Libyan rebels make gains in mountains, besieged city

[al bupp]

Source: New York Times

CAIRO — The government of Moammar Khadafy suffered setbacks on multiple fronts yesterday as rebels in the western mountains seized a Tunisian border crossing, fighters in the besieged city of Misurata said they were gaining ground, and President Obama authorized the use of armed drones for close-in fighting against Khadafy’s forces.

The rebels in the western mountains took control of a border crossing in the town of Wazen after an early-morning battle that sent a small number of Libyan soldiers fleeing across the frontier, the official Tunisian news agency reported. The news agency said 13 Libyan soldiers, including a colonel and two commanders, had been detained, while a rebel spokesman in the eastern city of Benghazi asserted that more than 100 had sought asylum.

As the fighting in the mountains has escalated over the past two weeks, UN aid workers say that more than 14,000 Libyan refugees — many of them members of the Berber minority, which is prevalent in the area — have fled across the same border, with as many as 6,000 a day crossing recently, a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Commission said.

While it is unclear whether the rebels can hold Wazen, their success is the first major crack in Khadafy’s control of the western region since he crushed the uprisings that broke out in Tripoli and many other places across Libya when the insurrection erupted two months ago. It opens the possibility of the rebels there importing aid or weapons and provided the first hint of a break in the stalemate that has settled over the Libyan civil war in recent weeks.



Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2011/04/22/libyan_rebels_make_gains_in_mountains_besieged_city/

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Edited to correct the source.

[On the Road]

1. Best News from the Ground in Weeks

For all the talk of long stalemate, there is inexorable pressure on the government from too many different sources in many different ways. The rebels combined with their foreign allies will find a way to get Qaddaffi.

[Cognitive_Resonance]

2. The wheel is turning on the Khadafy's. Regime collapse is coming. nt