Libyan rebels said yesterday they were firmly in control of the town of Bir al-Ghanam, a staging post about 80km (50 miles) south of Tripoli, rejecting a government assertion they had been pushed back.
A small settlement in the desert, Bir al-Ghanam is also the closest point the rebels have come to Muammar Gadafy’s stronghold in the capital, lending it a strategic role in the rebels’ six-month campaign to end his rule.
Rebel commanders in the region said on Saturday they had seized control of Bir al-Ghanam in an offensive in which four anti-Gadafy fighters had died.
Taking the town – which lies on a highway leading north to the Mediterranean coast and on to Tripoli – would break weeks of stalemate during which rebels have been unable to make big advances despite Nato air strikes on government forces.
Libyan prime minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi said yesterday that rebels, under Nato air cover, had seized Bir al-Ghanam temporarily but they had been driven out by local volunteers and Libyan forces.
A local commander rejected that version of events. “Gadafy is a liar because Bir al-Ghanam is under our control,” Col Juma Ibrahim, a rebel from the town of Zintan, said.
