Libyan rebels race to Ras Lanuf, then beat a hasty retreat

[David__77]

Libyan rebels jubilate on a checkpoint in Al-Egila, east of Ras Lanuf, eastern Libya, on March 27. Anja Niedringhaus/AP

Reports that Libyan rebels "took" Sirte, Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s hometown, spread quickly through the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi early Monday morning, prompting celebratory gunfire from rebels there.

A couple of hours later, many of the foreign journalists in Benghazi, grumpy from a lack of sleep, packed up their belongings with the firm conviction that Sirte would be their next headquarters to cover the rebel advance. In the elevator at the Uzu Hotel, an outfit providing satellite uplinks for TV stations put up a confident notice: “Feedpoint has moved to Sirte.”

But Benghazi’s hospitality industry needn’t have worried: By nightfall most of the city’s hotels were full of foreign journalists once again. It seems the Libyan rebels – not for the first time – had taken their wishes for reality.

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Now, the rebel army is facing the same problem that Qaddafi’s army had when it was fighting in Ajdabiya: long supply lines. The front line is now a five-hour drive from Benghazi and the Sirtica, the dry region between Ajdabya and Sirte, hardly supports a population. Before the Italians built the coastal road in the 1930s the Sirtica was a near insurmountable natural barrier between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

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In the traffic mess created by the retreat, some rebels didn’t hesitate to fire off heavy artillery pieces into the air to get others to move faster.

As the rebels prepared to spend the night huddled around camp fires in the desert, most of the foreign journalists had come to the conclusion that the scene at the Al Fadeel was a bit too colorful for safety. By midnight, the last of them had left for safer ground.

On Tuesday, Qaddafi’s troops were once again close enough to Ras Lanuf to shell the rebels in town.

There was no celebratory fire in Benghazi on Tuesday morning.

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