Qaddafi snipers defeated in Misrata

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Telegraph:

Pro-Gaddafi marksmen inside the eight-storey insurance office block have terrorised the Libyan town and are thought to have killed scores in the past month.

Rebel militiamen ousted them after taking several buildings along the strategic main thoroughfare of Tripoli Street, enabling them to cut supplies to a Gaddafi unit and dozens of rooftop snipers.

Residents celebrated after snipers left the bullet-pocked building according to witnesses.

A rebel spokesman said: "The snipers nightmare is almost over.

"The insurance building is free of snipers at last. Most of Tripoli Street is free of snipers too. People are celebrating in the streets."

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The Guardian reports:

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The snipers had been cut off from the rest of Gaddafi's forces for a week or more, unable to receive supplies. Entering the Tameen building through the reception, strewn with debris, it was possible to get a glimpse of how they had been living.

Mattresses and blankets indicated that several snipers had been sleeping in the stairwell on the first floor, relatively safe in the centre of the building. Their cooking pots still stood in the atrium area nearby. The once-smart offices on the sides of the building, whose tenants were mostly insurance agents, had been trashed by the snipers, with files on the floor and upturned sofas. In some offices, cabinets had been pushed against windows for protection. Many glass panes had been shattered by rebel fire.

"Every night we attacked them with our RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and Kalashnikovs," said Abdullah Hafiz, 24, a member of the "City Centre" rebel cell that finally liberated the building. "They killed a lot of civilians." On higher floors there were empty tins of tuna and tomato paste, blankets, mattresses and sandals, and a few discarded green uniforms.

According to rebel fighters, the few dozen snipers that still occupied the building this week had changed into civilian clothes before trying to escape down Tripoli Street on Thursday, towards their main base in the vegetable market. A sniper's chair had been placed under a small window, which offered a view down the main street. Dozens of spent bullet shells and cigarette butts littered the floor around the chair.

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Ther is much more.

It was only a few days ago Qaddafi's forces were attempting to cut the rebels off from use of the port where supplies were being brought in. This is a significant turn of events.

Fox News reported this evening that Qaddafi was pulling his forces out of the area and replacing them with local tribesmen. These stories suggest the pullout was not voluntary.