Gaddafi forces take Brega

Rebel forces retreat over 20km east towards Ajdabiya, as Gaddafi troops mount fresh offensive to take key oil town.

Libyan rebel forces have had to abandon the oil town of Brega and head east towards Ajdabiya in the face of a renewed offensive by troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

Both sides exchanged heavy fire on Tuesday, but just a day after rebels had taken over a residential part of the city, they were forced to retreat and head back east towards the city of Ajdabiya.

Opposition forces said they came under rocket and artillery fire, and while they attempted to fight back with mortars and rockets of their own, they were unable to retake Brega.

"When you see this, the situation is very bad. We cannot match their weapons,'' said Kamal Mughrabi, 64, a retired soldier who joined the opposition army. "If the [coalition] planes don't come back and hit them we'll have to keep pulling back."

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid, in Ajdabiya, reported that opposition forces had been pushed back 20-30km east of Brega towards Ajdabiya by the Gaddafi forces' mid-morning offensive.

"Since this morning we were trying to get as close as possible to Brega. We reached the junction on the road that would lead inside that town, but since mid-morning, opposition forces have been coming under a rolling artillery and mortar barrage that really pushed them about 20 to 30 km eastwards towards the town of Ajdabiya," she reported.

Early on Tuesday, a coalition airstrike targetted eight government vehicles that were advancing on opposition positions, rebel officer Abdel-Basset Abibi said.

Brigadier General Mark van Uhm, NATO's chief of allied operations, said on Tuesday that NATO new "number one priority" was the western town of Misurata, where residents say they have been besieged for weeks by pro-Gaddafi forces.

"Misurata is a number one priority because of the situation on the ground over there. We have confirmation that in Misurata tanks are being dispersed, being hidden, [and] humans being used as shields in order to prevent NATO sorties to identify targets," he said.

Van Uhm said that Gaddafi's troops have been adjusting their tactics to deal with the threat from coalition airstrikes, travelling in trucks and light vehicles to the front line and hiding their tanks and armoured vehicles from sight.

He said NATO had so far taken out 30 per cent of Gaddafi's military power.

Brega stalemate

The frontline in the conflict has been bogged down around Brega for nearly a week, with Gaddafi's advantage in tanks and artillery cancelled out by NATO-led air strikes which effectively back the rebels.

After a series of rapid rebel advances followed by headlong retreats, the pro-democracy fighters had at least held their ground in this oil town for several days, putting their best trained forces into battle for the town and keeping disorganised volunteers away.

Abibi, the rebel officer, said the two sides battled inside the city until nightfall on Monday and then the rebels moved back to the outskirts. The night passed without much incident, until the coalition airstrike on Tuesday morning.

On Monday, columns of opposition fighters drove up the main coastal highway, regaining ground they had given up the day before, but the effective use of artillery and landmines by Gaddafi's troops kept them at bay.

Tuesday's Gaddafi offensive, however, broke the pattern.

"We haven't seen such a push [by Gaddafi forces] for a few days, over the past few days it actually seemed as if the opposition forces were able to hold some sort of position around the town of Brega. Well, today the situation was completely different. The Gaddafi forces were much more aggresive than they had been in the past days, it seem that maybe they had received new supplies, but certainly they have been pounding much more intensely than over the past few days," Al Jazeera's Abdel-Hamid reported on Tuesday.

Rebel oil export

Meanwhile, the rebels are also to receive a boost with the loading of their first oil shipments due to begin on Tuesday.

The tanker Equator, which can carry 1 million barrels of crude, was due to arrive at the eastern Libyan port of Marsa el Hariga, near Tobruk, satellite ship tracking data showed on Monday, while the Suezmax tanker docked at the eastern port of Tobruk on Tuesday.

A full load of oil on either tanker would be worth millions of dollars, helping the rebel leadership to pay salaries and bolster its image as a potential government capable of taking over.

The last oil shipment to leave Libya was on March 18.

Meanwhile, in the capital Tripoli, angered by fuel shortages and long queues for basic goods caused by sanctions and air strikes, some residents began openly predicting Gaddafi's imminent downfall.

The government offered concessions. Spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said Libya was ready for a "political solution" with world powers and offered a "constitution, election, anything. But the leader has to lead this forward".

Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi ended a trip to Greece, Turkey and Malta to set out the government position.

Turkey is expecting an envoy to visit from the opposition in the coming days and is listening to both sides.

"Both sides have a rigid stance," a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said after Obeidi's visit. "One side, the opposition, is insisting that Gaddafi should go. The other side is saying Gaddafi should stay. So there is no breakthrough yet."

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