Along with disagreeing statements that rebels who are trying to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi were escaping, a battle fumed around the Libyan cities of Misrata and Ajdabiya.

According to the New York Times and the Associated Press, mutineers in pickup trucks armed with machine guns were running away from Ajdabiya. Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya television networks, on the other hand, reported that the mutineers stopped Qaddafi’s troops at the western gate of the city.

In addition, Al-Jazeera reported that five people were dead while 47 were injured since yesterday in Misrata.
Misrata is Libya’s third-largest city and the main rebel-held city in the west.

The New York Times and Human Rights Watch accounted that Qaddafi’s forces discharged rockets and cluster bombs into residential areas.

Andrew Terrill said, “The rebels don’t have the logistics or organization to move forward with major objectives at this time,”

Terrill is a Middle East specialist at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

“Unless we see large scale surrender from Qaddafi loyalists, I don’t see too many cities changing hands. The rebels are getting stronger and Qaddafi is getting weaker; I don’t see the urgency of mounting an offensive,” Terrill explained further.

This after reported NATO air attacks on Qaddafi’s troops and supplies had gradually crippled his war machine.

A number of global leaders believe that Qaddafi’s forces can be ousted even without putting troops on the ground.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet, for one, stated in an interview with the Parisien newspaper that Qaddafi’s troops which are less than 10,000 men can be defeated with appropriate combination of air and ground combat.