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Summary Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi launched a land and air offensive to retake territory in Libya's east at dawn on Wednesday, sparking a rebel call for foreign air strikes on African mercenaries they said were helping him stay in power.
The veteran ruler twinned the attack with a fiery propaganda broadside against the rebels, playing on both nationalist opinion and Western jitters by saying much blood would be shed in another Vietnam if foreign powers intervened in the crisis. On the battlefield, government troops briefly captured Brega, an oil export terminal, before being driven back by rebels who have held the town 800 km east of Tripoli for about a week, rebel officers said, adding they were ready to move westwards against Gaddafis forces if he refused to quit. Further bombing raids near the oil terminals were carried out in the afternoon. Estimates of the death toll during the day ranged between five and 14.There has been talk among the international community of the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, but on Wednesday US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said such a move would first require an attack to cripple Libyan air defences. Gaddafi, who once said ballot box democracy was for donkeys, told the gathering in Tripoli the world did not understand he had given power to the people long ago.Any sort of foreign military involvement in Arab countries is a sensitive topic for Western nations uncomfortably aware that Iraq suffered years of bloodletting and Al-Qaeda violence after a 2003 US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. There are fears that the uprising, the bloodiest yet against long-serving rulers in the Middle East, is causing a major humanitarian crisis, especially on the Tunisian border where thousands of foreign workers are trying to flee to safety.
