By Karin Laub
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ZAWIYAH, Libya: The day Libyan rebels advanced into the strategic city of Zawiyah, Moammar Gadhafi’s forces clamped down on the local hospital.
They forced doctors to perform hours of consecutive surgeries, put snipers on the roof and an anti-aircraft gun near the entrance, two doctors who managed to escape said Tuesday.
As the Libyan regime’s grip on this coastal city of 200,000 is slipping, stories are seeping out about the reign of fear and intimidation imposed here over the past five months.

Residents interviewed in rebel-controlled parts of Zawiyah gave accounts of mass arrests in the preceding months. A woman said her son-in-law and two of his relatives had been arrested and killed by Gadhafi agents. A rebel fighter said he was subjected to beatings and electric shocks.
Zawiyah had risen up forcefully against Gadhafi when anti-regime protests swept the country in mid-February, but was reoccupied in a brutal crackdown in mid-March.

Rebels pushed into the city Saturday, but after four days of fighting Gadhafi’s soldiers still controlled about 30 percent of the city, including the hospital and a bank building, said a rebel spokesman, Col. Jumma Ibrahim.
Dr. Hamid al-Shawish, a 30-year-old surgeon, said the regime had clamped down hard on Zawiyah since March, arresting anyone suspected of sympathizing with the rebels. At least 20 doctors and nurses were seized from the hospital, and some remain missing.

He and a colleague, gynecologist Mohammad al-Kum, said that the regime’s forces were a constant presence in the hospital, replacing the director with one of their own and ordering medical staff around.
There was an influx Saturday morning of dead and wounded regime soldiers, and civilian patients were ordered to leave the hospital to make room, the two doctors said. Troops closed down the pediatrics and gynecology wards, among others.

The bodies of at least 30 Gadhafi soldiers were brought in that day, along with some 150 wounded, said Shawish, who was in charge of the emergency room. Rebels often allege that most of Gadhafi’s troops are African mercenaries, but Shawish said there were many Libyans among the wounded soldiers.
The soldiers ordered doctors and nurses to stay on their jobs, according to Shawish, who said he performed 15 operations between 11 a.m. Saturday and 3 a.m. Sunday. He said three more surgeons worked on other floors.

Shawish said that while he was working, armed soldiers wandered in an out of the emergency room. “Anyone who was not operating was told to operate,” said Shawish, but added that he did not have guns pointed at him.
Gadhafi’s men posted snipers on the roof and an anti-aircraft gun in a yard, right outside the window of the emergency room, the doctor said. Gadhafi’s forces fired randomly at nearby houses, but he did not hear incoming rebel fire, he said.

Kum and Shawish sneaked out Sunday. Since their escape, the two doctors have been working at a clinic in Bir Moammar, a rebel-controlled village about 8 kilometers south of Zawiyah.
Anger against the regime runs deep in Zawiyah, where residents said regime supporters supplied Gadhafi soldiers with lists of suspected rebel sympathizers to arrest.

Abdel-Moez Ramadan, a 20-year-old fighter, said he was imprisoned for three months, suffering beatings and electric shocks during the first 20 days. He said his interrogators demanded that he chant slogans in praise of Gadhafi.

After his release, he fled to the rebels’ mountain stronghold and joined the fight to free Zawiyah, he said. “I want to take revenge for my country,” he added.

Jamila, a 48-year-old housewife, said her son-in-law, along with two of his relatives, was arrested and killed by Gadhafi agents in June. Her 22-year-old son was detained for nine days because he had cell-phone footage of anti-Gadhafi protests, added Jamila, who did not want to give her last name for fear of retribution.
With fighting continuing in the city, it was impossible to verify these and other accounts independently.

A 15-year-old boy in Jamila’s extended family said that during the past five months, he and his classmates were frequently ordered to participate in pro-Gadhafi marches. He said he could not stay away, noting that he knew of others his age who had been arrested, but that in a small show of defiance, he did not join the chanting.
When the hundreds of rebel fighters entered Zawiyah Saturday, the boy said he painted his lower left arm in green, red and black, the rebel colors, and waved at them, because he did not have a cloth flag.

The rebel push came from the south, part of a three-week-old offensive launched from their stronghold in Libya’s western mountains dozens of miles inland. With that advance, the rebels made some of their most significant territorial gains in the civil war and are now just 50 kilometers west of Gadhafi’s stronghold, the capital of Tripoli. Rebel commanders have said they hope to take Tripoli by the end of the month.

Regime soldiers have been pounding Zawiyah with Grad rockets, mortars and artillery shells, sending many civilians fleeing south toward the safety of the mountain range. Fifteen people were killed in an artillery strike Monday.

In a turning of the tables, rebels have begun hunting down Gadhafi sympathizers in Zawiyah. Khaled al-Azzawi, a 37-year-old teacher, sat Monday at a desk on a sidewalk along the main road into the city from the south, compiling lists of names of regime supporters provided by city residents. Azzawi said some 40 on a list of about 300 had already been arrested.
Several suspects were caught Tuesday and taken to a building next to the Bir Moammar clinic.