AJDABIYA, Libya, March 26, (Agencies): Libyan rebels regained control of the eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya on Saturday after international airstrikes crippled Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, in the first major turnaround for an uprising that a week ago appeared on the verge of defeat. In a western city the opposition lost to Gaddafi, a resident said security agents had lists of rebel sympathizers and were dragging them from their homes.
Drivers honked in celebration and flew the tricolor rebel flag. Others in the city fired their guns into the air and danced on burned-out tanks that littered the road. Inside a building that had served as makeshift barracks for pro-Gaddafi forces, hastily discarded uniforms were piled on the floor.
“Without the planes we couldn’t have done this. Gaddafi’s weapons are at a different level than ours,” said Ahmed Faraj, 38, a rebel fighter from Ajdabiya. “With the help of the planes we are going to push onward to Tripoli, God willing.”
Ajdabiya’s sudden fall to Gaddafi’s troops spurred the swift UN resolution authorizing international action in Libya, and its return to rebel hands on Saturday came after a week of airstrikes and missiles against the Libyan leader’s military.
Saif Sadawi, a 20-year-old rebel fighter with an RPG in his hands, said the city’s eastern gate fell late Friday and the western gate fell at dawn Saturday after airstrikes on both locations.
“All of Ajdabiya is free,” he said.

Explosions
Huge explosions shook a military site in an eastern suburb of Libya’s capital early Saturday as Western forces piled pressure on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi with a barrage of air strikes.
The blasts, on the eighth day of a Western bombing campaign to halt attacks by Gaddafi’s forces on civilians, left a radar facility in flames in Tajura, home to several military bases, a witness told AFP.
“The district was shaken by three explosions in succession,” the resident said, adding that the explosions had shattered windows.
“The raid targeted a military radar site which is still on fire,” the resident, who lives close by, added.
US officials said the relentless pressure on Gaddafi and his allies was beginning to take its toll, and that the veteran Libyan leader was arming volunteers.
“We’ve received reports today that he has taken to arming what he calls volunteers to fight the opposition,” said US Vice Admiral William Gortney.
Until now, Gaddafi is believed to have relied on militias run by his sons as well as African mercenaries to fight poorly-armed but determined opposition forces.
Kadhafi “has virtually no air defence left to him and a diminishing ability to command and sustain his forces on the ground”, said Gortney following the UN-mandated air strikes launched on March 19 by the United States, Britain, and France.

“His air force cannot fly, his warships are staying in port, his ammunitions stores are being destroyed, communications towers are being toppled, his command bunkers rendered useless,” Gortney said.
Western forces also pounded several key cities and towns overnight, including Ajdabiya, where regime loyalists have dug in and been accused by residents of brutalising the population.
Plumes of smoke filled the sky over Ajdabiya on Friday as the air strikes escalated, forcing terrified residents to flee the strategic coastal city, 160 kms (100 miles) south of the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
“We entered the town,” Colonel Mohammed Ehsayer, who defected from the army to join the rebellion against Gaddafi, told AFP at a rebel outpost a few kilometres east of the city.
“Soon the eastern and western gates (entry roads) will fall,” he said referring to positions still in loyalist hands, with the uprising now in its fifth week.
Kadhafi forces opened up with artillery on the rebel city of Misrata, 214 kms (132 miles) east of Tripoli, killing a mother and her four children late Friday, a witness told AFP.
“The artillery shelling has been going on since Thursday night,” said the witness contacted by telephone. “They are firing on everything that moves.”
“There is no water, no electricity and supplies are running short,” in Misrata, Libya’s third city, he said, adding residents were cowering indoors.

Bombed
Western warplanes bombed Muammar Gaddafi’s tanks and artillery in eastern Libya to try to break a battlefield stalemate and help rebels take the strategic town of Ajdabiyah.
Rebels said they had entered Ajdabiyah from the east on Friday, Al Jazeera reported, while Gaddafi’s forces held on in the west of the town, which commands the coastal road towards Tripoli. The African Union said it was planning to facilitate talks to help end the war, but NATO said its operation could last three months, and France said the conflict would not end soon.
In Washington, a US military spokeswoman said the coalition fired 16 Tomahawk cruise missiles and flew 153 air sorties in the past 24 hours targeting Gaddafi’s artillery, mechanised forces and command and control infrastructure.
Western governments hope the raids, launched a week ago with the aim of protecting civilians, will shift the balance of power in favour of the Arab world’s most violent popular revolt.
In Tripoli, explosions were heard early on Saturday, signalling possible new strikes by warplanes or missiles.
As the United States said Gaddafi’s ability to command and sustain his forces was diminishing, Libyan state TV said the “brother leader” had promoted all members of his armed forces and police “for their heroic and courageous fight against the crusader, colonialist assault”, without giving further details.
Rebels massing for an attack on Ajdabiyah earlier exchanged artillery fire with Gaddafi’s forces.
Opposition forces on the road there seemed more organised than in recent days, when their disarray stirred doubts about their ability to challenge Gaddafi.
They had set up road blocks at regular intervals and Reuters counted at least four truck-based rocket launchers — heavier weaponry than had been seen earlier this week.

Mission
President Barack Obama told Americans on Saturday that the military mission in Libya is clear, focused and limited, and that it has already saved “countless” civilian lives.
A US-led coalition launched a bombing campaign last week with the aim of protecting civilians after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, whose forces were advancing against rebel strongholds and threatened violent retaliation against them.
US and other international forces continue to strike Gaddafi’s forces and armaments with missiles and precision bombs and are enforcing a no-fly zone over the country and an arms embargo at sea.
Obama said Libya’s air defenses have been disabled, Gaddafi’s forces are no longer advancing and in places like the city of Benghazi, a rebel stronghold where Gaddafi threatened to show “no mercy,” his forces have been pushed back.
“So make no mistake, because we acted quickly, a humanitarian catastrophe has been avoided and the lives of countless civilians —innocent men, women and children-have been saved,” Obama said in his weekly radio address.
Members of Congress — from both the left and right — have criticized Obama for failing to communicate thoroughly the goals of the military operation. Some have assailed him for failing to seek Congressional approval for the action, others for embarking on another military mission in a Muslim country when the United States is already embroiled in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
Obama said the role of US forces has been limited in what he described as a “broad, international effort.” He stressed again that no US ground forces would go into Libya.
Obama will also address Americans in a speech on Monday evening to further discuss the Libya mission.