Tripoli: Libyan forces converged on Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte on Monday, hoping to seal their revolution by seizing the last bastions of a fallen, but perhaps still dangerous strongman.
Gaddafi's whereabouts have been unknown since Tripoli fell to his foes and his 42-year-old rule collapsed a week ago. Residents in the capital, hit by shortages of food, fuel and water, ventured out to shop ahead of the Eid Al Fitr after the fasting month of Ramadan.
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"Thank God this Eid has a special flavour. This Eid we have freedom," said Adel Kashad, 47, an oil firm computer specialist who was at a vegetable market. "Libya has a new dawn."
Sporadic gunfire still echoed across Tripoli as residents tried to pick up their lives amid the stink of burning rubbish.
Rejoicing at Gaddafi's fall is not universal. "You media don't tell the truth, you're all traitors, spies," shouted an enraged taxi driver in a loyalist district, not caring that revolutionaries were nearby.
Gaddafi strongholds in Sirte and some towns deep in the southern desert remain a challenge for Libya's new rulers, who have vowed to take them by force, if negotiations fail.
Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), asked Nato to pursue its five-month-old air campaign, which has given essential firepower to ragtag revolutionaries who rose against Gaddafi in February.
"I call for continued protection from Nato and its allies from this tyrant," he said in Qatar, "He is still a threat, not just for Libyans but for the entire world."
Abdul Jalil was speaking at a meeting of defence ministers from countries that have supported the anti-Gaddafi movement. A Nato commander pledged to pursue the alliance's mission, at least until its internal mandate expires on September 27.
"We believe the Gaddafi regime is near collapse, and we're committed to seeing the operation through to its conclusion," US Admiral Samuel Locklear, who heads Nato's Joint Operations Command, told a news conference in the Qatari capital Doha.
Decisive operation
"Pockets of pro-Gaddafi forces are being reduced day by day. The regime no longer has the capacity to mount a decisive operation," he said, adding that Nato air raids had destroyed 5,000 military targets in Libya. Whether or not Gaddafi makes a last stand in Sirte, the city is a strategic and symbolic prize for Libya's new rulers as they tighten their grip on the vast North African country.
The NTC has offered a $1.3 million (Dh4.44 million) reward and amnesty from prosecution for anyone who kills or captures Gaddafi.
Its forces have advanced towards Sirte from east and west, even as contacts continue for its surrender.
Jamal Tunally, a commander in Misrata told Reuters: "The front line is 30km from Sirte. We think the Sirte situation will be resolved peacefully, God willing."
"Now we just need to find Gaddafi. I think he is still hiding beneath Bab Al Aziziya like a rat," he said, referring to Gaddafi's Tripoli compound, which was overrun last Tuesday.
On the coastal highway east of Tripoli, transporters carried Soviet-designed T-55 tanks towards Sirte. Fighters said they had seized the tanks from an abandoned base in Zlitan.
Loyalist force
Libyan forces advancing from the east pushed 7km past the village of Bin Jawad and secured the Nawfaliya junction, a spokesman said. "We're going slowly," Mohammad Zawawi added
"We want to give more time for negotiations, to give a chance for those people trying to persuade the people inside Sirte to surrender and open their city."
Mindful of preserving their image to the world and stung by accounts that captured Gaddafi loyalists have been found dead with their hands tied behind their backs, NTC leaders urged followers not to abuse prisoners.
"Remember when you arrest any follower of Gaddafi that he is like you, that he has dignity like you, that his dignity is your own dignity, and that it is enough humiliation for him that he is already a prisoner," it said.
NTC military spokesman Colonel Ahmad Bani has said around 40,000 people detained by Gaddafi forces remain missing, saying some might still be held in underground bunkers in Tripoli.
The Khamis Brigade, a military unit commanded by and named after one of Gaddafi's sons, appears to have killed dozens of detainees in a warehouse in a neighbourhood adjoining the Yarmouk military base south of Tripoli last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
Three days later the warehouse, used as a makeshift prison, was set on fire but the cause was unknown. HRW said it had seen the charred skeletal remains of about 45 smouldering bodies on Saturday. At least two more corpses lay outside unburned.
