Egypt, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Turn in the Protests

1955 GMT: C.J. Chivers of The New York Times summarises the day's fighting near the opposition-held Ajdabiya in east Libya:

Colonel Qaddafi’s forces began the attack late on Saturday morning with barrages of rocket or artillery fire onto the city’s center. Then, as the smoke rose and confusion reigned, they sent a contingent of ground troops into the city , where a gun battle broke out.

The loyalists’ assault was more determined and organized than the ambushes and exchanges of rocket and artillery fire of recent days. Barrage after barrage of incoming fire thudded and exploded in the city, and loyalist troops advanced behind it. Thick smoke rose and drifted from central parts of Ajdabiya, and by noon, doctors were evacuating the city’s hospital as explosions shook the streets.

Many of the rebels fled once again, streaming north up the highway toward Benghazi, horns honking. One rebel shouted at vehicles as they passed: “Qaddafi’s forces are coming! Go! Go! Go!”

But at least a small cadre of lightly armed local residents remained to fight, stopping the advancing loyalists on the central Istanbul Street.

“We killed 10 of them,” said Said Halum, who stood in the morgue in the late afternoon over the body of his brother, Abdul Ghadir, who had been shot between the eyes. “Our group split into two groups on Istanbul Street and fought them. The firing was very heavy.”

As the gun battle within the city raged, the main rebel force rallied about 10 miles north and by evening was flowing back into the city, where they briefly re-established a degree of control of Ajdabiya’s eastern and central areas.

Gunfire started to ebb in these areas in the evening, but skirmishes could be heard at the city’s southern and western side, and then the barrages started again, prompting many rebels to flee again.

NATO airstrikes came into play in the battle --- at least one large mushroom cloud rose from the city’s western side at about 1:25 p.m. as pro-Qaddafi forces were barraging the city. But again the allied air campaign was unable to keep the colonel’s military from pressing the rebels, as has been the case throughout a week of fighting that saw the ragged opposition forces losing key footholds on the main coastal road, including the city of Brega.

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