Some good news for Cameron?

In the midst of the fall-out from the phone hacking scandal comes some positive news for David Cameron: it appears that the Libyan rebels have won control of Brega, as most pro-Gaddafi troops retreated westward leaving around 150-200 loyalist fighters pinned down inside the town.

If true, this is an important step towards the end of the Gaddafi regime: control of the oil-rich town is decisive for the Transitional National Council in Benghazi. It gives the rebels control over Libya’s eastern oil network, with access to more than 2m barrels of stored crude. And as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel said after his 1942 defeat at the hands of the British, “Neither guns nor ammunition are of much use in mobile warfare unless there are vehicles with sufficient petrol to haul them around.”

But Brega is also important tactically. The city is said to be the second-best defended area after Tripoli, with key Gadaffi loyalists and top-tier soldiers deployed to stop the rebel advance.