Libyans fleeing Tripoli ahead of rebel assault

Several news agencies are reporting lines of civilian cars fleeing from Tripoli for the Tunisian border, while rebel forces are massing in Zawiya to assault the Libyan capital.

The exodus from Tripoli began in full once the rebels gained control of the strategic oil town of Zawiya 30 miles from Tripoli. 

Yesterday, news sources confirmed the rebels gained controlled of the important Zawiya refinery after repelling a bloody counter-assault by Gaddafi forces.  Today the civilian exodus, fearing a bloody assault on Tripoli, has increased from the city of approximately two million.

Inside Tripoli, Reuters' reported that the airport is still controlled by Gaddafi forces and there are no signs of rebels in the city yet.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reported the third defection of a senior member of Muammar Gaddafi's regime within days.

According to Tunisia's official news agency Abdel-Salam Jalloud – who helped propel Gaddafi to power in 1969 but had more recently fallen out with him – flew out of Djerba airport early yesterday.

Rebels claimed Jalloud defected. Jalloud's defection follows the reported defection earlier this week of oil minister Omrane Boukraa and senior security official Nasser al-Mabrouk Abdullah, who fled to Cairo from Tunisia on Monday with his family.

To the immediate east of Tripoli, in Zliten, a town formerly loyal to Gaddafi which was captured on Friday, rebels continued with street-to-street searches. The rebels have also claimed the final capture of Brega, a town that has changed hands at least three times.

In Zawiya, Gaddafi's forces were reported as cleared from most of the town, but still holding out in an eastern suburb along the main highway to the capital and artillery is still being launched at the rebels from this area, demonstrating the threat still posed by the regime who have available to them both modern tanks and missile launchers.