A border crossing in the town of Wazen after a battle in the early morning, sent flight reported a small number of Libyan soldiers across the border, the official Tunisian news agency took control of the rebels in the Western mountains. The news agency said 13 of Libyan soldiers, including Colonel and two commanders, were arrested when a rebel spokesman in the eastern city of Benghazi claims that more than 100 had sought asylum.
The fighting in the mountains has escalated in the last two weeks, UN aid workers say that more than 14,000 Libyan refugees - many of them fled on the same of the Berber minority, which is widely used in the area - border, with more than 6,000 per day crossing recently a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Commission said.
While it is not clear that the rebels Wazen withstand, control of the Western region is their success of the first great leap in Colonel Qadhafi, as he crushed the riots which erupted in Tripoli and many other cities and towns of Libya when the uprising broke out two months ago. It opened it import the possibility of the rebels, aid or weapons and offers the first sign of a break of the blockade, which has laid over the Libyan civil war in the last few weeks.
In a move that appears to stop, that deadlock be directed Pentagon said Thursday that President Obama of armed predator had granted powers, drones against Colonel Qadhafi partially bypassed the air strikes by mingling with civilians and the use of unmarked vehicles.
The American military has the predator, a remote piloted aircraft equipped with Hellfire missiles, used to objectives in urban and rural areas in Afghanistan, to meet Pakistan, Iraq and Yemen.
Announcing the deployment, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates described the addition of armed robbers as "a modest contribution" Mission of the NATO attack. But Mr Obama seemed too complicated approval their deployment another sign of the gaps in the ability of NATO, extended carry out combat missions without further and significant American support.
These gaps are significant become, because the United States on 4 April, command of the Libya mission NATO transferred when the American military again reinforced a supporting role. Despite this movement, American planes are significant numbers of bombs, more than you like other countries in the Alliance.
In Misurata, the rebel held port where rebels for weeks for such weapons have pleaded to beat back a siege by Qadhafi forces, said a spokesman for rebel Thursday, that the recent air raids and help shows rebel fighters who take offensive had enabled. The spokesman, Mohamed, whose full Name for the protection of his family was denied, the rebels on Wednesday, said more than 100, the Qadhafi on Thursday soldiers and 51 killed when they also recorded 40 others. "People are celebrating in Misurata,", he said, talking about an Internet connection, because the most telephone service and electricity in the city was cut off.
Among other advances, he who had driven the rebels of away sniper Central Tripoli Avenue had terrorized civilians along the city said.? "There is a pattern of collapse under the Qadhafi troops in and around Misurata," he said.
A spokesman for the military said in the rebel Eastern Benghazi, Colonel Ahmed Bani stronghold, rebel, anti-Qaddafi repeatedly had attacked the Western crossing near Wazen fighter in the past to on Thursday. "This is us a supply line for Tunisia," he said and added that the rebels in Wazen with the leadership in Benghazi were communication.
So far, air strikes against the Qadhafi have NATO forces the rebels continue to control a handful of Eastern cities, the Western commercial port of Misurata, Benghazi and some reports according to the Western mountain towns of Nalut and Zintan enabled. But the Qadhafi forces have maintained a strict control of the Libyan capital Tripoli, and held a violent siege to Misurata and cities held other rebels and rebel leaders have complained in recent weeks bitterly about the relative lack of NATO air strikes.
During the most attention to the most important port cities of Benghazi and Misurata concentrated, has the Western mountainous region stretches from Wazen of to nearby Nalut and Zintan with resistance to Qadhafi simmered. Berbers have long rubbed which has sought to deny their status as a culturally different minority under the Qadhafi Government.
After rebels control of Benghazi on 20 February took over, he was resident of Nalut and Zintan others of Tripoli, Misurata, Zawiyah, Zawarah, Sabratha and other cities in take on the road to the burning of police stations and the headquarters of Colonel Qadhafi local "revolutionary committees." In the following weeks, however, his security forces again a firm grip on Tripoli and gradually of West Florida from other cities, so that Zintan and Misurata as the Western main centres of resistance.
Faras Kaya, a spokesman for United Nations Human Rights Commission, said that that many escape to the camp described the escalating confrontation in the mountains around Zintan and Nalut in the last two weeks, since lashed back towards thrown Qadhafi forces artillery in the cities and the rebels. "The Western mountain region in the State of siege for a month or so," said Mr. Kaya. "What clearly is that they have fled due to the increasing violence".
About a quarter of a million refugees have Libya in Tunisia in the last two months, fled he said. At the other main crossing in the vicinity of Mediterranean, most of which were run, he said foreign workers, but the 14,000 who have fled through Wazen were Libyan families.
The deployment of predators following weeks if rebels of a lack of support from NATO have complained to the United States handed over direction of air operations of NATO. Was announcing the addition of weapons, Mr Gates suggested that the United States reduce a gap in the arsenals of other the other Alliance members, fill out, the similar attack not have drones.
"The President said, where we have some unique features, he is willing to use those," said Mr Gates at a press conference of Pentagon, suggesting that the predators would provide "some precision ability."
David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo and Thom Shanker from Washington. Rod Nordland contributed reporting from Benghazi, Libya, and Mona El Naggar from Cairo.
