The sprawling Ouagadougou conference centre at the heart of the Libyan coastal city of Sirte is a monument to an equally vast ego. Its outsized halls spread over five hectares. At its heart is a copper dome and a huge pink walled edifice that overlooks what must have been an elegant plaza.
Sirte is a place of deep symbolic significance – not for its bloated architecture, but because Muammar Gaddafi transformed it from an obscure fishing village into a second capital. And it is at the Ouagadougou complex that the colonel's supporters have held out for weeks against attempts by forces loyal to the new government to take the city and declare Libya's full liberation.
But on Sunday the conference centre was in revolutionary hands: rebel fighters posed in front of the vast murals. The walls were punctured by shell holes, the ground littered with bullet casings and broken glass. Inside the main conference hall, large signs in English and Arabic declared "Shame on agents" and "Sirte summit of hope".
The marble halls rang with the sound of automatic weapons fire, exploding RPGs and mortars landing close by. The electric golf carts once used to ferry delegates across the campus – and a silver Mercedes abandoned by retreating loyalists – were now being driven by fighters from Misrata and Benghazi.
The battle for Sirte, so long in the unfolding, has been brought to the very heart of Gaddafi's home town. By Sunday evening government forces were close to the city's main square but paused in their assault to allow civilians to escape. And while the conference centre appeared secure in the hands of government forces, a huge plume of smoke rose as fighting raged into the night in the east of the city and around the Ibn Sana hospital just beyond the complex.
In one counterattack, heavy mortar fire left dozens of revolutionary soldiers injured. "We went into the Ouagadougou complex last night," said Akhram al-Jamal, 31, resting close to the breached wall leading into that sector of the city.
"We received very little fire from Gaddafi forces, now there are many of our people inside. They tried to hit us it was from three places, and this is the first time we have been inside. There are still snipers and resistance. Hopefully we can finish this in two days – we want to finish it."
The road leading to the complex offers a brutal testimony of the nature of this siege: row after row of gutted and shattered homes, empty of their occupants, smashed by tanks, rockets and artillery.
It was from these houses that for weeks the banks of pro-Gaddafi snipers held up the advancing revolutionary forces levelling a withering fire over the sandy fields beyond.
Now they have gone, but they have not stopped fighting. "They pulled back from the conference centre complex towards the hospital," said another fighter, racking ammunition for his gun truck to rejoin the fighting at the hospital.
Journalists who reached the hospital earlier in the day saw scores of wounded civilians crowding corridors, lying on stretchers on the floor to protect them from the shelling and gunfire. There was no electricity or water, and a handful of students and nurses were the only medical staff.
Revolutionary fighters roamed the hallways checking identities and detained about 25 people suspected of being Gaddafi fighters or mercenaries. "These are all Gaddafi people. They are snipers and we have captured them," said Ahmed Rahman, a field commander, as his soldiers handcuffed a suspected pro-regime sniper.
"We are trying to evacuate the sick and wounded," said Salah Mustafa, a commander of the government forces. "Most of the Gaddafi militia fled, some of them have disguised themselves as doctors. We have to investigate."
Some 15 Gaddafi loyalists were marched out of the hospital and one was punched in the back of the head when National Transitional Council (NTC) forces discovered a picture of the deposed leader in his pocket.
The long battle to seize Sirte and the other few remaining bastions of the Gaddafi regime has sidetracked NTC efforts to set up effective government and begin the process of elections. The interim government has said it will announce the full liberation of Libya only when Sirte has finally fallen.
by Peter Beaumont taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/09/libya-sirte-battle-gaddafi
Sirte is a place of deep symbolic significance – not for its bloated architecture, but because Muammar Gaddafi transformed it from an obscure fishing village into a second capital. And it is at the Ouagadougou complex that the colonel's supporters have held out for weeks against attempts by forces loyal to the new government to take the city and declare Libya's full liberation.
But on Sunday the conference centre was in revolutionary hands: rebel fighters posed in front of the vast murals. The walls were punctured by shell holes, the ground littered with bullet casings and broken glass. Inside the main conference hall, large signs in English and Arabic declared "Shame on agents" and "Sirte summit of hope".
The marble halls rang with the sound of automatic weapons fire, exploding RPGs and mortars landing close by. The electric golf carts once used to ferry delegates across the campus – and a silver Mercedes abandoned by retreating loyalists – were now being driven by fighters from Misrata and Benghazi.
The battle for Sirte, so long in the unfolding, has been brought to the very heart of Gaddafi's home town. By Sunday evening government forces were close to the city's main square but paused in their assault to allow civilians to escape. And while the conference centre appeared secure in the hands of government forces, a huge plume of smoke rose as fighting raged into the night in the east of the city and around the Ibn Sana hospital just beyond the complex.
In one counterattack, heavy mortar fire left dozens of revolutionary soldiers injured. "We went into the Ouagadougou complex last night," said Akhram al-Jamal, 31, resting close to the breached wall leading into that sector of the city.
"We received very little fire from Gaddafi forces, now there are many of our people inside. They tried to hit us it was from three places, and this is the first time we have been inside. There are still snipers and resistance. Hopefully we can finish this in two days – we want to finish it."
The road leading to the complex offers a brutal testimony of the nature of this siege: row after row of gutted and shattered homes, empty of their occupants, smashed by tanks, rockets and artillery.
It was from these houses that for weeks the banks of pro-Gaddafi snipers held up the advancing revolutionary forces levelling a withering fire over the sandy fields beyond.
Now they have gone, but they have not stopped fighting. "They pulled back from the conference centre complex towards the hospital," said another fighter, racking ammunition for his gun truck to rejoin the fighting at the hospital.
Journalists who reached the hospital earlier in the day saw scores of wounded civilians crowding corridors, lying on stretchers on the floor to protect them from the shelling and gunfire. There was no electricity or water, and a handful of students and nurses were the only medical staff.
Revolutionary fighters roamed the hallways checking identities and detained about 25 people suspected of being Gaddafi fighters or mercenaries. "These are all Gaddafi people. They are snipers and we have captured them," said Ahmed Rahman, a field commander, as his soldiers handcuffed a suspected pro-regime sniper.
"We are trying to evacuate the sick and wounded," said Salah Mustafa, a commander of the government forces. "Most of the Gaddafi militia fled, some of them have disguised themselves as doctors. We have to investigate."
Some 15 Gaddafi loyalists were marched out of the hospital and one was punched in the back of the head when National Transitional Council (NTC) forces discovered a picture of the deposed leader in his pocket.
The long battle to seize Sirte and the other few remaining bastions of the Gaddafi regime has sidetracked NTC efforts to set up effective government and begin the process of elections. The interim government has said it will announce the full liberation of Libya only when Sirte has finally fallen.
by Peter Beaumont taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/09/libya-sirte-battle-gaddafi
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