Misrata, along with other cities, rose up in revolt against Qaddafi’s four-decade rule in mid-February and is the last big rebel stronghold in the west of the country.
“There was heavy fighting in Tripoli Street and the rebels held their positions. Also, very intense fighting occurred on the eastern side of Misrata on the Nak el Theqeel road. The rebels repelled the attack,” a rebel spokesman who identified himself as Mohamad Abu Shaara told Reuters by telephone.
Tripoli Road is a main thoroughfare that cuts through to the city center from the western outskirts while the Nak el Theqeel road leads to Misrata’s rebel-controlled port.
Shaara said there were casualties but gave no further details.
Libyan officials say they are fighting armed militia groups linked to Al-Qaeda who are bent on destabilising the north African country. It is difficult to verify reports from Misrata because journalists are prevented from reporting freely there.
A rebel spokesman in Zintan, another town in western Libya which has been under attack by Qaddafi’s forces, said there had been a new bombardment.
“The pro-Qaddafi forces located north of the town fired mortar rounds from pick-up trucks at Zintan. Fortunately only one person was wounded in the attack,” the spokesman, Abdulrahman, told Reuters by telephone.
“It’s been mostly random firing as the town is perched 750 meters above sea level and the pro-Qaddafi forces are in the foothills of the mountains.”
Zintan is in the Western Mountains region, a sparsely populated area inhabited by ethnic Berbers, many of whom rose up against Qaddafi’s rule.
Residents of the region who fled to neighboring Tunisia have told Reuters that government forces are waging a campaign of terror there, destroying homes, killing livestock and threatening to rape women
The spokesman said Qaddafi’s forces, unable to get into the town of Zintan itself, were targeting people in nearby villages and rounding up anyone suspected of links to the rebels.
“In the nearby hamlet of Al-Ghnayma, the pro-Qaddafi forces have since Saturday been singling out civilians originating from Zintan,” he said.
“They have arrested 15 in total and released them later after finding out they had nothing to do with the rebels.”
“But they have, up to today, burned down the homes of about 40 to 50 families (originally) from Zintan who live in Al-Ghnayma and have also been poisoning their water wells by pouring in fuel and ... engine oil.”
Zintan itself was suffering from an increasingly acute shortage of water, the spokesman said.
“Zintan relies on water from the foothills of the mountains. But with the fuel shortage, tanker trucks cannot go there and even if they had fuel they’d run the risk of being attacked by Qaddafi forces controlling that position,” said Abdulrahman.
As fighting dragged on, Libyan rebels said they have sent a request for weapons they need to countries that have recognized their national council as the sole representative of Libya.
“We have submitted a list of military and technical equipment we need,” Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, official spokesman for the council, told reporters in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
Asked which countries the rebels were asking for weapons, Ghoga said: “Obviously we’ve been asking the countries that have already recognized the national transitional council as the sole representative for Libya.”
France, Qatar and Italy have recognized the rebels controlling the east of the country, whose military campaign against Qaddafi’s forces has reached stalemate despite air strikes against Qaddafi’s weaponry by NATO warplanes.
France led calls for military intervention in Libya after the popular uprising in the east turned into a war when rebels grabbed weapons abandoned by fleeing Qaddafi loyalists.
They quickly overpowered government forces in the east, but Qaddafi fighters armed with more powerful, longer-range artillery beat back the rebels as they tried to advance through the central coastal region toward Tripoli.
Ghoga said the rebels had tightened security at oil fields they control after attacks by forces loyal to Qaddafi forced them to halt production. He did not give details.
Qaddafi forces are still occupying parts of the oil port of Brega, Ghoga said. Rebels have fought a seesaw battle over the town but failed to dislodge government loyalists.
