Gaddafi's forces tried in vain to retake part of the lost country in the East

Before his speech Gaddafi arrived in a golf cart at the head of his motorcade. (Reuters).


Rebel forces have fought off an attempt by soldiers loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi to retake the eastern oil town of Brega. Gaddafi forces had moved into eastern areas for the first time since towns there fell to protesters two weeks ago.
Located between Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte - still under government control - and the opposition-held eastern port of Benghazi, Brega also sits near ethnic fault lines between tribes loyal to Gaddafi and eastern groups opposed to him.Medical sources in Brega told BBC Arabic that 14 people had been killed in the fighting.

An airforce plane had earlier tried to bomb the vast weapons dump on the outskirt of Ajdabiya 50km (30 miles) from Brega. Many people in Ajdabiya probably assumed at that point that Col Gaddafi's forces were on their way and that there was little between them and the rebel capital Benghazi 100 miles away. But volunteers came pouring in from Benghazi and Ajdabiya.The bombing of Brega and reports about the fall of Gharyan and Sabratha towns in the country's northwest to pro-Gaddafi forces came as Gaddafi appeared on state television once again.
 In his speech broadcast on Libyan TV in a large hall in Tripoli, Col Gaddafi warned against any foreign intervention.He said the UN had passed resolutions condemning Libya based on "false reports" and he challenged the UN to investigate. 'We urge the world, the United Nations, to see where the people were killed, to send a fact-finding team.' He condemned those countries that had frozen Libyan assets, saying: 'The assets are the assets of the Libyan nation...' Col Gaddafi spoke as a crowd of supporters and officials chanted the slogan: 'God, Muammar and Libya.'