right now. libyan rebels reportedly on the run and trying to regroup. our own connor powell is live on the phone with the very latest from outside in eastern libya. good morning to you. good morning. fairly dramatic change in the last few hours, we ve received word that civilians are being encouraged and beginning to leave the key rebel city. this as qaddafi has had a massive push eastward in the last 48 hours and has moved steadily towards these rebel stronghold cities. the key city because it s sort of the western flank of the rebel stronghold and it s also a large civilian population area and if the u.s. and coalition forces are trying to continue to protect civilians, they want to keep qaddafi s forces out of the city but as qaddafi forces begin to move closer and closer, civilians are beginning to flee and the rebels are beginning to be pushed back. this will be a real test of the
libya. i told them if they don t have some strong men in there, they ll get eaten alive in a libyan environment. we know the rebels retook a key city today. kwha is your assessment of the situation so far? this is a gateway city to the east. it is one that was vital when the opposition took that city to begin with before they were rolled back. it was what led many american policymakers to think that this was going be a situation in which gadhafi would be cornered and most of the country would be in opposition s hands. now, in a sail mate, we re beginning to see the sail mate break and this is huge and positive news for the opposition. now they need to begin looking at some of these other coastal cities and figuring out how to separate and disaggregate the gadhafi forces from the civilian population because they re in so
and again, there was not that barrage of anti-fire that we had heard earlier in the week. and in that other town we cover a lot these days, with it s also, by the way, on that list of towns gadhafi must pull back from. misrata received its first shipment of supplies in weeks, even though the city continues to be she would by gadhafi tanks and hit by snipers which were on a number of rooftops in the city. six people, including three dinner reportedly have been killed in the past 24 hours, at least according to rebel sources. there have been some nato air strike owes some gadhafi tanks around misrata, but that city is still up for grabs. meanwhile, gadhafi has not been seen here since wednesday, though he did release a statement late last night promoting all the military and police officers for their here rowism and bravery. now it probably was attached to which is how this regime
went right in this room. and the fighting isn t over. outside, we hear gunfire. gadhafi s troops are just a few blocks away. we see rebels running, advancing. firing behind a wall. there is fighting in the streets in ajdabiya. we take cover behind a bus as rebels try to push out gadhafi forces that still hold pockets of this city. it s hard to know where the bullets are coming from. the rebels reload, hide behind whatever wall they can find and push forward. the rebels remain highly motivated opinion our goal is to free this city and all of libya from tyranny. acid we leave acknowledge dabby,
in libya this morning, with the help of allied tanks bombing opposition tanks, rebels took over the city of ajda by-ya. now, despite this, the u.s. ambassador to libya has cautioned america is not directly backing the rebels. there are visions of what a future libya would look like and it has all the right elements in the in terms of human rights, in terms of women s rights, in terms of equal participation. it was really a very, very good document. so from what we know and what we ve seen over the past month, i think they re off to a good start. that is not to say that we know everything about them. we don t. good morning, steven.