BREGA: Libyan rebels were claiming victory Saturday in the battle for Brega as heavy fighting ensued around the oil town amid reports 13 rebels were killed in a NATO-led airstrike. Despite the incident, rebel leaders called for continued international air campaign against Muammar Gaddafi's forces. In Benghazi, the anti-Gaddafi council also named a “crisis team”, including the former Libyan interior minister as the armed forces chief of staff, to run parts of the country it holds in its struggle to topple Gaddafi. Omar Hariri is in charge of the military department, with Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes Al-Abidi, a long serving officer in Gaddafi's armed forces, as his chief of staff. The 13 fighters died on Friday night in an increasingly chaotic battle over the oil town of Brega with Gaddafi's troops. Although there was no immediate confirmation of the claim Brega had fallen to the rebels, a correspondent at the scene saw seven bodies of pro-Gaddafi fighters and at least 10 burnt-out pick-up trucks along the road between Ajdabiyah and Brega, 80 km to the west. Two men badly injured in the strike said it happened at about 8 P.M. Friday after somebody fired heavy weaponry into the air as a rebel convoy made its way from Ajdabiyah toward Brega. “We all turned to him and said, “Why the hell did you do that?”' said Ali Abdullah Zio, 28. He said it was a mistake, then pulled out of the convoy and drove back to Ajdabiyah. Moments later there was an airstrike. “We were just driving along and then everything was on fire,” said 19-year-old Ibrahim Al-Shahaibi. “It's fate. They must have thought we were Gaddafi's brigades when they hit us.” In Brussels, a spokeswoman for NATO, which this week assumed command of the military operation launched on March 19, declined to say whether its forces were involved in the Brega incident. “We are looking into the report,” said spokeswoman Oana Lungescu. “However, if someone fires at our aircraft, they have the right to protect themselves.” NATO has conducted 363 sorties since taking over command of the Libya operations, and about 150 were intended as strike missions but NATO has not confirmed hitting any targets. One Benghazi-based rebel said food supplies were acutely low in Misrata. A British-based doctor who arrived in Misrata three days ago on a humanitarian mission said 160 people, mostly civilians, were killed in fighting in the town over the last seven days. The doctor, who gave his name as Ramadan, said he had no official figures for the total death toll since the fighting started six weeks ago. “But every week between 100 or 140 people are reported killed – multiply this by six and our estimates are 600 to 1,000 deaths since the fighting started,” he said.
