US says Gaddafi's days are now numbered ZAWIYAH — Libyan rebels launched an assault on an oil refinery Wednesday to drive the last remaining troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi out of a city on Tripoli's outskirts and consolidate their siege of the capital. After 41 years of supreme power in his oil-rich desert state 69-year-old Gaddafi is looking isolated, with reinvigorated rebel forces closing in on the capital from the west and south and cutting off its road links to the outside. Six months into an often stalemated conflict, rebels have transformed the battle in the last few days by seizing most of the city of Zawiyah on Tripoli's western outskirts, as well as a town to the south, cutting Tripoli's two main supply routes. In Zawiyah, which controls the main highway linking Tripoli to the Tunisian border, Gaddafi forces hoping to break the siege have retained control of an oil refinery and have harassed the rebels with shelling and snipers on rooftops of tall buildings. “There are some snipers inside the refinery facility. We control the gates of the refinery. We will be launching an operation to try to take control of it shortly,” said rebel fighter Abdulkarim Kashaba. An increasingly confident rebel leadership has dismissed reports that it was holding secret talks with representatives of the Libyan leader in neighbouring Tunisia. In Washington, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Gaddafi's forces had been thrown back onto the defensive, and reports that a senior figure in the Libyan security apparatus had defected indicated the regime was cracking. “Gaddafi's forces are weakened and this latest defection is another example of how weak they've gotten,” Panetta said. “I think the sense is that Gaddafi's days are numbered,” Panetta said at event with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
