MISRATA: Libyan rebels beat off a new assault by Muammar Gaddafi's forces on the besieged western city of Misrata Saturday, losing eight of their fighters in fierce street battles. As fighting raged on for the coastal town, where conditions are said to be desperate, a buoyant Muammar Gaddafi made his first television appearance for five days and his troops engaged rebels in more fighting on the eastern front of the civil war. Rebel spokesman Mustafa Abdulrahman told Reuters by telephone that Saturday's fighting centered on the Nakl Al-Theqeel road to Misrata port, where a Red Cross vessel brought in badly-needed medical supplies earlier in the day. Abdulrahman praised what he called a positive change from NATO, saying its aircraft carried out several airstrikes on Gaddafi's besieging forces. Rebels have complained for days that NATO is too slow to respond to government attacks. A Reuters correspondent on a government organized trip to Misrata described deserted streets in the city's south and said many buildings had been heavily shelled. NATO warplanes struck one government position on Tripoli road, a main artery that cuts through to the city center, two sites on the coastal road and another near the western gate to the city, which lies about 200 km east of Tripoli, Abdulrahman said. A government official in southern Misrata said a NATO strike hit the outskirts. A plume of black smoke and a warplane was sweeping across the sky. The city, the lone major rebel outpost in the west of Libya, has been under siege by Gaddafi's forces for weeks. Five rebels were killed in another government assault on Friday. Rebels say people are crammed five families to a house in the few safe districts to escape weeks of sniper, mortar and rocket fire. There are severe shortages of food, water and medical supplies and hospitals are overflowing. Misrata, Libya's third largest city, rose up with other towns against Gaddafi in mid-February after a security crackdown snuffed out most peaceful protests in the west. In Tripoli, Gaddafi smiled and pumped his fists in the air when he received an ecstatic welcome at a school, where women ululated and pupils chanted anti-Western slogans. One woman wept with emotion as he passed.Gaddafi, wearing his trademark brown robes and dark glasses, was last seen on television on April 4. He looked confident and relaxed, confirming the impression among analysts that his administration has emerged from a period of paralysis and is hunkering down for a long campaign. Inconclusive see-saw battles have been fought along the desert road between Brega and Ajdabiyah for over a week after Gaddafi's military pushed back a rebel advance in the east, the war's only active front. Western generals are increasingly pessimistic that the military stalemate can be broken despite NATO air attacks on Gaddafi's armor. On the eastern front, Gaddafi's forces shelled the western outskirts of Ajdabiyah, launch point for rebel attacks towards the Mediterranean oil port of Brega. On the eastern front, rebels had said they had intended to take Brega and some had penetrated the outskirts. But their assault seemed to have petered out by nightfall, following a familiar pattern.
