Rebels advance on Gadhafi’s hometown

March 6, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

BENGHAZI, Libya

A ragtag rebel force in pickup trucks and commandeered tanks advanced Saturday from eastern Libya on Moammar Gadhafi’s heavily defended hometown of Sirte as their counterparts in the western city of Zawiya repulsed fresh assaults by the dictator’s forces, witnesses and news reports said.

“We have decided to die or finish the regime of Gadhafi,” Ahmed, a fighter in Zawiya, declared by telephone after hours of fierce combat. “This is a catastrophe. This is a real war.”

In the eastern city of Benghazi, the rebels’ leadership council sought to begin instilling some coordination and discipline on the largely leaderless uprising, naming a three-member crisis committee to oversee military and foreign affairs. It also called on the United States to impose a no-fly zone on the North African country to keep Gadhafi’s air force on the ground, a move the Obama administration is considering.

Meanwhile, two U.S. Air Force C-130 transport planes flew from the Tunisian town of Djerba to Cairo 132 Egyptians who fled Libya’s burgeoning civil war, according to State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

The flights were the first staged since President Barack Obama on Thursday directed U.S. humanitarian flights to help repatriate tens of thousands of foreign workers who have been stuck for days at the Egyptian and Tunisian borders with little food and water, poor hygienic conditions and no way home.

Thousands of people are believed to have been killed and wounded in the upheaval that erupted when Gadhafi unleashed brutal crackdowns on protests against his 42-year rule that were triggered more than two weeks ago by the largely peaceful pro-democracy uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.