Battle rages as loyalists mount rearguard action

Tripoli: Street battles are continuing to rage in parts of Tripoli after Muammar Gaddafi vowed to fight to the death and his supporters fought a rearguard campaign using snipers, mortars and rockets in a last attempt to stop revolutionary forces consolidating their grip on the Libyan capital.

A day after the fighters had celebrated their capture of the regime's stronghold at Bab Al Aziziya, the compound came under heavy fire from the pro-Gaddafi area of Abu Salim and the woods around the city zoo, which fighters said were "infested" with snipers. Green flags, the symbol of the ousted regime, and pro-Gaddafi gunmen could still be seen in front of a large building on the edge of the woods once used by Saif Al Islam, one of Gaddafi's sons, to receive guests. Gaddafi loyalists, who the revolutionaries said were mostly Arab mercenaries, also fired on the road leading to Tripoli airport. Opposition said 400 people had been killed and 2,000 injured in the battle for Tripoli so far.

Beyond the capital, opposition columns closed in on the coastal city of Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace, where loyalist troops fired Scud missiles at the opposition-held town of Misrata.

Desperate last stand

It was unclear whether the fighting was a desperate last stand or the start of a guerrilla campaign by a "stay-behind" force, modelled on the tactics Saddam Hussain and his top lieutenants used in Iraq in 2003.

A pro-Gaddafi radio station broadcast statements by the deposed leader claiming he had "discreetly" toured the capital and "did not feel that Tripoli was in danger".

But in a fresh blow to Gaddafi, the deputy director of foreign security in the Libyan intelligence service, General Khalifa Mohammad Ali, and health minister Mohammad Hijazi, declared their allegiance to rebel forces in interviews aired on Al Arabiya TV. They are among a growing number of Libyan officials who have switched sides since rebels gained the upper hand.

"I put myself in the service of the nation and call on generals and soldiers who are the sons of Libya to join the 17th February revolution," Ali said in the interview with the Dubai-based satellite channel.

Meanwhile, fighters tried to move into the Abu Salim area, but were kept at bay by heavy sniper and mortar fire from the woods and from high buildings in the district.

Around 35 journalists and diplomats have been freed from the Rixos hotel on the edge of Abu Salim, where they had been held for five days by pro-Gaddafi gunmen. Their release was negotiated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, who ferried the journalists to another hotel elsewhere in the city.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd