( GORAN TOMASEVIC / REUTERS ) - A rebel fighter looks at burning vehicles belonging to forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi after an air strike by coalition forces, along a road between Benghazi and Ajdabiyah.
TIKAH, Libya — Twenty miles outside Benghazi, the wreckage of Moammar Gaddafi’s army dots the land.
There are crushed tanks, their turrets pulled apart. A few feet away, amid the smoldering debris of war, nine bodies lay on a field of flowers, the faces blackened and the eyes hollowed. The smell of burning rubber melded with the stench of rotting flesh.
Allied warplanes fired missiles here early Sunday, witnesses said, and by dawn, the idyllic countryside was an apocalyptic landscape. The airstrikes, led by France, carved a trail of devastation that stretched more than 15 miles along the highway to Ajdabiya, another city under siege by forces loyal to Gaddafi.
The destruction brought a new hope to Libyan rebels seeking to end Gaddafi’s 41-year-long rule. Less than 24 hours earlier, they were on their heels as Gaddafi’s tanks and trucks pushed into Benghazi, the cradle of Libya’s month-old rebellion, raining a barrage of artillery and rockets that transformed the city of 1 million people into a lifeless shadow of itself.
A spokesman for the rebels told the television network al-Jazeera on Sunday that more than 8,000 Libyans who had joined their movement had been killed in the revolt. There was anger among residents and rebel fighters at what they called the international community’s slowness in authorizing a no-fly zone and other measures to stop the growing tide of civilian casualties.
But after the missiles landed, such sentiments evaporated.
“The French planes did this,” yelled Walid Abdsalam Houas, a 25-year-old fighter who waved his Kalashnikov in triumph. “I feel so good. This is the best feeling I have had in a long time.”
The airstrikes in the early hours of Sunday were the first evidence of the military intervention by the United States and its European allies in this part of eastern Libya. The assault on Gaddafi’s ground forces is expected to have delivered a significant blow to his ambitions of retaking Benghazi and perhaps laying siege to other cities.
“We hope this will help us liberate our brothers in Misurata and Zawiyah,” said Adam al-Libi, 29, a rebel fighter, referring to two other cities under siege by Gaddafi’s forces. There were reports Sunday that government tanks had entered Misurata, another sign of Gaddafi’s defiance of the West.
Along the highway, eight tanks and a similar number of armored personnel carriers were reduced to mangled clumps of searing-hot metal. Russian Grad missile launchers, pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, amphibious armored vehicles and tank transport carriers also were destroyed, their carcasses littering the sides of the road.
The amount of heavy weaponry Gaddafi had massed along the highway suggested that his forces were preparing for a major siege of Benghazi. Less than five miles from Benghazi, Gaddafi loyalists had scrawled on a wall: “We are here to fight the rats,” a reference to Gaddafi’s labeling of the rebels as “rodents.”
Although rebel fighters had repelled the Saturday attack inside the city and pushed the loyalists out, many residents expected Gaddafi’s forces to reenter their neighborhoods Sunday. Most stores remained shut, and traffic was thin for much of the day.
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