Gaddafi defiant as forces launch fightback

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Gaddafi defiant as forces launch fightback

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Gaddafi vowed to fight until victory as his forces launched surprise fightbacks on three fronts.

13 September,2011 03:29 am

A defiant Moammer Gaddafi vowed to fight until victory as his forces launched surprise fightbacks on three fronts on Monday, and as Libyas interim government won recognition from China.The ferocious counterattacks on a Ras Lanuf oil refinery, near Gaddafis hometown of Sirte, and at Bani Walid near Tripoli came as one of the elusive former leaders sons, Saadi, fled to Niger.It is not possible to give Libya to the colonists again, and all that remains for us is the struggle until victory and the defeat of the coup, Gaddafi said in a statement read out on Syria-based Arrai Oruba television.NATO vowed on Monday that there would be no let-up in its bombing campaign against Gaddafis remaining strongholds, which also include the southern oases of Waddan and Sabha, as long as they pose a threat.China, which opposed the NATO air strikes when they were launched in late March, became the latest country to recognise the National Transitional Council (NTC) as Libyas government, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.And the United States sent an advance team of four troops to help its officials reopen the US embassy in Tripoli.But forces loyal to the fugitive Gaddafi sprung a surprise deep behind enemy lines on Monday, killing at least 12 NTC soldiers in a raid on the refinery near Ras Lanuf on the central coast.So far, we have a figure of 12 dead in the ranks of the revolutionaries guarding the key plant, military spokesman Mohammed Zawawi said.A group (of loyalists) travelling in five vehicles tried to enter the refinery but were unable to, he said.The oil infrastructure along the Mediterranean coast between Sidra and Brega was a key battleground of the seven-month uprising against Gaddafi, and the front line between the mainly rebel-held east and mainly government-held west went back and forth several times.But since Tripolis fall, NTC forces have advanced dozens of kilometres (miles) west towards Sirte, which remains in Gaddafis hands, and have moved to secure the vital oil infrastructure on which its post-war reconstruction plans depend.Southeast of Tripoli, civilians poured out of the desert town of Bani Walid after intense fighting on Sunday between Gaddafi loyalists holed up in the sprawling oasis and encircling new regime troops.Many more residents remained trapped inside the town, 180 kilometres (110 miles) from the capital, for want of fuel for their vehicles, those fleeing said.Families are scared to death by this war, said Mohammed Suleiman as he passed through a checkpoint with 10 relatives crammed into the back of his white BMW.Ezzedine Ramadan said the ferocity of Sundays exchanges had prompted him to leave.Gaddafis men were firing indiscriminately from the hills and rebels responded, he told