There's a holiday on their street

Rebels recaptured Misurata from government forces

The regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was never able to cope with its most important task - the capture of the city of Misrata, located between Sirte and Tripoli. Government troops and foreign mercenaries lost the city center, after which they were ordered to retreat. The rebels celebrated their victory.

The fighting for Misurata lasted over two months. Nothing is known about the losses of government troops - the number of killed and wounded is classified information. The rebels are more open on this issue. According to their estimates, over a thousand people died during the siege, and several thousand more were wounded.

At the beginning of the battle, the complete advantage was on the side of the troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi . They surrounded the city, entrenched themselves in strategically important points, occupied the dominant buildings and slowly began to level it with the help of tanks, artillery, mortars and multiple launch rocket systems.

It was very difficult for the residents of the city, at first armed only with small arms. They had no organization and lacked basic combat skills. Not only machine guns and ammunition were in short supply, but also food, clean water and medicine - the blockade of the city was complete.

However, over time the situation has changed. After the start of NATO bombing, government troops lost the ability to use heavy weapons with their previous activity. The supply of the loyalists was also disrupted: trucks with ammunition, fuel and food for the warring units were constantly destroyed from the air, only a small part of them reached their recipients.

For the rebels, on the contrary, things have improved. Through the efforts of the Americans, the naval blockade of Misrata was lifted, ships with supplies and reinforcements from Benghazi entered the port, and the wounded, as well as the elderly, women and children, began to be taken out in the opposite direction.

The information blockade, which lasted for many weeks, was also lifted - foreign journalists finally got into the city and were able to show the whole world what was really going on there.

The fact that their comrades in other parts of Libya became more active also played into the hands of the rebels. Thus, in the Western Mountains region, local Berbers defeated one of Gaddafi’s brigades, forcing its remnants to seek refuge in neighboring Tunisia. The blockade of the region, from where there was almost no news, was also lifted. After the expulsion of loyalists from one of the border crossings, people flocked to Tunisia for food, fuel and medicine. Before the victory of the Berbers they did not have such an opportunity.

Under these conditions, government troops in Misrata made a last desperate attempt to turn the tide of the battle in their favor. On April 20, they tried to seize the road leading from the center of the city to the port with a concentrated attack in order to interrupt the supply of the rebels and make their situation hopeless.

However, the attack was repulsed. The attackers not only suffered heavy losses in manpower, but also lost some of their equipment and several supply trucks filled with ammunition. After this, the defenders of Misrata launched a counter-offensive .

Over the next two days, they captured an entire fleet of government armored vehicles and destroyed tanks covering the approaches to the tallest building in the city - the office of a local insurance company. The building itself was soon also captured and cleared of snipers, who terrorized the local population for weeks and prevented the rebels from undertaking any serious operation.

In Tripoli they tried to put a good face on a bad game. A government spokesman said that 80 percent of the city was under the control of forces loyal to Gaddafi, but the very next day it became clear that this was a bluff. On April 23, Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim announced that troops had been ordered to retreat from the city. According to him, from now on the capture of Misrata will be the task of the tribes living in its district.

But this statement also turned out to be not entirely true. In recent days, commands from Tripoli have been unclear and sometimes contradictory, according to captured loyalists. As an example, the following order was given: “If you want, fight, if you want, retreat.” It was also not very clear who was responsible for the operation - the chain of command fell apart, the “retreat” was actually a flight and was carried out in panic. Actually, thanks to this, the opposition managed to capture several dozen government soldiers.

It is interesting that it is not regular army units that are fighting on the side of the regime in Misrata, but the so-called “katibs” - brigades that are only formally part of the structure of the Ministry of Defense, but in fact report directly to Gaddafi’s sons. In these “katibas”, Libyans themselves make up only about half of the fighters. The rest are mercenaries from Sudan, Chad, Algeria, Egypt, Mali and other countries. The rebels hold “explanatory conversations” with their captured fellow citizens, after which many are released. But the conversation with mercenaries is much harsher - they, beaten and spat on, are sent into custody to be sorted out later - “according to the laws of war.”

The rebel pressure was so strong that they were able to capture the campus of a local college of technology and drive enemy troops out of their headquarters at Misrata's main hospital. The opposition boasted that they had captured a number of high-ranking officers (including several foreigners) and acquired a huge supply of ammunition. As a result, the main battles moved from the city center far to the south - to the area of the airport, located outside the city limits.

If the airport is taken, the rebels will receive a base for an attack to the east - to the road junction on the Primorskoye Highway, from where they shelled the city with artillery and multiple rocket launchers for two months.

It should be noted here that the advance of the rebels is not just a victory march. They suffer significant losses - only several dozen people are killed per day. There are still small pockets of loyalist resistance in the city that need to be cleared out. In addition, the main threat to civilians has not been eliminated - long-range artillery installations, from which Misurata continues to be subjected to daily shelling.

Another cause for concern for the rebels is the words of regime representatives that tens of thousands of Gaddafi loyalists from among the armed civilians - those same “tribes” - will go to Misrata. Around Misrata, people mostly support the uprising. There is no threat to the city from them. But further to the east lies Sirte, Gaddafi’s homeland, where there are indeed a lot of his supporters. A possible attack on Misrata could come from the east.

However, even this threat does not spoil the festive mood for the residents and defenders of Misurata. By hook or by crook, in spite of everything, they managed to defend their city.

Yakovina Ivan

There's a holiday on their street

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