26 March 2011
Last updated at 16:47 ET
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The BBC’s Ben Brown says the rebels have made gains because of allied air raids
Libyan rebels have pushed on westwards after recapturing the key oil town of Ajdabiya from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.
Reports said they later seized the town of Brega, 70km (44 miles) away.
The eastern towns along the coast had been lost one-by-one to advancing pro-Gaddafi forces before coalition airstrikes started last week.
In the west, reports from besieged rebel-held Misrata said shelling ceased when coalition planes flew overhead.
“The shelling has stopped and now the war planes of allies are above the sky of Misrata. The shelling stopped when the planes appeared in the sky,” one rebel told Reuters news agency.
France meanwhile said it had destroyed at least five military planes and two helicopters at Misrata air base on Saturday.
Misrata has become a key focus for the battle in western Libya: it is the only significant rebel-held city left, and has been under heavy bombardment for days.
Losses reversed
Libyan rebels began their uprising in mid-February, seeking to end Col Gaddafi’s four decades in power.
For the last seven nights coalition planes led by the US, UK and France have pounded targets across Libya, enforcing a UN no-fly zone aimed at protecting civilians.
The air strikes appear to have allowed the rebels to finally turn the tide on Col Gaddafi’s forces in the east, and reverse their earlier losses.
A Libyan minister said the army had left the town after the “heavy involvement” of Western forces.
British RAF Tornado aircraft have been firing Brimstone guided missiles around Ajdabiya, a town of about 100,000 people.
The BBC’s Ben Brown in Ajdabiya says those strikes seemed to be even heavier on Friday night, leaving wrecked tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces at both the eastern and western gates to the town.
At the scene
There have been wild celebrations in Ajdabiya. Rebel fighters firing their guns into the air, blaring their car horns, hugging each other and waving flags. They say Ajdabiya is a town that has been terrorised by Gaddafi loyalists but that now it has been liberated.
And there’s huge military significance to this too. Ajdabiya is seen by the rebels as the gateway to the west and with this victory they have been given, they say, much needed momentum in their campaign to topple Col Gaddafi.
But the liberation of Ajdabiya has been a strange affair. The rebels more or less walked into the town after coalition war planes including British RAF Tornadoes, carried out wave after wave of devastating air strikes against Gaddafi forces on the ground. We counted more than two dozen burned-out or abandoned tanks around the town’s east and west gates.
In Tripoli, the government has admitted that its fighters retreated in the face of overwhelming air power. Those fighters have now pulled back, it’s thought, to Brega. The rebels say they’re in hot pursuit.
Some of the celebrating rebels chanted “Thank you, Obama”, “Thank you, Cameron” – references to the US president and British prime minister.
Rebel forces then moved towards Brega.
A journalist travelling with the rebels told Agence France-Presse news agency they were now in the centre of the town and that government forces had fully withdrawn. Rebels also told Reuters they now controlled the town.
In his weekly address, US President Barack Obama said that the “clear and focused” military mission in Libya was succeeding.
“Make no mistake, because we acted quickly, a humanitarian catastrophe has been avoided and the lives of countless civilians – innocent men, women and children – have been saved,” he said.
In the capital, Tripoli, a distressed woman reached a hotel where foreign journalists are staying, and told them she had been detained for two days by pro-Gaddafi forces and gang-raped after being stopped at a checkpoint.
She was still telling her story when hotel staff and government minders tackled her, and she was dragged out of the hotel and driven away by security guards. Reporters say her story cannot be verified but she did show signs of injury.
A Libyan government spokesman later said the woman was drunk and possibly mentally ill, but said an investigation was being carried out.
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Libyan rebels advance westwards