Libyan rebels wounded in firefight

A file photo of armed Libyan rebels standinjg next to coffins in Benghazi on June 10, 2011.NEW: A government spokesman reiterated Gadhafi's call for vengeanceNEW: Moussa Ibrahim claims rebel fighters "have no popular support"11 rebels wounded in exchange of fire at frontlineThe rebel-held city of Misrata and the embattled city of Dafniya were attacked Saturday

Dafniya, Libya (CNN) -- Libyan rebels and troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi shelled each other for hours on Saturday in clashes at the highly contested frontline of Dafniya, an embattled town just west of the besieged port city of Misrata.

At least 11 rebels were wounded in the exchange of fire and treated at one of the two field hospitals in what has been the most active day in Dafniya this week, according to a CNN team.

Heavy government shelling on Misrata and Dafniya began shortly after Gadhafi rallied his supporters in an audio message on state TV and threatened to take the fighting to Europe in retaliation for NATO's bombing campaign.

"As soon as Gadhafi's speech ended, they started shelling Dafniya and around midnight there was a salvo of about eight rockets inside Misrata itself, and it continues on the front this morning," said CNN's Ben Wedeman, who was in Misrata Saturday.

Gadhafi has vowed vengeance for NATO bombings in Libya. He said the Libyan military could be "like locusts, like bees" in Europe, potentially targeting homes and offices.

"You are mistaken, you are involved in a battle that you don't know what you are going to face, so withdraw and run away," Gadhafi told a pro-government gathering in Tripoli. "Our people is able in one day to move the battle to the Mediterranean, and able to move the battle to Europe."

Gadhafi referred to NATO, which began bombing military targets in Libya after the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution in March authorizing force by whatever means necessary -- with the exception of a ground invasion -- to protect civilians.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim on Saturday reiterated Gadhafi's call for vengeance.

NATO's "aggression is killing our children (and) Europe will have to face the consequences," he said. "You will have people attacking Europe, joining terrorist organizations against Europe, and building a culture that makes legitimate all violence against Europe."

Ibrahim claimed rebel fighters "have no popular support."

"The rebels have no future," he added. "They know it and they are terrified."

On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the NATO mission in Libya is on track, with pressure on Gadhafi mounting and the rebel forces growing stronger.

"We need to see this through, and we are in complete agreement that we will," she said alongside the Spanish foreign minister in Madrid Saturday.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the United States was taking seriously the Libyan leader's remarks. "Certainly this is an individual who's obviously capable of carrying out these kinds of threats," he told reporters. "It's what makes him so dangerous. But he's also someone who's given to overblown rhetoric."

He said the United States would continue to support NATO's mission of increasing pressure on Gadhafi to step aside.

The French government was in talks with Libyan rebels about supplying them with weapons and ammunition, a Libyan opposition military spokesman in Misrata said Thursday.

The French government has not confirmed the claim, which follows an acknowledgment earlier this week that its military has previously dropped light weaponry to rebels elsewhere.

CNN's Ben Wedeman and David McKenzie contributed to this report.

CNN

One battle: Firefight on Hells Gate Drive

The firefight on Hells Gate Drive -- one battle in a blazing war By Ed Lavandera, CNN STORY HIGHLIGHTSLone Camp firefighters face off against a roaring wall of flamesTheir mission is to keep the fire from jumping Highway 16With backfires, plows and air drops, the battle goes on for hours Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas (CNN) -- Sweating and exhausted, the volunteer firefighter stared at the mountain ridge from Hells Gate Drive and knew a wave of furious flames was just minutes away.

Through a wall of thick gray smoke, Bozo Henderson could see the bright red flames shooting out from the tree tops. A sight that makes him say to anyone close enough to hear, "It's about to get real ugly around here."

Henderson relishes the fight as much as he enjoys telling people about his name. "People been calling me Bozo since I was a little kid, nobody knows me by any other name," Henderson told CNN as he prepared for a late afternoon firefight on the southern edge of Possum Kingdom Lake. It's the site of one of the biggest fires raging in Texas, where blazes in the past week have scorched about a million acres of land.

CNN on Tuesday afternoon witnessed one of the many dramatic battles that are unfolding every hour as thousands of firefighters try to get what's being called the Possum Kingdom Complex fire under control.

The "PK Complex" is actually made up of roughly five large wildfires close to each other and constantly threatening to merge into one massive super fire. As of Wednesday morning it had burned more than 147,000 acres, the Texas Forest Service said. It has burned more than 100 homes and is threatening 600 more.

Henderson is one several volunteers from the Lone Camp Fire Department in Palo Pinto. For days, this firefighting crew has jumped from hotspot to hotspot. The mission right now is to keep one part of the fire complex from coming down the mountainside and merging into a larger fire across Highway 16.

"If it jumps Highway 16, I don't know what's going to happen," Henderson says. "It's hard to stop. The ground is all dry, there's no moisture anywhere. There's nothing slowing it down."

As flames top the mountain ridge, Lone Camp Assistant Fire Chief Brandon Thornburg gets his crews moving. They call in heavy plows to move several thousand yards of dry brush out of the fire's path. The dry grass is made-to-order fuel for the swelling blaze.

"The flames are just racing," Thornburg says. "The one down below is coming our way."

A call for help comes in over the radio. "We gotta get to a safety zone!" blares the voice over the fire truck's radio. "Can I have an engine here at this house?"

With that call Henderson and his partner, Ted Hale, jump into their truck and speed to a point down the road.

"With the winds they're calling for it's going to be rough," Thornburg says as we watch the flames roll closer. "It's going to get extremely hot."

He says the flames are now leaping up to 100 feet over the treetops and temperatures inside the fiercest spot of the wildfire probably reach "well in excess of 3,000 degrees."

The fire has now come down the mountain and is up against Hells Gate Drive and Highway 16. Several dozen firefighters are setting "back fires" to help slow down the attacking flames.

Through the smoky haze a military aircraft drops down, low to the ground, spraying a long line of a rust-colored fire suppressant.

The fight goes on for hours. In the end, the firefighters manage to hold back the flames. The fire doesn't jump across Highway 16 and Hells Gate Drive. But the efforts take a toll on the crews.

"It's been bad. Everybody has been out here 24 hours the past week and a half. Everybody is tired," Henderson says.

This battle is won. But the fire war continues. With no time to rest, the firefighting crew from Lone Camp is off to the next hotspot.

Henderson laughs and says, "It looks like we're running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We get into certain areas, we do our thing and then something breaks out and we have to go do it again."

Hale says volunteer firefighters take these efforts to stop a wall of fire personally. At the end of a long day, he looks back at the battle won on Hells Gate Drive and concedes, "It's one of the few we actually won today."

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