MISRATA, Libya: Government tanks launched an assault Friday on Misrata, rebels said, as NATO reported its warships had stopped Muammar Gaddafi's forces from laying mines in the besieged city's harbor. Fierce fighting which had raged for days for control of Libya's Dehiba border crossing into Tunisia, meanwhile, hit a lull on Friday, with the rebels firmly in control, witnesses said. “Four tanks attacked the city and one has been destroyed so far,” said Ibrahim Ahmed Boushagha, a rebel fighter who accompanied a wounded man back from the front in Misrata. “They took up positions during the night on the airport road, and tried to enter the city. We've stopped them at the outer limits, at least for now.” He said his group had come under mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire, and three or four of them were wounded. Journalists reported whistling sounds followed by a volley of detonations from the direction of the airport in the early afternoon, with an enormous plume of grey smoke rising over the area. Western Misrata also came under seemingly indiscriminate mortar and rocket fire on Friday as a NATO warplane flew overhead, witnesses and medics said. Gaddafi's forces were pushed back from Misrata by the rebels and a series of NATO air strikes on Monday but had remained within rocket range of the city. The rebels said earlier in the week they had secured the port and that their next objective was to seize control of the airport from government troops. “Attack is the best form of defense,” said Ibrahim Bet-Almal, who heads the rebel military forces in the area. “Gaddafi is sending reinforcements to the region every day,” he added. British Brigadier Rob Weighill, director of NATO operations in Libya, said NATO warships stopped pro-Gaddafi forces on Friday from laying water mines in Misrata's harbor. “Our ships intercepted the small boats that were laying them and we are disposing the mines that we found,” Weighill told reporters via videoconference from his headquarters in Naples, Italy. In western Libya, the situation at the Dehiba post was calm Friday following a day of heavy fighting, witnesses said, adding that government troops appeared to have retreated into Tunisia
