TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libyan forces closed in on Muammar Gaddafi's home town on Sunday, saying they would seize it by force if negotiations for its surrender failed.
Libya's new rulers, trying to establish control over all the country, set their sights on the coastal city of Sirte --Gaddafi's birthplace -- and two other towns controlled by his supporters, Sabha in the southwest and Jufrah in the southeast.
One commander said his forces were within 100 km (60 miles) of Sirte from the east and others were advancing from the west.
"We will continue negotiations as long as necessary. However, the liberation of these cities will take place sooner or later," said the military spokesman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) in the eastern city of Benghazi.
"In our opinion this is a matter of days," Colonel Ahmed Bani said.
In Tripoli, the stench of rotting bodies and burning garbage still hung over the city, overrun by anti-Gaddafi forces last week. Many corpses have turned up, some of slain Gaddafi soldiers, others the victims of killings in cold blood.
A Libyan official said 75 bodies had been found at the Abu Salim hospital, which was caught up in heavy fighting, and another 35 corpses were found at the Yurmuk hospital.
The NTC and the Western powers that backed rebel forces with a five-month bombing campaign are acutely aware of the need to prevent Libya collapsing into the kind of chaos that plagued Iraq for years after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
The NTC, whose leaders plan to move to Tripoli from Benghazi this week, is trying to impose security, restore basic services and revive the oil- and gas-based economy.
GOOD OMENS
In good omens for economic recovery, officials announced that a vital gas export pipeline to Europe had been repaired and that Libya's biggest refinery had survived the war intact.
In the far west, Tunisian authorities reopened the main border crossing into Libya, restoring a key supply route for Tripoli, after Gaddafi forces were driven out on Friday.
That should help relieve a looming humanitarian crisis in the city, where food, drinking water and medicines are scarce.
Trucks loaded with food and other goods were already moving across the Ras Jdir crossing toward Tripoli, about two hours' drive away. A U.N. official said aid would be sent along the route once it was confirmed to be secure.
The streets of the capital were quiet after sporadic overnight gunfire and explosions in a city traumatized by emerging evidence of widespread summary killings that took place during last week's battles to expel Gaddafi.
Some residents ventured out to hunt for water, food and fuel. And in Martyrs' Square, known as Green Square in the Gaddafi era, traffic police reappeared in crisp white uniforms, directing cars amid a sea of bullet casings.
"I came back to work on Friday. Life is beginning to come back to normal," said one policeman, Mahmoud al-Majbary, 49.
Asked if fighters were obeying the traffic police, he said: "Not yet, we're getting there slowly. We're mainly really here to reassure the people that they are safe."
Libyans may remain fearful as long as the man who subjected them to his capricious will for 42 years remains at large.
Gaddafi, 69, is on the run, perhaps intending to lead an insurgency against his foes grouped loosely under the NTC.
NTC officials rejected any idea of talks with Gaddafi, saying he was a criminal who must be brought to justice.
"We did not negotiate when we were weak, and we won't negotiate now that we have liberated all of Libya," the NTC's information minister, Mahmoud Shammam, told a news conference.
The Associated Press earlier quoted Gaddafi's spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, as saying Gaddafi was still in Libya and wanted to discuss forming a transitional government with the NTC.
NTC officials say Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his spy chief should be tried in Libya, although they are wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
Sirte, 450 km (280 miles) east of Tripoli, is a vital prize for anti-Gaddafi forces, who say they prefer a negotiated handover of the city, but will storm it if need be.
"Our aim isn't bloodshed, our aim is liberation," Colonel Salem Muftah al-Refaidy, an NTC commander, said in Benghazi.
He told Reuters there was no going back to the past. "After all this bloodshed we can't say, 'Come here Muammar, come here Saif -- we're sorry, take Libya'. It's done. Game over."
He said NTC troops were within 100 km of Sirte from the east and were also approaching from Misrata to the west.
Shammam warned that negotiations could not be "endless," adding that if talks failed rebel supporters already in Sirte would rise up as they had in Tripoli before it fell.
SHORTAGES
In Tripoli, residents queued for bread or scoured grocery shops for food. Many took a stoical view of their plight.
"This is a tax we pay for our freedom," said Sanusi Idhan, a lawyer waiting to buy food.
Aymen Mohammed poured water into plastic containers for his neighbors. "There are many people here who don't have water so we're filling the bottles from our well," he said.
With Libyan television off the air, the NTC has begun using mobile phone text messages to reach the public. One issued on Sunday urged electricity workers to get back to work.
An earlier message said former Gaddafi loyalists should be treated with dignity and respect. Another said any pro-Gaddafi fighters still carrying weapons should be treated as outlaws.
Usama el-Abed, deputy chairman of the Tripoli council, said water shortages were affecting 70 percent of the city's two million people. He told reporters hospitals were all working except for the one where the killings occurred in Abu Salim.
Shammam said public sector workers would not lose their jobs. Efforts to pay the salaries of those in and around Tripoli were under way.
"Money is still tight, but things will be better in the next few days," he told a news conference in Tripoli.
The NTC hopes to gain access soon to hundreds of millions of dollars of assets frozen abroad. It also needs to get oil and gas revenue, normally 95 percent of exports, flowing again.
Bani, the military spokesman, said the gas pipeline to Europe had been repaired.
"The gas pipeline is back and running, supplying the pump stations and the Mellitah (gas processing) refinery. Gas will start flowing to Europe," he declared, without saying when such shipments would resume.
The pipeline, which supplied about 10 percent of Italy's gas imports in 2010, was shut down in February shortly after the revolt against Gaddafi began.
Libya's largest oil refinery at Ras Lanuf on the Mediterranean coast is intact despite fighting that had raged nearby and staff are preparing to restart operations at the 220,000 barrel per day plant, the general manager told Reuters.
Ras Lanuf was held by Gaddafi forces until a few days ago and the front line is only about 25 km to the west.
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas and Maria Golovnina in Tripoli, Robert Birsel, Alex Dziadosz and Emma Farge in Benghazi and Richard Valdmanis in Tunis Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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