Libyan fighters looked set for another push against leader Muammar Qaddafi’s forces on July 8, just days after the opposition made hefty advances toward Tripoli on two fronts. An opposition sympathiser in Misrata, on Libya’s Mediterranean coast, said that fighters had been moving closer to neighbouring Zlitan, one of a chain of government-controlled towns blocking their advance to Tripoli. As they advanced, pro-Qaddafi forces inside the city fired rounds of explosives to block their progress, the sympathizer said in an e-mail. “The rebels are waiting for NATO backup or for Qaddafi forces to run out of ammunitions to make a move to take the city center,” he said.
After weeks of static fighting, the fighters on Wednesday advanced westward from Misrata to within 13 km of Zlitan, where large numbers of pro-Qaddafi forces are based. In the Western Mountains region southwest of Tripoli, other fighters seized a village, bringing them closer to a taking a town that would give them control of a major highway into the capital. Turkey has frozen $1 billion of Libyan central bank reserves deposited in its banks as part of UN sanctions against Gadaffi’s government, a Turkish newspaper reported on July 8.