Libyan rebels tighten grip around Tripoli,Libya News
Libyan rebels tighten grip around Tripoli |
Opposition says its forces have reached Al-Heisha and captured two towns on supply roads in campaign to isolate capital. |
"The scouting teams of the revolutionaries reached the outskirts of Al-Heisha after expelling Gaddafi forces," the rebel military command said in a statement early on Wednesday.
It was just the latest in a series of battlefield operations to isolate the capital.Al-Heisha lies roughly 70km south of Misurata and 250km from Tripoli, near two key crossroads that link loyalist-held territory in the west with that in the oil-rich Sirte basin.
In addition to gaining a foothold in Az-Zawiyah, rebels said they had taken two towns near Tripoli on key supply roads Gharyan, 80 km south of the capital and Surman, less than 16 km west of Az-Zawiyah.
"Gharyan is fully in the hands of the revolutionaries," a rebel spokesman, Abdulrahman, said by telephone. "Gaddafi has been isolated. He has been cut off from the outside world."
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim acknowledged in remarks broadcast on state television that rebel fighters were in Gharyan. "There are still armed gangs inside the city. We are able to drive them out," he said.
But while rebels controlled most of Az-Zawiyah, Gaddafi forces shelled the city, wounding several civilians.
Funerals were held for 23 others who rebels said were killed the previous day.
"We shut down all four pipelines to Tripoli," El-Bouaisi said, whose claim could not be verified.
NTC-Gaddafi talks denied
Meanwhile, a UN envoy has arrived in neighbouring Tunisia, where sources say rebels and representatives of the government are in talks on the island resort of Djerba.
The envoy, Abdul Ilah al-Khatib, told the Reuters news agency he would meet "Libyan personalities residing in Tunisia" to discuss the conflict.
Talks could signal the endgame of a battle that has drawn in the NATO alliance and emerged as one of the deadliest confrontations in the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world.
But spokesman Farhan Haq said the United Nations had "no concrete information" on any talks in Tunisia and that its Libya envoy, al-Khatib, was not taking part in any such talks.
The reports of rebel-government talks also sparked a swift denial from Gaddafi's government. His spokesman dismissed reports of negotiations about the Libyan leader's future as part of a "media war" against him."The leader is here in Libya, fighting for the freedom of our nation. He will not leave Libya," spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said.
Abdul Hafez Ghoga, vice chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), also denied that such talks were under way.
Gaddafi forces on Sunday fired a scud missile near Brega on the main frontline in the east of the country; the first use of the weapon since the uprising against his rule began six months ago, according to a US military official said.
Although no one was hurt in the attack and the missiles are considered unreliable weapons, Richard Weitz, director of the Centre for Political and Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, told Al Jazeera the use of scuds could signal Gaddafi's determination to fight.
