Alfred de Montesquiou / Getty Images
Libyan rebels in the Nafusa moutains remove anti-personel and anti-tank mines on July 20. According to reports, rebels are readying a pre-Ramadan offensive in the push toward the Libyan capital.
NBC News’ Mike Taibbi has been reporting from Libya’s western mountains for three weeks and provides an account of a battle he witnessed between rebels and pro-Gadhafi forces.
NAFUSA MOUNTAINS, Libya - More than five months into Libya's civil war, rebels in the western mountains who've seen their advance on Tripoli stall 50 miles from the capital dealt with a new challenge Thursday.
They launched an all-out assault on Moammar Gadhafi’s forces to protect strategic ground won months ago, an offensive that had been rumored for days.
Nalut is one of the cities the rebels controlled almost from the beginning of the war, but Gadhafi’s army continued to bomb it nightly. Government forces have also threatened to try and retake the nearby border crossing with Tunisia, the only such crossing rebels control.
At around 4:30 a.m. today we saw a convoy of 30 or 40 heavily armed trucks roll out to join the forces already in position. Our first visit was to a spot overlooking the valley just north of the mountains. The rebels’ objective was to push Gadhafi forces out of two towns where, protected by landmines and human shields, the government’s guys continued to send scores of grad rockets into Nalut where casualties were increasing.
Alfred De Montesquiou / Getty Images
Children and old men wait for gasoline, which has been transported from across the border in Tunisia, in the Nafusa mountains on July 16. Rebels from the Berber ethnic minority in the mountains have held out against Gadhafi's forces since February.
The Gadhafi forces were also rumored to be planning a move on the border crossing at Wazin. In the two Gadhafi-held towns of Takut and Gazayeh we saw the smoke puffs of rockets fired toward Nalut and toward suspected rebel positions. Answering artillery was fired off at a fast pace.
We then went to a rebel position where they'd amassed dozens of Soviet-made grads from seized Gadhafi stockpile armaments and we watched as they were fired at targets on the approach to the towns to clear the way for ground forces to move in.
What was apparent to us was that the rebels (in the mountains at least) are not only improving in terms of training and numbers, but they are also leveling the playing field by deploying Gadhafi’s own most fearsome weapon – grad rockets with their 20-mile range – right back at his own troops.
We then went to the most forward position, where we were told no other journalists had been allowed to go, and watched supplemental tank fire going off as part of the task of plowing the road for ground forces. We saw those forces moving in and then went down the mountain into the valley where.
The ongoing war in Libya has jacked up prices on essentials like food and gasoline to 20 times the rate of pre-war prices.
The rebels have retaken the town of Takut and were on the way to Gazayeh today. At the time of writing, they'd suffered 19 wounded and three killed. We couldn’t confirm what the losses were among Gadhafi’s forces but we saw some brought back as prisoners. By the time we worked our way there, a sort of victory celebration was underway.
The rebels clearly scored a victory today and afterwards morale was high. They cheered each other on, gave each other the high-five signs and shouted Allahu Akbar, or “God is Great,” when their missiles hit their targets.
Still, it's a good news-bad news story.
First the bad. Four months after supposedly asserting control over this part of the country, rebels find it necessary to win control over the same ground again (losing the border would be a disaster).
The good news is that they pulled off a coordinated artillery and ground attack in a matter of eight hours, and just like they planned it.
This was a victory although not THE victory, of course. That would be Tripoli.
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