CovOps
Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: Arab League urges no-fly zone for Libya - Hey Obama, you fuckwit, can you hear them? Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:08 pm | |
| Reporting from Benghazi and Uqaylah, Libya In a stark rebuke to one of its members, the Arab League urged the United Nations on Saturday to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.
The move came even as forces loyal to Moammar Kadafi advanced eastward toward the strategic city of Port Brega in an intensifying onslaught against out-gunned rebels, who retreated from airstrikes and rocket barrages that thundered across deserts and coastal highways.
The Libyan army has made substantial gains in recent attacks, driving insurgents from the country's largest petrochemical refinery near Uqaylah on Saturday and routing them earlier from Ras Lanuf, about 25 miles west, and Zawiya in the west of the country. The opposition has relinquished at least 60 miles of coastal territory in six days.
The losses were tactical and psychological setbacks for the rebels, who after a string of victories found that they lacked the firepower and training to counter strong government offensives in their fight to end Kadafi's four decades of rule.
"We can defeat them, no problem, except for the airplanes. We have nothing to fight the airplanes," said Osama Ali, 27, a bespectacled bank clerk armed with an assault rifle at a checkpoint on the coast road at Uqaylah, about 25 miles west of Port Brega.
The fighters on that desolate stretch have stacked ammunition and food in anticipation of a government assault. For the first time in the three-week conflict, they took the precaution of digging some of their antiaircraft batteries into protective dirt berms.
ANCAPS: ANARCHO-CAPITALISTS |
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