Libyan rebels advance on Gaddafi's home town
Revolutionary forces move more west along Libya's coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, as they get closer to Sirte
Libyan rebels are advancing on Muammar Gaddafi's home town, Sirte, after retaking all the ground lost in earlier fighting as government forces broke and fled under western air strikes.
Revolutionary forces rapidly moved more than 150 miles west along Libya's coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, as the first witness accounts emerged of the devastating effect on Gaddafi's army and militia of the aerial bombardment that broke their resistance at Ajdabiya on Saturday.
A doctor treating wounded government soldiers described hundreds of deaths, terrible injuries and collapsing morale.
Today, rebels retook the important oil towns of Brega, Ras Lanuf and Ben Jawad, and continued on the open desert road toward Sirte, about 95 miles away.
But they are likely to face a challenge in seizing the town, which holds political significance as Gaddafi's birthplace and is seen as important to his defence of Tripoli, the capital, which is now less than 300 miles from the rebels' front line.
However, control of the oil terminals at Brega and Ras Lanuf is in itself a major gain for the rebels because it could bring in significant amounts of revenue from exports for their administration if production resumes after the uprising and conflict shut much of it down.
Rebels moved unchallenged along a road littered with evidence of the air campaign and the speed of their enemies' retreat. The blackened carcasses of destroyed tanks, armoured vehicles and military trucks were pushed to the side of the tarmac.
In their hurried retreat from Ras Lanuf, government forces abandoned piles of ammunition. They included grey wooden boxes containing rockets but stamped as holding "parts of bulldozer" manufactured in North Korea.
In Ben Jawad, residents said a destroyed municipal building had been hit by an air strike.
The ! rebels f orced captured Gaddafi fighters on to buses and drove them to Benghazi.
As the insurgents seized control of towns that had been under Gaddafi's military occupation for nearly a fortnight, witnesses described the bombing's devastating effects on his forces.
A doctor at the hospital in Ras Lanuf, which handled most of the government soldiers wounded in the coalition air raids on Ajdabiya and the road from Benghazi, described the raids as causing hundreds of casualties, breaking morale and leaving many soldiers faking injuries to escape the assault.
The doctor who wished to be identified only by his first name, Abdullah had responded to a call from Gaddafi's government for medical personnel to go to the front two weeks ago.
Today, he accidentally found himself on the rebel side of the line.
"The first days, Gaddafi's forces had very high morale and they came in large numbers, thousands. There were the army soldiers and then the volunteers in the militia," he said.
"They were fighting the rebels, no problem, and winning. But then came the bombing [by coalition air strikes]. The first day we had 56 seriously wounded. To the head, the brain, lost arms and legs. Soldiers with a lot of shrapnel in them. It was like that every day after."
Abdullah said all the wounded were fighters for Gaddafi, with about two-thirds injured in the bombing of Ajdabiya where there were days of fighting as government forces blocked the rebel advance.
The doctor said he did not know how many soldiers were killed in the air strikes because the bodies were taken from the battlefield for burial.
"The soldiers who came to the hospital told me there were 150 dead just on the first day of the bombing. After that, there were fewer because they hid," he said.
"It started to have a big effect on their morale. They said they could fight the rebels but not the planes. In recent days, many of the soldiers were trying to find excuses to leave the front. Ten to 20 a day came to the hosp! ital pre tending they were injured, asking for a medical certificate. They didn't have any physical injuries, but I gave it [a certificate] to them."
Abdullah was sceptical about rebel accusations that many of those fighting for government forces were foreign mercenaries. He said he did not see any among the wounded, but added it was possible that some of the soldiers were not Libyan.
But he did say that Gaddafi's forces had systematically maltreated the civilian population, particularly those suspected of coming from the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi and other towns in the east of the country under the revolutionaries' control.
"There was bad treatment of the civilians. One patient came here who had been trying to escape Ajdabiya with his family. The government army shot him in the leg," he added.
"The idea I got from civilians who came to the hospital is that things were very bad for them. They were beaten. Some said their family members had disappeared. They didn't know if they were killed."
Some of Gaddafi's forces were billeted in the el-Adeel hotel, in Ras Lanuf, which they comprehensively looted as they fled, taking mattresses and televisions and levering open cash machines in the lobby.
On walls across the town they sprayed in green paint three words: "God, Gaddafi, Libya."
Beyond Sirte lies the large town of Misrata, most of which is in rebel hands after an attempt by Gaddafi to retake it was driven off by air strikes.
Government forces kept up their shelling of the town, although residents said it was considerably less intense than a week ago after 12 hours of aerial bombardment by western planes destroyed more than 20 tanks and drove Gaddafi's forces to the edge of the town.
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