know our weapons are traditional ones; the old ones; the Russian weapons. We need ammunition. We need new weapons. We need anti-tanks; we do not have facilities [but] we have the soldiers left behind by Gaddafi ...

"If we do have weapons and ammunitions that we need at the moment, we can move strongly and faster."

There were reports of fresh air strikes by coalition warplanes to the west of Tripoli late on Monday. A French military spokesman also said that French jets had hit a government military command center south of the capital, Tripoli.

British Tornado aircraft also attacked and destroyed Libyan government ammunition bunkers in the Sabha area of the southern desert, the British defence ministry said.

Fresh fighting continued in rebel-held Misurata, where rebels admitted that Gaddafi forces had gained control of part of the town after days of heavy fighting and despite air strikes by French and British forces.