This is the road to the frontline in the battle to put a definitive end to the 42-year reign of Moamer Qadhafi. The 270-kilometre (175-mile) stretch of Mediterranean coastal motorway leads from Misrata, a city still devastated by a months-long siege by Qadhafi's forces, to Sirte, the dictator's hometown and one of his loyalists' last two hold-outs. After the first of the dozen new regime fighter checkpoints that dot the route, the first town on the road east is Tawarga, whose entire population fled weeks ago in fear of reprisals by the advancing rebels. Tawargans are black-skinned Libyans whom Misratans accuse of playing a prominent role in the siege of their city. Many Misratans say they will never let them return. Most of the houses and shops have been looted and ransacked and many torched, and black smoke can often be seen billowing up from yet another home that has been set ablaze. Soon after Tawarga is another checkpoint, this one made of 40-foot (12-metre) containers piled on top of each other like giant Lego blocks. Then comes a long stretch of stony desert terrain, the horizon marked only by electricity pylons and the silhouettes of the hundreds of camels that roam freely along the road and often end up as roadkill. "Many people, especially fighters, hit the camels, at night when they can't see them and they stand in the middle of the road. Camels and sandstorms are the main causes of fatal accidents," said Dr Mahmoud al-Beeta, a doctor at a beachfront field hospital 50 kilometres west of Sirte. The adrenalin-fuelled fighters pay little heed to the rules of the road as they hurtle along in their motley assortment of vehicles. These include graffiti-sprayed pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft or machine guns, jeeps with anti-tank canons cobbled on top, and tanks. The fighters camp out in abandoned homes and roadside shops where they repair their trucks and weapons and practice firing rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs. The other main users of the road are the fearful residents of Sirte who manage to flee the city that NATO bombs most days and which is surrounded by National Transitional Council fighters mostly from Misrata. Vehicles crammed with families and piled high with possessions queue at the succession of checkpoints to have their belongings searched and identities checked again and again by suspicious NTC forces. The fighters make no secret of their disdain for the residents of a city privileged under the ousted regime and where loyalty to Qadhafi ran deep, and every day they haul men out of the line and imprison them for being suspected supporters of the ousted despot. The evacuees undergo their first major grilling at a roadside mosque just outside Sirte, which is used as a field hospital and for prayers for the fighters between bouts of fighting. The wounded are given initial treatment here and then rushed in ambulances up the road to the bigger field hospital 50 kilometres away, from where the most serious cases are flown by helicopter to Misrata. A kilometre east of the mosque is a flyover used as a frontline position from where the fighters daily venture forth to attack the city. The siege has been going on since mid-September but the NTC seems to be in no rush to end it. When the fighters are asked when the final assault will be launched, the most usual answer is "bukra", the Arabic word for tomorrow.