Tanks for the memories

Rico says Kareem Fahim has an article in The New York Times about Benghazi:

The streets of Benghazi lurched between ecstasy and paranoia, a day after Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s tanks rolled through its streets, pounding neighborhoods with artillery and killing dozens of people, as families who fled the violence drove home defiantly, the bright bundles on top of their cars never unloaded. A butcher shop opened, and men lined up to fix their tires.
There was a party around smoldering tanks on the outskirts of town, a celebration of allied airstrikes on the colonel’s troops. On a road cleared of their enemies, rebel fighters charged south, vowing to recapture the government-held city of Ajdabiya.
But their stronghold seemed far from secure, and around 10 p.m., a firefight broke out in the heart of Benghazi. Men with guns crouched in the streets, firing on one another in front of a hotel filled with journalists. An anti-aircraft gun thundered at an unknown target in a nearby school. Cars sped through an intersection, their drivers dodging bullets. More than half an hour later, as the gunfire subsided, members of the hotel’s staff, wielding machine guns, said they had been attacked by Qaddafi loyalists. But nothing was clear.
The rebels, brimming with confidence after the West joined their war with Colonel Qaddafi, bragged of their changing fortunes. But, throughout Benghazi, at edgy checkpoints, the same rebels jumped at mere specters and real threats alike, fearful of a fifth column— a sleeper cell, they called it— bent on attacking them at home.
The seesawing was apparent in the hotel cafe, where twenty minutes after the gunfight, the staff cheered news of fresh airstrikes on Tripoli, the colonel’s military stronghold. Twenty minutes after that, there was more gunfire, and shouting in the streets.
Sunday started with warplanes, missiless and death. The attack seemed to have come out of the skies onto a field of wildflowers. Along a two-way road, with brutal efficiency, allied warplanes bombed tanks, missile launchers, and civilian cars, leaving a smoldering trail of wreckage that stretched for miles. The warplanes concentrated their fire on a field filled with daisies and military hardware about thirty miles south of Benghazi. It appeared to be a government staging area, possibly for an attack on Benghazi.
The airstrikes turned the area, the size of four football fields, into a macabre junkyard, with turrets blown off tanks and the roof of a small truck peeled back like a can. Someone laid out the charred bodies of soldiers removed from the vehicles for spectators. A man spit on the body of a soldier, while another begged the crowd to respect the dead men.
In another field, a tank, apparently struck by a missile, had leaked molten metal that dried in a silver pond behind it. Men hauled a body of a young soldier in worn black boots from the wreckage in a green blanket. Near another demolished tank there was a pile of fruit and German cigarettes.
“They stopped for bananas and apples,” said Abdulla Mustafa, who claimed the cigarettes were not readily available in local markets. “Like they were on vacation.”
The planes struck again and again: a tank carrier, a dump truck, a tanker, small cars, sport utility vehicles, and a bus. Closer to Benghazi, the tanks and missile carriers were blown to pieces as they faced the city. Farther south along the road, many of the tanks seemed to have been retreating, or at least facing the other way. And others were simply abandoned, left for the residents of Benghazi to stand on and pose for cellphone pictures.
For the rebels, the strikes were both an opportunity to be seized, and a fresh plan of attack. With dozens of government tanks silenced, they hoped to reclaim ground they had lost in a string of defeats in the past ten days. “What really hurt was the heavy equipment,” said Mustafa Gheriani, a rebel spokesman. “By the time they advanced, they were bombed.” He said a new field commander had been sent to the front to organize the ragtag army under better leadership. “They’re planning on marching to Surt and surrounding them,” Mr. Gheriani said, speaking of a Qaddafi stronghold west of Ajdabiya. “I think they will continue to Tripoli. These guys are determined. There were a lot of people leaving today.” He acknowledged that Benghazi was vulnerable, saying men belonging to “sleeper cells” had formed part of the attack. “They put up a heck of a fight,” he said. “We hope if there’s anyone else left that we didn’t catch, they will be smart and put their weapons down.”
In Ajdabiya, the government’s guns still roared. Tanks patrolled the northern entrance to the city, lobbing shells at groups of fighters who gathered about six miles away, near a bend in the road. The rebels’ weaknesses were readily apparent. With each new shelling, many fighters jumped in their cars and raced north, toward Benghazi. Few professional soldiers were among them, just skittish volunteers more enthusiastic than battle-savvy. By evening, more cars were racing toward the battle than away from it, cars filled with men who said they heard Ajdabiya had already fallen.
They were not deterred by the news that it had not, and said they would attack in the dark. Their inexperience seemed to matter little: now, other armies were doing the hard work for them. “We’re waiting for the airstrikes,” said Khaled Soghayer, who idled his truck, with a heavy machine gun in the back, far from the battlefront.
“We’ll head through Ajdabiya today,” said Murajah Othman, who drove toward that city in a truck full of armed men. “Tonight we’ll sleep in Brega, and tomorrow, in Ras Lanuf,” he said referring to a town east of Ajdabiya, along the road to Tripoli.