Buoyed by the sight of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's tanks lying smashed and
charred along the route, the disparate column of pickups and saloon cars had
chased government troops almost 90 miles out of the opposition stronghold of
Benghazi.
But it wasn't supposed to be like that. The Daily Telegraph has learned
that commanders have begun coordinating attacks with coalition leaders to
enable French and British war planes to bomb Gaddafi targets before rebel
fighters advance.
Yet there was no sign of anything reining in the chaotic advance – not until
the sound of Katyusha rockets slamming into the sandy soil sent the ranks of
volunteers into a frenzied panic of honking three-point turns.
Bullet rounds fizzed through the air past our ears. It felt like an ambush.
The revolutionary soldiers had been lured too close to the town where they
were horribly exposed on the road.
They retreated just as fast as they had advanced, finally stopping to catch
their breath about 10 miles from Ajdabiya.
Salah Abdelkarim Abar, a 25-year-old law student until the popular uprising
had taken him from his studies, said the rebels would regroup and head back
down the road again before the day was out.
"All we want to do is go there to get the civilians and get them out,"
he said. "We have to wait for things to calm down and we will go back."
Last week ago Ajdabiya was all but lost. Heavy artillery swept through the
town driving hundreds of armed volunteers back from the front.
By the end of the week it was surrounded by Gaddafi troops on three sides,
trapping a rebel unit inside. A column of tanks, armoured personnel carriers
and heavy artillery rumbled on towards Benghazi, the rebel's de facto
capital.
Then all changed in the early hours of Sunday morning when French air strikes
left Gaddafi's war machine in a mangled mess of smoking metal. Now the
rebels are at the gateway to Ajdabiya once again.
However, they have been ordered to rein in the excitable rabble of volunteer
fighters to free up French and British ground attack planes to target
Gaddafi's forces.
Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, a member of the rebel's national council, said that the
rebels' chief of staff, General General Abdel Fattah Yunis, was liaising
with coalition nations to coordinate attacks and keep opposition forces from
getting caught in strikes.
"This was requested by the military council and this request was passed
on to the forces on the ground to stay back and facilitate the attacks by
the coalition," he said, in the city of Benghazi.
Faraj Younis al-Fadeeli, a honey farmer by trade, summed up the problem: "We
have got to have a leader. There's no one at the moment.
... There's no objective. Instead we all do our own thing." Just as he
spoke another fighter climbed on to the back of a pickup to address the
hundred or so men.
"I know you are civilians but we have to be brave," he said in
Arabic through a megaphone. "We need to reorganise in two groups and
attack from the left and from the right, not just down the middle. If there
is anyone here who doesn't want to fight then let him give his gun to
someone who will." A battered Toyota pickup bore the scars of the
failed assault. Its windscreen was shattered. Shrapnel had shredded one
wing. Four people had been killed, said the rebels.
A fresh mound of damp sand marked the grave of one of the dead men who had
been buried within minutes of the retreat. The headstone was a lump of
concrete pulled from a pile of rubble at the side of the road.
No one was sure of his name. All they had managed to retrieve was his head.
The drone of a plane wafted overhead. A week ago it would have sparked terror,
signalling a bombing run by one of the government's MiG, Mirage or Sukhoi
warplanes. Now it is the sound of salvation, although this time the unseen
jet flew on without delivering any missiles.
Jilal al-Dressi, looking smart in fatigues looted from a government depot,
said air strikes were the only way they could continue the advance.
Another man, who asked not to be identified because his brother and father
were in the town, said the coalition must bomb the town even if it
meant civilian casualties. "They have destroyed a mosque. We have heard
there are bodies in the street and no one has moved them. This is what
Gaddafi does," he said. Razing the town, he added, was the best way to
free the country of Gaddafi resistance. "Even if they blow up Ajdabiya
we don't care – to get rid of them is crucial.
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