Tripoli, March 13: Libya’s top rebel official has conceded that his fighters have been driven out of the key oil port of Ras Lanouf.
General Abdel-Fattah Younis was the country’s interior minister before he defected to the rebel side. He said today that Muammar Gaddafi’s forces now control both the town and the oil refinery in Ras Lanouf. But he vowed a comeback by tomorrow “at the latest”.
The rebels had maintained a tenuous hold around the oil facilities on Friday after a barrage of attacks by government forces.
The assault on Ras Lanouf was a sign the Gaddafi camp had regrouped after it first seemed to reel in confusion for the much of the uprising that began on February 15.
Ras Lanouf is 615km southeast of the capital, Tripoli.
——–Agencies