Shishan: Revolutionaries advanced on one of Muammar Gaddafi's last remaining bastions on Sunday, as Libya's new leaders called for the ousted strongman to stand trial in his homeland when captured.
A commander of the fighters said talks aimed at securing the peaceful surrender of Gaddafi's forces in Bani Walid had been abandoned and an assault on the oasis town southeast of Tripoli was imminent.
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"We are getting ready," said Mohammad Al Fassi, checkpoint commander in the village of Shishan, 70km north of Bani Walid.
"Negotiations between Gaddafi's men and our forces have ended. These people aren't serious. Twice they promised to surrender only to go back on their word," he said.
A local spokesman for the National Transitional Council (NTC) now governing Libya said the frontline stood 15 to 20km north of Bani Walid and that troops were poised for an advance.
"We are waiting for orders to go into the city," Mahmoud Abdul Aziz said.
"Last night the Gaddafi forces tried to move out. Our fighters responded and there were some clashes lasting a few minutes."
The new government's interim interior minister Ahmad Darrat told AFP he was confident the town's capture was imminent. "We expect Bani Walid to be freed today [Sunday] or tomorrow," he said.
The deputy chief of the military council in the town of Tarhuna, north of Bani Walid, said a last round of talks would be held with tribal leaders to try to secure the peaceful entry of the new government's troops.
"We are waiting for them," Abdul Razzak Naduri told AFP
"Everything depends on the negotiations. If they refuse [to surrender], we will advance, If the negotiations go well, we will enter and hoist the flag without a fight. It's the last chance, we can't extend our ultimatum again."
On Saturday, Naduri said Gaddafi's son Saadi was still in Bani Walid, along with other senior figures of the fallen regime, while prominent son Seif Al Islam had fled the town.
Preparations for the offensive appeared to be well underway even though NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil said in Benghazi on Saturday that a truce declared until September 10 remained in force.
"We are in a position of strength to enter any city but we want to avoid any bloodshed, especially in sensitive areas such as tribal areas," he said, but deployments would continue during the ceasefire.
Civilians who managed to flee Bani Walid said that most of Gaddafi's forces had now fled taking their heavy weaponry with them into the surrounding mountains.
Nato said its warplanes had hit an ammunition storage facility near Bani Walid on Saturday.
Alliance aircraft also hit a barracks, a military police camp and 11 other targets in Gaddafi's hometown Sirte on the Mediterranean coast and carried out bombing raids on two other towns that remain in the hands of Gaddafi forces — Buwayrat west of Sirte and Hun in the Al Jufra oasis.
Disarm tribals
NTC forces east of Sirte moved to disarm members of the Hussnia tribe suspected of loyalty to the ousted strongman, an AFP correspondent reported.
The NTC spokesman in London Guma Al Gamaty said that when captured, Gaddafi should stand trial in Libya, not before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague that has issued an arrest warrant for suspected crimes against humanity committed during the Libyan uprising.
"The ICC will only put Gaddafi on trial for crimes committed over the last six months," Gamaty told the BBC.
