BREGA: A column of Libyan rebel fighters was pushing towards the key oil town of Brega on Monday after having beaten a scattered retreat when ambushed by Moamer Qadhafi's forces the previous day. The fighters made it to within eight kilometres (five miles) of the outskirts of Brega without encountering any resistance from loyalist forces, an AFP correspondent reported. Intermittent explosions had rumbled across the desert landscape on Sunday as the rebel vanguard traded rocket and artillery fire with Qadhafi forces inside the town. But Monday morning there was no immediate indication of where Qadhafi's forces were and an unusual silence had descended on the front. When they reached the zone where they were ambushed Sunday, the rebels found the foxholes used by Qadhafi's forces empty and they jubilantly set fire to discarded grey camouflage jackets left by the loyalist troops.
"Maybe Qadhafi's forces are just ahead, maybe not," said one rebel fighter, Mohammad Jahmi, scanning the horizon with binoculars.
"There were NATO planes flying over the area earlier this morning but no bombs were dropped," he added. The town has been the scene of intense exchanges for several days, with both sides advancing only to withdraw again later under fire. Most of the rebel volunteers acknowledged that they had neither the military training and discipline, nor the knowledge of the terrain to mount a frontal assault on Brega. They said they were dependent on the rebels' few trained fighters, most of them defectors from the regular army. Rebels said they had snuck into Brega overnight and stolen a four-wheel drive vehicle from Qadhafi's forces. They said many satellite photos of the area were found in the vehicle, while the back seats had been removed and the space filled with five spare tyres, necessary in a war zone where shrapnel litters the roads. Rebel fighter Aid Mabardi, wearing a black balaclava, said they had carried out the raid very early Monday morning.
"At 2.00 am we snuck into Brega and stole the car," he said.
"We don't have many cars. We steal what we can." Early on Sunday, the rebels had pushed forward to seize the vast university campus on the outskirts of Brega, an AFP correspondent witnessed before the retreat. A day earlier, the rebels had claimed to have recaptured Brega, 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the capital Tripoli, but pro-Qadhafi snipers were said to be still active and others were apparently holed up in the university.
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