Search continues for deposed despot

Tripoli: Revolutionary forces in Libya continued to skirmish around the towns of Bani Walid and Sirte on Saturday night, where isolated forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi are refusing to surrender. But the country's new rulers have their eyes on a bigger and more significant prize.

Some 650 kilometres to the south, the fighters, Predator drones and Western special forces need to seize the city of Sabha, secure the desert and find their most elusive quarry: Gaddafi.

This battle will begin as early as this week. Somewhere near Sabha lurk the remnants of the Gaddafi family, protected by loyalist soldiers, fellow tribesmen, Tawareq nomads and hired men from neighbouring states for whom Saharan borders matter less than networks of patronage and trade, including the trade in war. "Our eyes on the ground know where he is," said General Ahmad Hisnawi, head of the southern command.

‘We will catch him'

"He has three to four thousand people around him. We will catch him."

Commanders believe the ousted Libyan leader is moving around within a 65-square kilometre patch of territory nearby. His most important surviving sons, Saif Al Islam and Mutassim, may be with or close to him.

The search centres on Sabha, a city of 200,000 people where the routes to Algeria, Niger and Chad meet. As members of the fighters' Sabha Brigade set out from Tripoli at the weekend, residents, some still inside the city and others who have fled but are in contact, gave an insight into what they will find if and when they arrive. "Green flags fly on top of police stations, and snipers are in position," said Alamin Abolmaji.

Gangs of mercenaries roamed the streets, said another resident. Supplies are low and there has already been looting, but that has done nothing to weaken the determination of the Gaddafi forces and the many loyalist citizens who are holding out against Libya's new government.

Tribe

Sabha is the main base of the leader's tribe, the Gadadfa. It was a key link in his incipient nuclear weapons programme, with military bunkers built here according to a 2004 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The nearby Sebao Oasis was used as a rocket testing ground. "Sabha is the most armed city in Libya," General Hisnawi said.

The city is already tense. "At night they cut off the electricity, and gangs of mercenaries roam the streets," said one resident. He said some locals were anti-Gaddafi, but they were surrounded. "Gaddafi forces control the eastern and western exits, and have set up Grad rockets pointing to the centre of the city where many of the rebels are."

There have already been street skirmishes, three rebels dying in a shoot-out on Wednesday. Non-combatants cower at home or venture out for decreasing supplies.