• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Print Article
• Increase Font Size
• Decrease Font Size

AJDABIYA, Libya — Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi advanced Sunday on this anxious town, a strate­gic linchpin on the doorstep of the oppo­sition cap­ital Beng­hazi and with­in grasp of a high­way crucial to recap­tur­ing the east­ern bor­der and encircling the rebellion with heavy armor and artillery.

Af­ter an­oth­er day of head­long re­treat, this time from the re­finery and port at Brega, one town west of here, the rebels pre­pared for what some called a last stand at Ajdabiya, taking refuge in military barracks where they stacked ammu­nition boxes six deep, po­sitioned a handful of tanks and tried to bring or­der to a jumble of small artillery and antiaircraft guns. Bulldozers built berms three feet high near a pair of green, met­al arches that mark the town’s entrance.

The fate of Ajdabiya, an east­ern town of 120,000 near the Med­iterranean coast, may prove decisive in the most vio­lent and chaot­ic of the upris­ings that have upended the Arab world. Under a sky turned gray by a men­ac­ing sandstorm, the rebels valiantly vowed victory but acknowl­edged the deficit posed by their weapons and pleaded for a no-flight zone that seemed a metaphor for any kind of international help.

“Our re­treat is a tactic,” said Said Zway, 29, a civ­il-en­g­i­neer-turned-fight­er, at Ajdabiya’s entrance. “We can wait until they impose a no-flight zone. If they don’t, what can we do, my friend? We fight and die. God is with us, God will­ing.”

From its ecstat­ic be­ginning, Libya’s upris­ing has tak­en a dark­er turn, as Colonel Qaddafi’s forces have recap­tured Zawiyah, near Tripoli, and are now besieg­ing Mis­urata, a commercial cap­ital and an oasis of rebel con­trol in the west. Of­ficials in Tripoli talk with blus­ter, and a more sullen mood has set­tled over Beng­hazi, where reports of law­lessness grow.

The United Nations Secu­rity Council this week may take up an Arab League call for a no-flight zone over Libya, a deci­sion that Colonel Qaddafi’s govern­ment on Sunday deemed an “un­expected de­par­ture” from the league’s char­ter. The for­eign min­is­ters of major indus­trial nations are expected to consid­er the top­ic at a meeting in Paris on Monday. Sec­retary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to fly on to Egypt and Tunisia af­terward, and is expected to meet with Libyan oppo­sition leaders.

But a front line that shifted east­ward by the day and plung­ing morale here threat­ened to out­pace a deci­sion that still faces oppo­sition from Russia and China and lacks the clear support of the United States and Eu­rope.

The debate abroad over­shad­owed the stark re­ality on the ground — planes alone have not defeated the rebels, but rather a re­lent­less onslaught of tanks, artillery, he­licopters and ships at sea has sent rebels hurtling back the past sev­eral days from a se­ries of oil towns along Libya’s virtually indefensible coastal plain.

At the front, pleas for for­eign help have grown by the day, from de­mands for a no-flight zone to growing calls for bomb­ing of Libyan ships at sea, military bases and Bab al-Aziziya, the com­pound in Tripoli that serves as Colonel Qaddafi’s headquar­ters.

“We de­mand inter­vention from America, from Britain, from France!” shouted Wa­nis Kayhani, 42, a fight­er wait­ing in a parked Toyota pickup near the front. “I person­ally want them to send troops from abroad to stop this dictator. I swear to God almighty!”

“No, no, that won’t work!” an­oth­er fight­er shouted.

“What­ev­er it takes,” Mr. Kayhani replied.

Libya’s for­mer in­te­rior min­is­ter, Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, appeared un­expectedly before reporters in Beng­hazi on Sunday evening in his role as the new head of the rebel army and promised a vig­or­ous defense of Ajdabiya, call­ing it a “key” city.

Once a close ally of Colonel Qaddafi and head of the country’s special forces, General Younes resigned his post in late February to join the rebels. He said that he had spent days at the front lines and acknowl­edged that oppo­sition fight­ers had overex­tended: they advanced “too far, too fast and did not pro­tect the ar­eas they gained,” he said.

Striking an opti­mis­tic note, though, he cast the setbacks as a strate­gic deci­sion.

“War is a mat­ter of advance and tactical with­draw­al,” he said. “What we are trying to do is lure him into an area where we can even the fight.”

The day began with military vehicles, ambulances, cars and pickup trucks loaded with ev­ery­thing from antiaircraft guns to a coat rack flee­ing Brega, which rebels held just Sat­urday. Winds blew sand across the street like drifting snow, as rebel trucks and cars hur­tled down both lanes of a two-lane road to­ward an old sign that read, “Warning ... speed­ing is the quick­est way to die.” There was no traff­ic go­ing the oth­er way.

They regrouped at the entrance to Ajdabiya, where only last week jubilant crowds of many hun­dreds beckoned convoys of fight­ers west to Tripoli.

“We are go­ing to defend Ajdabiya now, we have to defend Ajdabiya,” said Massoud Bousi­er, a 36-year-old fight­er who fled Brega. “He has a tank and we have a stone. This Kalashnikov,” he said, rais­ing his rifle, “does noth­ing. This is like a stone.”

So far, the strategy of an invig­orated, though no less bizarre, Colonel Qaddafi, absolute ruler here for nearly 42 years, has proved clear. With lit­tle regard for life, he has pummeled into submis­sion rebel-held towns in his tra­ditional stronghold of the west — Surt and Mis­urata among them — and deployed to the east forces be­lieved loyal to his sons to recap­ture strate­gic oil towns be­tween his birthplace, Surt, and Ajdabiya.

Ajdabiya is most strate­gic for its location, 100 miles from Beng­hazi and perched on a high­way that bypasses east­ern Libya’s coastal cities and cuts straight to the bor­der with Egypt, which rebels have lightly defend­ed. It was still unclear whether Colonel Qaddafi would try to take the city in a bloody bat­tle or bypass it en route to Beng­hazi and the high­way.

General Younes said he hoped Colonel Qaddafi’s forces would overex­tend as they advanced, and many rebels spec­ulated that his army was already running short on fu­el.

Even in regions he con­trols, his rule re­mains con­tested. Women orga­nized a small protest in the cap­ital on Sunday, witnesses said, and a rebel spokesman in Mis­urata said 30 sol­diers had de­fected from a brigade orga­nized by Colonel Qaddafi’s son Khamis that has besieged the city.

But opti­mism was in short supply on the rebel side, and of­ficials in Tripoli boast­ed they would quickly and eas­ily, as they put it, lib­erate Beng­hazi, where the oppo­sition has formed a state in wait­ing.

“You do not need a full-scale military attack because when we come to them, they just raise their hands and give up,” said Col. Minad Hussein, a military spokesman.

At the edge of Ajdabiya, rebels tried to bring military discip­line to the throngs of fer­vent youths who have vol­unteered to fight. Gates were closed to two makeshift military bases, where hun­dreds of boxes of ammu­nition were stacked in a sprawl­ing courtyard. Vol­unteers filled dozens of sandbags lined behind berms and not yet tied shut.

On loudspeakers, rebel leaders urged the cu­rious to leave.

“If you don’t have a tank or a heavy weapon, go back home!” one shouted.

Rumors swirled — that rebel special forces had encircled govern­ment forces in Brega af­ter nightfall, that 8,000 vol­unteers were com­ing under cover of night from Beng­hazi, and that Colonel Qaddafi was deploying mer­cenar­ies from Egypt. A fear of the un­known en­dem­ic to wartime rippled through a town of dull buildings interspersed with pas­tels of pink, or­ange and green. Doctors reported short­ages of equip­ment at the hos­pital, and res­idents stocked up on infant formula, medicine and food.

“When you start fight­ing, do you think how it’s go­ing to end?” asked Mr. Zway, the en­g­i­neer. “You don’t. There is no chance to go back now, be­lieve me. Be­lieve me.”

A lit­tle ways away, near the bulldozer that build the embank­ment, a smiling Abdel-Salam Maatouk sat with friends and drank tea boiled on a small fire.

“You live how many times?” he asked. “Once. You die how many times? Once.”

His friends nod­ded, as he offered a smiling so­lil­oquy: “We’ll draw the line at Ajdabiya. And then from there to Surt and then to Tripoli. God will­ing, I’ll be able to shout chants at Martyrs’ Square in Tripoli, and I’ll be able to do that on a day soon.”

Maybe it did not re­ally mat­ter whether he could say it tomorrow. He said it today. And as he did, the tea may have tasted a lit­tle sweet­er and the campfire felt a lit­tle warmer. For a mo­ment, the re­lent­less wind that had set­tled sand on his eye­brows seemed to sub­side.