Libyans urged to unite after death of Gaddafi (Reuters)

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Libya's interim prime minister said he was resigning on Saturday and urged new leaders to seize a "very limited opportunity" and resolve rivalries now surfacing after Muammar Gaddafi's death.

With regional differences emerging about what to do with Gaddafi's still unburied body, the formal end to the war and the carve-up of power, Libya's outgoing premier said the coming days posed a crucial test of resolve for the new men in power.

Mahmoud Jibril said he would step down later on Saturday, after seven months as prime minister of the Western-backed rebel government now that the legal declaration of "liberation" was expected on Sunday following Gaddafi's killing on Thursday.

But in a parting shot at an international business forum in Jordan, he warned Libyans to avoid in-fighting if Libyans were to keep to a plan to hold their first free election next year.

Leaders required "resolve," he said, "in the next few days."

In Misrata, the curious and the relieved filed for a second day through a market cold store to view the body of Gaddafi, whose surprise capture and killing in his hometown of Sirte sparked joy - and renewed jockeying for postwar influence.

Visitors wore surgical masks against the stench, an image that may trouble some Muslims, for whom swift burial is a holy duty - even if few Libyans share the unease among their Western allies over what some believe was a summary execution.

Jibril said progress for Libya would need great resolution, both by interim leaders on the National Transitional Council and by six million war-weary people: "First," he said, "What kind of resolve the NTC will show in the next few days?

"And the other thing depends mainly on the Libyan people - whether they differentiate between the past and the future."

He added: "I am counting on them to look ahead and remember the kind of agony they went through in the last 42 years.

"We need to seize this very limited opportunity."

"LIBERATION"

The formal declaration of an end to war and of "liberation" from Gaddafi's rule was expected to be made by NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil on Sunday in the eastern city of Benghazi, the seat of the revolt inspired by the fall of autocrats in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt.

There have been several delays to the announcement. It will set a clock ticking on a plan for a new government and constitutional assembly leading to full democracy in 2013.

Jibril reaffirmed the plan was for elections to the body that will draft a constitution to be held in eight months.

Gaddafi's body remained in Misrata, bearing wounds assumed to have been inflicted by fighters from the city who hauled him from a drain in his hometown Sirte. A field commander in Misrata worried that trouble was brewing:

"The fear now is what is going to happen next," he said, speaking to Reuters privately, as ordinary Libyans, some taking pictures for family albums, filed in under armed guard to see for themselves that the man they feared was truly dead.

"There is going to be regional in-fighting. You have Zintan and Misrata on one side and then Benghazi and the east," the guerrilla said. "There is in-fighting even inside the army."

DIVISIONS

Comparisons with Iraq after Saddam Hussein are tempered by the absence of the Sunni-Shi'ite divide which ravaged that country. However, as in Iraq, there are vast energy resources at stake and international powers keen to exploit them.

Regional enmities thrive, as well as differences between Islamists and secularists and among those who once served Gaddafi - like NTC head Abdel Jalil - and others. There is also ethnic tension between Arabs and Berbers.

Gaddafi's surviving family, in exile, have asked that his body and that of his son Mo'tassim be handed over to tribal kinsmen from Sirte. NTC officials said they were trying to arrange a secret resting place to avoid loyalist supporters making it a shrine.

Unlike on Friday, Gaddafi's body was covered by a blanket that left only his head exposed, hiding bruises on his torso and scratch marks on his chest that had earlier been visible.

A Reuters reporter who viewed the body said Gaddafi's head had been turned to the left. That hid a bullethole that earlier could be seen on the left side of his face.

SUMMARY EXECUTION?

Gaddafi's family and international human rights groups have urged an inquiry into how Gaddafi, 69, was killed, since gory cellphone video footage showed him alive but being beaten and taunted by his captors. Jibril said on the day that Gaddafi was killed in "crossfire" in an ambulance taking him to hospital.

But an ambulance driver in Sirte told Reuters Gaddafi was already dead by the time he picked him up, and a local military commander in Misrata said "over-enthusiastic" fighters had taken matters into their own hands:

"We wanted to keep him alive. But the young guys...," he told Reuters. "Things went out of control."

The International Criminal Court at The Hague had wanted to try Gaddafi for war crimes and may yet be able to try his son Saif al-Islam if he is found. NTC officials believe he escaped from the last redoubt in Sirte, after French jets had scattered a convoy of dozens of vehicles trying to flee with his father.

Intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, the third man wanted by the ICC, managed to reach Niger, officials have said.

Libyans also want to try some of the old guard at home.

Despite the qualms of some abroad, few compatriots are troubled by Gaddafi's bloody end, captured in clips of cellphone video broadcast around the world.

"People in the West don't understand the agony and pain that the people went through during the past 42 years," said Jibril, who added he felt "reborn" when he heard the news.

Abdulatif, a pilot, who came to see the body in Misrata, asked: "What would he tell the mother whose children were killed or the girls who were raped? If he lived and was killed a thousand times that would still only be a trifle."

Nonetheless, some Libyans have expressed unease at the way Gaddafi's body has been treated - Muslim custom dictates it should have been buried by sundown on Thursday - and at other matters of religion and respect for the dead.

Gaddafi's daughter Aisha, her mother and two of her brothers fled to Algeria after the fall of Tripoli. Aisha gave birth on the day she arrived.

The government in Algiers has angered the NTC by refusing to send them back. But an Algerian newspaper on Saturday quoted official sources saying that, following the death of the head of the family, they might now reconsider.

(Additional reporting by Taha Zargoun in Sirte, Barry Malone, Yasmine Saleh and Jessica Donati in Tripoli, Brian Rohan in Benghazi, Christian Lowe, Jon Hemming and Andrew Hammond in Tunis, Samia Nakhoul in Amman, Tom Pfeiffer at Dead Sea, Jordan, David Brunnstrom in Brussels and Lamine Chikhi in Algiers; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Andrew Roche)

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Gaddafi, in meat locker, still divides Libya (Reuters)

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi's body lay in an old meat store on Friday as arguments over a burial, and his killing after being captured, dogged efforts by Libya's new leaders to make a formal start on a new era of democracy.

With a bullet wound visible through the familiar curly hair, the corpse seen by Reuters in Misrata bore other marks of the violent end to a violent life, still being broadcast to the world a day later on looping snatches of gory cellphone video.

The interim prime minister offered a tale of "crossfire" to explain the fallen strongman's death after he was dragged, still alive, from a storm drain in his home town of Sirte. But seeing him being beaten, while demanding legal rights, to the sound of gunfire, many assume he was simply summarily shot.

Gaddafi's wife, who found refuge in neighboring Algeria while her husband and several sons kept their word to fight to the death, was reported to have demanded an inquiry from the United Nations. The U.N. human rights arm said one was merited.

Controversy over the final moments of a man who once held the world in thrall with a mixture of eccentricity and thuggery raised questions about the ability of Libya's National Transitional Council to control the men with guns, and disquiet among Western allies about respect for human rights among those who claimed to be fighting for just those ideals.

The body appeared to be the latest object of wrangling among the factions of fighters who overthrew him -- along with control of weapons, of ministries and of Libya's oil wealth.

Libyans, and the Western allies who backed the revolt that ended Gaddafi's 42-year rule two months ago, have indicated their impatience to begin what the United States declared was a democratic "new era." NATO was expected to agree on Friday to start winding down its seven-month air campaign over Libya.

But regional and other rivalries have been holding up the disposal of the corpse of Gaddafi, who was seized by fighters on Thursday, and a formal declaration of Libya's "liberation."

BURIAL DISPUTE

"They are not agreeing on the place of burial. Under Islam he should have been buried quickly but they have to reach an agreement whether he is to be buried in Misrata, Sirte, or somewhere else," one senior NTC official told Reuters.

Others said talks were under way with members of Gaddafi's tribe to dispose of him in secret, avoiding creating a shrine.

In Misrata, a local commander, Addul-Salam Eleiwa, showed off the body, torso bare, on a mattress inside a metal-lined cold-store by a market. He said: "He will get his rights, like any Muslim. His body will be washed and treated with dignity. I expect he will be buried in a Muslim cemetery within 24 hours."

But amid the rumor and counter-rumor swirling between Sirte, Gaddafi's last bastion, and Misrata, whose siege at his hands made it a symbol of resistance, nothing was certain.

Interim oil minister Ali Tarhouni said he urged colleagues to hold off burying Gaddafi for several days. Dozens of people, many with cellphone cameras, filed in to see that he was dead.

"There's something in our hearts we want to get out," said Abdullah al-Suweisi, 30, as he waited. "It is the injustice of 40 years. There is hatred inside. We want to see him."

In a small triumph for those who were inspired by Arab Spring uprisings elsewhere to launch the rebellion in February in Benghazi, the eastern city was chosen as the venue for NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil to announce that the whole country was liberated. But the planned announcement was delayed from Saturday to Sunday.

That will set a clock ticking on a tentative timetable for a transitional government and for drafting a constitution, under which full elections would, Libyans hope, take place within a year or two.

There has been tension between the easterners and leaders from Misrata, Tripoli and other western cities, who take credit for overrunning the capital in August and complain they are under-represented in an interim government which has yet to move fully to Tripoli. Under the post-liberation plan, that is supposed to happen within weeks, though some in Benghazi, home to much of the oil industry, are keen to decentralize power.

RISKS OF DIVISION

As shown by the delay over burying Gaddafi, differences of opinion in a country that spent 42 years obeying the whims of one man take time to work out - time that worries some observers in light of the heavy weaponry that abounds in Libya.

The uncertain whereabouts of Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's son and heir-apparent, believed by NTC officials to have escaped from besieged Sirte and be heading for a southern border, may also distract from the process of switching from war to peace.

And without the glue of hatred for Gaddafi and his clan, some fear a descent into the kind of strife that bedevils Iraq after Saddam Hussein, even if Libya lacks its sectarian divide. Optimists point to how, in two months of controlling Tripoli, the Libyan factions have argued but, so far, not fought.

"Can an inclusive, effective national government be formed? Yes, if factions can avoid fighting," Jon Marks, chairman of Britain's Cross Border Information consultancy said. "So it's all about the politics, and the $64,000 question is whether the new polity can retain the overall consensual feel you had during the revolution, or whether dangerous splits will occur."

Long-standing regional rivalries in a country only put together under Italian colonial rule in the 1930s are part of a complex of tribal, ethnic and other divisions which Gaddafi exploited at times to control the thinly populated country of six million and its substantial oil and gas resources.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received first news of Gaddafi's capture in a phone message. "Wow," she exclaimed, looking into a phone handed to her by an aide in Kabul.

Speaking in Islamabad on Friday, Clinton said Gaddafi's death marked the start of a "new era" for the Libyan people.

Nabil Elaraby, chief of the Arab League which in March had given NATO actions a regional seal of approval, called for unity: Libyans should "overcome the wounds of the past, look toward the future away from sentiments of hatred and revenge."

China echoed calls for unity. It said there was a need for "an inclusive political process."

OIL INTERESTS

Russia, which like China was cool to NATO's help for the rebels, may share its concern for investments after a senior Libyan oil official said representatives of Moscow's Gazprom had been summoned to Tripoli to explain what he called breaches of commitments made in contracts it signed under Gaddafi.

Companies from France and Britain, which drove the initial Western support for the rebellion, hope that will stand them in good stead as Libya's new leaders start allocating new deals.

Among those disappointed by his death were advocates of the International Criminal Court, which had hoped to try him for crimes against humanity, and relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie airliner bombing, still looking for answers more than two decades after a presumed Libyan bomb downed the jumbo jet.

"Investigating whether or not his death was a war crime might be unpopular," Amnesty International's Claudio Cordone said. "However, the NTC must apply the same standards to all, affording justice even to those who categorically denied it to others. Bringing Gaddafi to trial would have finally given his numerous victims answers as to why they were targeted and an opportunity for justice and reparations."

GORY END

As his gory end invigorated new protests in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad has tried to crush protests against his family's similarly lengthy monopoly on power, the precise circumstances of his death remained unclear.

Looking dazed with blood streaming down his face, Gaddafi can be heard in one video saying "God forbids this."

"This is for Misrata you dog," said one man hitting him.

"Do you know right from wrong?" Gaddafi says.

"Shut up you dog," someone replies as more blows rain down.

"Keep him alive, keep him alive!" someone shouts.

Interviews conducted separately with those who say they were present offer a picture Gaddafi's final hours, and with the video footage, give clues about his last stand and demise.

"He called us rats, but look where we found him," said Ahmed al-Sahati, a 27-year-old fighter, standing next to two stinking drainage pipes under a six-lane highway near Sirte.

Elsewhere trucks and cars, probably from among a convoy of about 75 targeted by French NATO jets, lay burned out. Many of their occupants sat charred inside, others, dozens of them, strewn dead across nearby fields as the diehards who had held out in Sirte for weeks raced for a getaway in all directions.

Government fighter Saleem Bakeer recounted to Reuters a version of Gaddafi's capture that was corroborated by others, including one man who had what he said was Gaddafi's golden pistol: "At first we fired at them with anti-aircraft guns, but it was no use," said Bakeer, being feted by comrades near the road and the drainage pipes. "Then we went in on foot."

After confronting pro-Gaddafi gunmen who said their "master" was wounded and inside, he went on: "We went in and brought Gaddafi out. He was saying 'what's wrong? What's wrong? What's going on?'." He said Gaddafi was then put in a vehicle.

Mahmoud Hamada, a fighter clearly recognizable from the films as being present at the time, said Gaddafi was already barely able to walk but alive when put into an ambulance.

The doubts befitted a man who retained an aura of mystery in the desert as he tormented Western powers by sponsoring bomb-makers from the IRA to the PLO then later embraced Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi in return for investment in Libya's oil and gas fields.

Some NTC officials insisted the fighters had tried to get Gaddafi to hospital but he was hit in crossfire. But another, speaking to Reuters anonymously, said simply: "They beat him very harshly and then they killed him. This is a war."

(Additional reporting by Taha Zargoun and Tim Gaynor in Sirte, Barry Malone, Yasmine Saleh and Jessica Donati in Tripoli, Brian Rohan in; Benghazi, Jon Hemming and Andrew Hammond in Tunis, Samia Nakhoul in Amman, Christian Lowe in Algiers, Shaimaa Fayed in Cairo, Sami Aboudi in Dubai and Andrew Quinn in Islamabad; Writing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Assault on Gaddafi bastion ends in chaotic retreat (Reuters)

By Maria Golovnina and Alexander Dziadosz Maria Golovnina And Alexander Dziadosz – Sun?Sep?18, 12:13?pm?ET

BANI WALID/SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan interim government forces fled on Sunday in a chaotic retreat from the town of Bani Walid, after failing in yet another attempt to storm the final bastions of loyalists of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Since taking the capital Tripoli last month, motley forces of the ruling National Transitional Council have met stiff resistance in Bani Walid and Gaddafi's birthplace Sirte, which they must capture before they can declare Libya "liberated."

Anti-Gaddafi fighters have tried several times to storm Bani Walid, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Tripoli, in recent days only to retreat in disorder under fire from defenders. Sunday's failed attempt appeared to be among the worst yet, setting off angry recriminations among the attackers.

NTC fighters said they had planned for tanks and pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers to lead Sunday's attack, but foot soldiers had piled in first.

"There is a lack of organization so far. Infantry men are running in all directions," said Zakaria Tuham, a senior fighter with a Tripoli-based unit. "Our commanders had been told that heavy artillery units had already gone ahead, but when we advanced into Bani Walid they were nowhere to be seen.

"Gaddafi forces were hitting us heavily with rockets and mortars, so we have pulled out."

A Reuters reporter saw fighters withdraw around two km (more than a mile) after they had stormed into the town.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters from Bani Walid blamed comrades from elsewhere in Libya for being unwilling to coordinate. Those from elsewhere accused some local fighters of being traitors and passing information to Gaddafi loyalists.

"Commanders who are from the Warfalla tribe, they tell us one thing and then commanders from the other cities say something else. We do not understand anything," said pro-NTC fighter Mohamed Saleh.

"So we are just going in and pulling back without a single purpose. It's impossible to take this city this way. It will continue like this until they send more experienced troops who know how to use their weapons."

Some fighters openly disobeyed orders. In one incident, an officer from Bani Walid was heckled by troops from Tripoli after he tried to order them to stop randomly shooting in the air as they celebrated seizing a mortar from Gaddafi forces.

"You are not my boss. Don't tell me what to do," one of the Tripoli fighters snapped back at him.

Shells whistled above anti-Gaddafi positions and exploded across the desert valley as invisible snipers sprayed bullets from Bani Walid's rooftops and smoke rose above the town.

NTC fighters helped some families evacuate from the town, driving them out in military pickup trucks.

"The past two weeks been awful but last night was particularly bad," said Zamzam al-Taher, a 38-year-old mother of four. "We have been trapped here without a car and with no food. Snipers are everywhere."

"The biggest mistake by the rebels is that they come in and leave without setting up checkpoints. When they leave, Gaddafi militiamen come in with their own checkpoints and flags and terrorise local people," she added.

BATTLE FOR SIRTE

NTC forces and NATO warplanes also attacked Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace. Fighters launched rockets from the city's southern entrance and traded fire with Gaddafi loyalists holed up in a conference center.

"The situation is very dangerous. There are so many snipers and all the types of weapons you can imagine," said fighter Mohamed Abdullah as rockets whooshed through the air and black smoke rose above the city.

Medics mopped the floor of a small field hospital on Sirte's western outskirts as they prepared for more casualties, following bloody but inconclusive clashes a day earlier. A doctor said 16 NTC fighters and an ambulance driver had died in Saturday's fighting. He had also received 62 wounded.

As in many episodes during Libya's conflict, the frontlines at Sirte and Bani Walid have ebbed back and forth, with shows of bravado colliding with the reality of battle.

An incoming shell landed within 200 metres of NTC-held lines only to be met with return fire from NTC fighters shouting "God is greatest!"

Speaking against the roar of NATO jets overhead, one anti-Gaddafi fighter at Sirte, Mahmoud Othman, said his men were helping families who had fled ahead of the next assault.

"We don't want any more bloodshed between us. But if the Gaddafa want more blood, we are ready," he said, referring to the deposed leader's tribe. "In the end we want Gaddafi."

Scores of civilian cars and pickup trucks poured out of the city, with residents describing water and electricity shortages amid street fighting. Gaddafi forces were patrolling the streets in the center, they said, making their lives a misery.

"People are living in terror," resident Taher al-Menseli, 33, said as NTC fighters searched his car at a checkpoint. "Gaddafi supporters are trying to convince people the revolutionaries are criminals and that you have to kill them. Even if you don't believe this, you have to appear convinced."

Nearby, three young men knelt in the sand beside the road, their hands tied behind their backs. NTC fighters said they had found two assault rifles and ammunition in their car.

Gaddafi's spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, said NATO air raids had killed 354 people in Sirte on Friday night, an accusation Reuters could not verify without access to the city. A NATO spokesman in Naples said previous such reports had been false.

"We will be able to continue this fight and we have enough arms for months and months to come," Ibrahim said in a call to Reuters via satellite telephone on Saturday.

British warplanes, operating under NATO's U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians, bombed a Gaddafi ammunition dump west of Sirte on Sunday, after destroying an armoured troop carrier and two armoured pickup trucks in the Sirte area the day before, a British military spokesman said.

More NTC fighters were advancing from the east to reinforce those assaulting Sirte. The slow and cautious advance met resistance from pro-Gaddafi fighters who fired Grad rockets and machine guns rounds, sending plumes of smoke into the air.

"We will not retreat. God willing we will reach Sirte either tonight or tomorrow," fighter Ali Hassan al-Jaber said.

Outside Bani Walid, NTC fighters captured a man hailing from neighbouring Chad, accusing him of being a Gaddafi gunman.

Shaking with fear, the man, who gave his name as Mohamed Ezzein, whispered that he had nothing to do with the war.

"I'm just a shepherd. What fighting? What fighting?" he repeated from the back of a pickup truck as anti-Gaddafi fighters pushed him around saying: "Don't lie, don't lie."

(Additional reporting by William MacLean and Joseph Logan in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Herawa, Emma Farge in Benghazi, Barry Malone and Sylvia Westall in Tunis and Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck in Brussels; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Peter Graff and Myra MacDonald)

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Gaddafi loyalists hold off new Libyan attacks (Reuters)

BANI WALID/SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) – Diehard loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi threw rockets, mortars and heavy gunfire at Libyan fighters who pushed into two besieged towns on Friday in a bid to end months of civil war and capture key figures from the old ruling system.

The smoke of battle hung over Gaddafi's home town of Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast between Tripoli and Benghazi, and Bani Walid, a tribal stronghold in the desert, as the motley forces of the National Transitional Council (NTC) mounted their biggest advances after weeks of stalemate and skirmishing.

But the word coming back from the frontlines to Reuters correspondents on the outskirts of both cities was that fierce defense was not being overcome quickly, nearly four weeks after the rebel coalition overran Gaddafi's capital.

Libya's new leaders are getting on with the business of government, trying to impose order on a host of irregular armed forces and restart the oil-based economy. Their latest foreign visitor was Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who hailed the fate of Gaddafi as an example to Turkey's Syrian neighbor.

He also called on the people of Sirte to give up the fight and make peace, though in neither town did that seem imminent.

"It's a very strong resistance," Abusif Ghnyah, a spokesman for the NTC forces at Bani Walid, told reporters watching the battle from high ground. "The most difficult part is the central market, that is where they are firing from."

A Reuters correspondent watched anti-Gaddafi fighters move forward under mortar, rocket and sniper fire, edging from house to house and sheltering behind walls from shrapnel and bullets.

A faux-ancient castle built for Gaddafi on a hill in the center of Bani Walid was also under attack, fighters said.

Many of the town's 100,000 residents fled in recent days.

It was also unclear how many civilians remain in Sirte, a sprawling city of a similar size, which Gaddafi created out of his native village. NTC fighters, who brought up scores of machinegun-mounted pickup trucks and a handful of tanks, spoke of scattered pockets of heavily armed opponents dug in there.

DESERT SKIRMISHING

Contact has not been possible with Gaddafi loyalists inside the two towns, as well as at Sabha, deep in Libya's southern desert where several senior Gaddafi aides have been lately.

Details of developments around Sabha are scant, but a British military spokesman said that British jets had fired about two dozen Brimstone missiles to destroy a group of Libyan armored vehicles near the desert town on Thursday.

Erdogan, visiting a day after the French and British leaders credited by the NTC with rallying support for them, displayed NATO-member Turkey's Muslim credentials by joining NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil for Friday prayers at the newly renamed Martyrs' Square, once a showcase for Gaddafi.

"From here I call out to Sirte," he said of the beleaguered city. "Come, right now. Some 10,000 brothers and sisters are hungry and thirsty -- embrace your brothers in Tripoli.

"Spilling blood does not suit us. Let us come together."

Gaddafi, 69, is still at large and commanding loyalty from at least hundreds of armed men, concentrated from Sirte, through Bani Walid and Sabha, creating a corridor in the vast empty spaces of the desert through which members of Gaddafi's family and senior aides have reached Algeria and Niger.

The new leadership, struggling to maintain unity and restore order as international powers line up to offer aid and seek contracts for oil and reconstruction contracts, says Gaddafi and his sons and aides pose a threat, at the very least of insurgent attacks, and wants to capture their last bastions.

BANI WALID FIGHTING

At Bani Walid, truckloads of NTC fighters shouting "Let's go! Bani Walid!" and columns of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns had advanced on the town in early morning.

"We are going in. We finally have the orders," Mohammed Ahmed said, his rifle sticking out of his car window. "God is greatest. God willing, Bani Walid will be free today."

However, the going proved slow. Throughout the day, there was heavy fighting, though casualties among the cautious government forces appeared light -- a spokesman said three were wounded -- as they moved forward, setting up supply dumps and dressing stations to support the advancing front. Mortars and Grad rockets landed around the government lines outside.

"It is a very strong resistance," fighter Isham al-Nasser said as he returned from the frontline in a truck convoy.

In the northern outskirts, streets were deserted with few civilians in sight. Houses were peppered with bullet holes.

Local farmer Mohamed Khalil Mohamed, 31, said the end of the siege and victory for Gaddafi's opponents would be welcome: "At first we were afraid because we didn't know who they were but now that we have seen them, we are very happy."

The traditional stronghold of Libya's biggest tribal grouping, Bani Walid's complex mix of loyalties is a proving ground for the ability of the new leadership in Tripoli to hold together a nation whose historic divisions Gaddafi exploited during his 42 years of personal, and often bloody, rule.

NTC fighters said they had arrested several suspected Gaddafi loyalists. But one such man, sitting on the back of a pickup truck in handcuffs, protested his innocence.

"I'm not with the militia, I'm innocent. I'm free to support whoever I want," said the man, clutching a green medallion -- a symbol of Gaddafi support.

"I did not kill anyone, I did not do anything," he said, looking frightened but unhurt.

SIRTE ASSAULT

At Sirte, NTC fighters massed around a breeze-block mosque on the outskirts, while others drove on toward the center accompanied by two tanks. Mohammed, a 23-year-old fighter from the city of Misrata said the resistance was coming from pockets of Gaddafi supporters dotted around a city which Gaddafi developed from a village into a would-be "capital of Africa."

"They have got heavy weapons," he said. "Gaddafi has been gathering heavy weapons for 42 years ... We are regrouping, pulling back, hitting them with heavy weapons and then advancing again."

Al Jazeera television said NTC forces had taken Sirte's airport, which lies some 10 km (six miles) south of the city.

Gaddafi's spokesman said he had thousands of supporters.

"We are telling you that as of tomorrow there will be atrocious attacks by NATO and their agents on the ground on the resisting towns of Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha," Moussa Ibrahim told Syrian-based Arrai television late on Thursday.

The television said 16 people had been killed in Sirte, including women and children, as a result of NATO bombing, and that Gaddafi forces had destroyed a NATO warship and vehicles.

A NATO spokesman dismissed those claims and said its air forces struck military targets, including a tank and several missile systems, but was unaware of any civilian casualties:

"It is clear," he said, "That Gaddafi forces are once again trying to spread rumours, claiming unsubstantiated victories and attempting to terrorise the local population."

(Additional reporting by William MacLean and Joseph Logan in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Ras Lanuf, Emma Farge in Benghazi, Philippa Fletcher and Giles Elgood in London and Barry Malone and Sylvia Westall in Tunis; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Libya sends envoy to Niger, seeking Gaddafi (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) – Libya's new leaders sent envoys to neighboring Niger on Wednesday to try to prevent Muammar Gaddafi and his entourage evading justice by fleeing across a desert frontier toward friendly African states.

"The NTC has sent a delegation to Niger to discuss the possible arrival of Gaddafi," Fathi Baja, the head of political affairs for the National Transitional Council, told Reuters in Benghazi, saying the ousted strongman may be close to the Niger or Algerian borders, waiting for an opportunity to slip across.

"I think he's near one of these borders ... and he's looking for a chance to leave. We're asking every country not to accept him. We want these people for justice," Baja said.

Reports on Gaddafi's whereabouts remain decidedly sketchy. Another senior NTC official said Gaddafi had been tracked this week to an area in the empty Sahara of Libya's south.

Gaddafi is wanted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. British Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament any country where he was found should hand him over to be tried, remarks that were echoed by U.S. ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz.

With his overthrow, however, have come revelations of the extent to which U.S. and British officials were until recently cooperating with Gaddafi -- once a pariah in the West but rehabilitated by Washington and London in the past decade.

Papers found by Reuters in Tripoli showed a British arm of U.S.-based General Dynamics was modernizing tanks and troop carriers for a feared brigade led by Gaddafi's son Khamis, as recently as January, after "Arab Spring" protests began in neighboring Tunisia.

The firm said the equipment might have been part of a $135 million May 2008 contract with its British subsidiary, part of what it termed at the time "the United Kingdom's initiatives to improve economic, educational and defense links with Libya."

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director with Human Rights Watch, said: "I think the lesson is that if you are going to sell weapons to dictators, at some point down the line you're going to be deeply embarrassed."

Niger has officially denied receiving a convoy of scores of Libyan army vehicles. French and Niger military sources told Reuters the convoy had arrived near the northern city of Agadez late on Monday via Algeria, which last week welcomed Gaddafi's wife, daughter and two of his sons.

A French military source said Gaddafi might be preparing to meet up with the convoy and seek refuge in Burkina Faso, another nearby African state. Burkina Faso denied any such plan.

U.S. Ambassador Cretz said the 69-year-old fugitive Gaddafi remained a threat while at large: "A Gaddafi free in Libya could pose a continuing danger to the success of the new government to make sure its writ is spread throughout the country."

NATO powers which helped topple Gaddafi have spy satellites and other intelligence resources that could help track fugitives. But Cretz, briefing reporting online, said: "We will participate to the extent that we are asked to, but as of right now it's a question for the Libyan authorities to find Gaddafi."

Among other discoveries in the wake of the Gaddafis' flight, a home video showing the former leader playing with one of his grand-daughters reveals a mix of playfulness and, possibly, paranoia: "Do you not love me?" he asks, repeatedly.

ENVOYS

NTC official Baja said envoys from Mahmoud Jibril, Libya's interim prime minister, would meet Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou to discuss "any infiltration of Gaddafi groups to Niger." He added: "I don't think Niger will accept Gaddafi."

NTC officials said some vehicles that arrived in Niger were laden with looted Libyan gold and banknotes. The United States said on Tuesday the convoy included senior aides to Gaddafi, and urged authorities in Niger to hold any war crimes suspects.

The French military source said Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam may have planned to meet the convoy in Niger, a poor and landlocked former French colony, before heading to Burkina Faso.

Hisham Buhagiar, who coordinates efforts by the NTC to find the ousted strongman, said he had evidence Gaddafi may have been near Libya's southern village of Ghwat, some 300 km (200 miles) north of the border with Niger, three days ago.

"The last tracks, he was in the Ghwat area. People saw the cars going in that direction," Buhagiar said in an interview late on Tuesday. "We have it from many sources that he's trying to go further south, toward Chad or Niger."

WANTED MEN

Burkina President Blaise Compaore denied discussing giving Gaddafi sanctuary. "We have no information regarding the presence of Libyans on our soil since these events, and we have had no contacts with anyone in Libya about a request for political asylum," he told reporters in the capital Ouagadougou.

Compaore has ruled for 24 years after taking power, like Gaddafi, in a military coup. Like many other African states, Burkina Faso benefited from oil-funded Libyan aid under Gaddafi.

Niger has also tried to distance itself. Officials have confirmed that Gaddafi's security chief Mansour Dhao has been let in, in what they called a humanitarian gesture. Its interior minister denied the arrival of hundreds of Libyan vehicles.

Government sources in Chad, another poor African neighbor, said it had asked France to send drones to monitor the border area and believed this would deter Gaddafi from trying to enter.

As with all efforts so far to find Gaddafi, two full weeks after rebels overran his Tripoli headquarters, the trail is hazy, in a region where people are few and far between.

U.S. officials have said Gaddafi was still in Libya, but Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he was not sure: "I think he's been taking a lot of steps to make sure that in the end he could try to get out if he had to, but as to where, when, and how that'll take place, we just don't know."

Gaddafi's fugitive spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, insisted in a call to Reuters on Tuesday that he had not left. "He is in Libya. He is safe, he is very healthy, in high morale."

NTC commanders said last week they thought Gaddafi, 69, was in the besieged tribal bastion of Bani Walid, 150 km (100 miles) south of Tripoli, planning a counter-strike with heir apparent Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi. But it appears the senior figures are not there now, NTC officials say.

A standoff with NTC fighters outside the town has lasted for days. Outside Bani Walid on Wednesday, residents leaving through a sun-scorched NTC checkpoint at the nearby settlement of Wishtata painted an increasingly desperate picture.

"People are terrorized," said Salah Ali, 39. "But many still support Gaddafi because they were paid by the regime, because many have committed crimes and are afraid of arrest."

Aid agencies have also raised concerns about conditions for civilians in the coastal city of Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace and another redoubt of tribal leaders still loyal to him. Libya's southern desert is also not under the control of the NTC.

Nearby, Niger's desert north is now an escape route for many Gaddafi supporters, including Africans he hired as mercenaries to bolster his forces this year. The vast area, the size of France, is awash with bandits, rebellious nomads and a growing number of al Qaeda-linked gunmen blamed for deadly kidnappings.

Gaddafi is no stranger to the area, having used his oil wealth to fund development projects and dabble in politics by backing and seeking to mediate an end to various rebellions.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas, Christian Lowe and Alex Dziadosz in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Ras Lanuf, Maria Golovnina in Wishtata, Barry Malone, Sylvia Westall and Alastair Macdonald in Tunis, Sami Aboudi, Amena Bakr and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Nathalie Prevost in Niamey, Abdoulaye Massalatchi in Agadez, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Mathieu Bonkoungou in Ouagadougou and Richard Valdmanis and Mark John in Dakar; Editing by Peter Graff; Writing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Libyan convoys in Niger, may be Gaddafi deal (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) – Scores of Libyan army vehicles crossed the desert frontier into Niger in what may be a bid by Muammar Gaddafi to seek refuge in a friendly African state, military sources from France and Niger told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Libyan rebels who overthrew Gaddafi two weeks ago said they also thought about a dozen other vehicles that crossed the remote border may have carried gold and cash apparently looted from a branch of Libya's central bank in Gaddafi's home town.

Details of the developments remained very sketchy.

The military sources said a convoy of between 200 and 250 vehicles was escorted to the northern city of Agadez by the army of Niger, a poor and landlocked former French colony. It might, said a French military source, be joined by Gaddafi en route to adjacent Burkina Faso, which has offered him asylum.

U.S. officials said they thought Gaddafi was still in Libya, though the convoy in Niger might contain senior figures.

France, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as Libya's new rulers and NATO, all denied knowing where Gaddafi was or of any deal to let him go abroad or find refuge from Libyans and the International Criminal Court who want to put him on trial.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said it was for Libyans to decide the venue but that Gaddafi must not slip away quietly. "He will have to face justice for all the crimes he has committed in the past 42 years," he said.

Near Tripoli, Reuters journalists found torture chambers used recently as Gaddafi tried to suppress the revolt.

Sources close to Niger's government said the head of Gaddafi's security brigade, Mansour Dhao, was in the capital Niamey. He was allowed in to the country earlier in the week.

But Niger's foreign minister, Bazoum Mohamed, was quoted by Al Arabiya television saying that Gaddafi was not in the military convoy, which arrived late on Monday.

Those comments did not contradict a French military source who said the 69-year-old fugitive and his son and heir Saif al-Islam might join the convoy later to head for Burkina Faso.

France has taken a lead in the NATO action backing Libya's uprising and, with its Western allies, would be likely to have the ability to track any sizeable convoy in the empty quarter.

But Niger's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Adani Illo, told Reuters that such surveillance over thousands of miles of desert was still hard. "The desert zone is vast and the frontier is porous," he said. "If a convoy of 200 to 250 vehicles went through, it is like a drop of water in an ocean."

Gaddafi has broadcast defiant messages since he was forced into hiding two weeks ago, and has vowed to die fighting on his own soil. But he also has long friendships with his poor African neighbors, with which he shared some of Libya's oil wealth.

The sources said the convoy, probably including officers from army units based in the south of Libya, may have looped through Algeria rather than cross the Libya-Niger frontier. Algeria last week took in Gaddafi's wife, daughter and two other sons, angering the interim council now ruling Libya.

"GOOD SPIRITS"

Gaddafi's fugitive spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said in remarks broadcast on Monday: "Muammar Gaddafi is in excellent health and in very, very high spirits ... He is in a place that will not be reached by those fractious groups, and he is in Libya."

NATO warplanes and spy satellites have been scouring Libya's deserts for months, raising the likelihood that any convoy of the size mentioned would have been spotted. But a spokesman for the Western alliance said it was not hunting Gaddafi and had a U.N. mandate only to stop his forces attacking civilians.

"Or mission is to protect the civilian population in Libya, not to track and target thousands of fleeing former regime leaders, mercenaries, military commanders and internally displaced people," Colonel Roland Lavoie said in a statement.

Tuareg nomads living in the Sahara say those fleeing Libya include many black Africans, some of whom may have been fighters for Gaddafi and most of whom fear the anger and reprisals of Gaddafi's enemies among Libya's Arabs.

NTC commanders last week said both Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam were in the tribal stronghold of Bani Walid, 150 km (90 miles) south of Tripoli. But that belief has evaporated this week after days of blockade of the town.

NTC officials said Saif al-Islam, for one, may have escaped south into the desert, toward the southern, pro-Gaddafi bastion of Sabha and perhaps on to Niger. Tracking him would be hard; fully 1,300 km (800 miles) of sand separate Sabha from Agadez, with a further 750 km of road to travel to Niamey.

Near Sirte, Gaddafi's home town on the Mediterranean coast, there was the first sign of heavy fighting for some days. Combatants reported exchanges of shell fire and rockets to the east. Several NTC fighters were wounded in an ambush.

Though conditions in Tripoli were improving with the return of water supplies two weeks after rebels overran Gaddafi's headquarters compound, evidence of brutality during his battle to cling to power during the Arab Spring is also accumulating.

Reuters journalists in the provincial town of Khoms found evidence Muammar Gaddafi had deployed squads which held suspected opponents in shipping containers, tortured them for information about insurgent networks and disposed of their bodies in unmarked graves.

"They wanted to frighten the people, so if anyone was thinking of going over to the rebels, they would change their minds," said Nabil al-Menshaz, a council official in the town.

AFRICAN JOURNEYS

A spokesman for the NTC said banknotes in the convoy of gold and cash that the council believed had reached Niger had been stolen from Sirte's branch of the Central Bank of Libya.

NTC official Fathis Baja told Reuters: "Late last night, 10 vehicles carrying gold, euros and dollars crossed from Jufra into Niger with the help of Tuaregs from the Niger tribe."

It was unclear if these vehicles were separate from the much larger military convoy reported by the foreign sources.

Burkina Faso, also once a French colony and a recipient of large amounts of Libyan aid, offered Gaddafi sanctuary last month but has also recognized the NTC as Libya's government.

President Blaise Compaore, like Gaddafi, took power in a military coup. He has run the country for 24 years.

Gaddafi has long touted his origins among the peoples of the desert. After largely turning his back on fellow Arab leaders, most of them allied with his Western adversaries, Gaddafi had portrayed himself as an African "king of kings".

He was fond of epic road journeys on his travels around the continent, so the drama of a flight across the Sahara into friendlier lands further south might seem a fitting departure.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas, Christian Lowe and Alex Dziadosz in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Umm Qundil, Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Barry Malone and Alastair Macdonald in Tunis, Sami Aboudi, Amena Bakr and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Erika Solomon in Dubai, Nathalie Prevost in Niamey, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, David Brunnstrom in Brussels and Richard Valdmanis and Mark John in Dakar; Writing by Alastair Macdonald)

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China says didn't know of arms sales talks with Gaddafi forces (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese arms firms held talks with representatives of Muammar Gaddafi's beleaguered forces in July over weapons sales, but behind Beijing's back, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The revelation is nonetheless likely to deal a fresh blow to China's already delicate relations with Libyan rebel forces that have ousted Gaddafi.

The ministry confirmed the gist of reports in the Globe and Mail and the New York Times that documents found in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, indicated that Chinese companies offered to sell rocket launchers, anti-tank missiles and other arms with a total of some $200 million to Gaddafi's forces, despite a U.N. ban on such sales.

A ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said members of Gaddafi's government had come to China and held talks with a "handful" of Chinese arms company officials without the knowledge of the government.

"We have clarified with the relevant agencies that in July the Gaddafi government sent personnel to China without the knowledge of the Chinese government and they engaged in contact with a handful of people from the companies concerned," Jiang told a news briefing in Beijing.

"The Chinese companies did not sign arms trade contacts, nor did they export military items to Libya," Jiang said. "I believe that the agencies in charge of the arms trade will certainly treat this seriously."

Even if the arms talks were behind Beijing's back, the controversy could intensify mistrust between Beijing and the rebels seeking to defeat Gaddafi's shrinking forces and claim control of all Libya.

"We have hard evidence of deals going on between China and Gaddafi, and we have all the documents to prove it," a rebel military spokesman, Abdulrahman Busin, told the Times.

The arms issue comes on the heels of tensions between Beijing and the Libyan rebels over frozen funds.

On the weekend, the head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said China had obstructed the release of some of Libya's frozen assets.

Although China agreed with other powers last week to unfreeze $15 billion of Libyan assets abroad, it opposed handing control of more to the interim ruling council, according to Libyan rebel spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah.

"In principle, we don't have a problem" with unfreezing funds, said the Chinese spokeswoman Jiang.

"But out of a responsible attitude, we and some members of the Security Council want further explanation and information from the applicant countries about the uses of the funds and oversight of them," she said.

Libya's interim council has promised rewards for those who took a leading role in backing the revolt against Gaddafi, and that has raised concerns that China could be disadvantaged.

China is the world's second-biggest oil consumer and last year obtained 3 percent of its imported crude from Libya.

China did not use its U.N. Security Council veto power in March to block a resolution that authorized the NATO bombing campaign against Gaddafi's forces, but it condemned the expanding strikes and repeatedly urged compromise between his government and the rebels.

By the time of the visit by Gaddafi's officials, China was already courting the Libyan rebels. But China has not joined Western powers in formally recognizing the NTC as the legitimate authority in Libya, but has acknowledged its "important role" after Gaddafi's ousting.

The reports said Libyan security officials visiting China in July were received by three arms companies, including Norinco and the China Xinxing Import and Export Corporation.

Norinco has faced sanctions from the United States, which accused it of selling missile parts to Iran, in spite of Beijing's arms control rules.

Asked if the Chinese companies or their personnel could be punished over the talks with Gaddafi's officials, Jiang said: "I'm sure that the agencies in charge of Chinese arms (sales) will deal with this in a serious and conscientious way."

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Libyans hope to seize Gaddafi bastion (Reuters)

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Libyans say Gaddafi bastion may have given up (Reuters)

TRIPOLI/MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Libya's provisional government said it was closing in on bastions of support for Muammar Gaddafi on Saturday and planned to resume oil production at key fields within days.

Offering Libyans some hope of an end to conflict and a more prosperous future after 42 years of Gaddafi's personal rule, Ali Tarhouni, the interim oil minister said, during a news conference in Tripoli that he had been told by commanders that the pro-Gaddafi bastion of Bani Walid may have changed sides.

A senior military source in the forces of the National Transitional Council had told Reuters earlier that NTC leaders were close to reaching agreement with tribal leaders in Bani Walid on their imminent peaceful surrender.

Tarhouni reaffirmed assurances by the former rebels that Gaddafi's capture was near -- "we know where he is," he said.

And he announced that oil production would start in about 10 days. "Production will begin in the Sarir and Misla fields on the 12th or 13th of this month," he said.

With only six million people scattered across vast tracts of desert on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, Libyans hope Africa's biggest oil reserves can make them rich.

NTC leaders, many of whom remain in the eastern city of Benghazi where the uprising began in February, say the conflict will only be over when Gaddafi is found, dead or alive.

Last week, a senior NTC commander said he believed the 69-year-old fugitive was around Bani Walid, a tribal stronghold some 150 km (100 miles) southeast of the capital, along with his son Saif al-Islam, long seen as the heir apparent. Both men have made broadcasts this week declaring plans to fight back.

Their spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, speaking from hiding, told Reuters on Friday that Saif al-Islam was in suburbs south of Tripoli. A source with links to Bani Walid said tribal leaders in the town were hoping to negotiate a peaceful entry to the area by NTC forces -- they were seeking assurances that former pro-Gaddafi fighters would not face reprisals.

BANI WALID "UNDER CONTROL"

Tarhouni said on Saturday: "The military council in Tripoli has just informed me a few minutes ago that there's a possibility that Bani Walid will join the revolutionaries and it's under the control of the revolutionaries."

He gave no details. NTC military commanders have said that they have thousands of fighters on hand around Bani Walid in the desert and Gaddafi's home town of Sirte on the coast. But NTC leaders have extended a deadline for surrender by a week to next Saturday, saying they want to avoid further bloodshed.

NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil told a news conference in Benghazi: "We have given one week's notice to Sirte, Bani Walid,

Jufrah and Sabha. This notice does not mean that we are not aware of what Muammar Gaddafi's loyalists are doing.

"We are tracking everything."

Ahmed al-Amal, a unit commander on the front line between Misrata and Sirte, told Reuters: "We are preparing to advance on Sirte ... We're watching the situation in Sirte and Bani Walid closely. There are pockets of resistance everywhere in these areas and also to the south near Sabha.

"Refugees coming out of Sirte have told us there's no food, fuel, water or electricity in the city. Gaddafi families in Sirte are forcing civilians to obey. They are mistreating them. A lot of people are angry and fed up."

Independent accounts from Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha, deep in the Sahara desert, have not been available as communications appear to be largely cut off. On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on all sides to protect civilians and allow the agency to provide aid to Sirte.

NO REVENGE

The new leadership says it is anxious to foster national reconciliation in a country where Gaddafi long exploited tribal, ethnic and regional differences to maintain his grip.

Speaking of the siege of Sirte, Tarhouni said: "My call and that of all my brothers in the committee, is that we have no desire for revenge. And as you have seen from revolutionaries up till now, this revolutionary power is a good power, and does not practice any form of revenge. On the contrary, they have treated groups they know are killers with respect."

"This is my call ... to our brothers in Sirte: take part in this revolution. You will have safety, except for those who have blood on their hands, or those who have stolen public funds or those who have terrorised the Libyan people. Even those people will be treated in a legal way."

In Britain, one of the NTC's Western allies, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the leaders in Tripoli "want to avoid an unnecessary battle and that is why they have been negotiating with the tribes around Sirte."

"We should give the NTC the credit for how they have performed ... over the five months of this conflict, because we have had no widespread or substantiated reporting of them causing serious civilian casualties," he told Sky News.

In Tripoli, life on the streets was getting back to normal after the fighting last month and the past week's Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Traffic was heavy as supplies of fuel improved. Cafes were busy and offices opened for business.

(Reporting by Christian Lowe and Mohammed Abbas in Tripoli, Maria Golovnina and Alex Dziadosz in Misrata, Sherine El Madany in Umm Qundil, Emma Farge in Benghazi, Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Barry Malone and Alastair Macdonald in Tunis, Amena Bakr and Omar Fahmy in Cairo and Olesya Dmitracova in London; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Gaddafi loyalists under fire as Libya celebrates (Reuters)

TRIPOLI/TAWARGA, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan forces backed by NATO bombers struck at loyalist troops dug in around Muammar Gaddafi's hometown on Wednesday, as refugees streamed out of the besieged bastion fearing a bloody showdown in the coming days.

As people in Tripoli and other cities marked the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan with special savor following the end of 42 years of one-man rule, anti-Gaddafi fighters at the front around the coastal city of Sirte kept up pressure on its defenders, whom they have given till Saturday to surrender.

NATO said its planes bombed Gaddafi forces near Sirte on Tuesday, targeting tanks and other armored vehicles as well as military facilities. They also hit targets in the area of Bani Walid, another Gaddafi stronghold 150 km (100 miles) southeast of Tripoli. Anti-Gaddafi fighters said on the same day that they had advanced to within 30 km (20 miles) of the desert town.

On Wednesday NTC fighters said they clashed with Gaddafi forces patrolling in the area west of Sirte.

At Tawarga, west of Sirte, civilians streamed in laden vehicles along the coastal highway, some flying white flags.

Passing through a checkpoint set up by the forces of the interim ruling council, the NTC, many of the refugees said they feared a major battle, since they did not expect those holding Gaddafi's tribal homeland to give up without a fight.

"I need to take my family where it is peaceful. Here there will be a big fight," said one man, who gave his name as Mohammed.

Ali Faraj, a fighter for the opposition forces which forced Gaddafi into hiding last week, said he doubted people in Sirte would willingly join the revolt: "There will be a big fight for Sirte. It's a dangerous city. It's unlikely to rise up. A lot of people there support Gaddafi. It's too close to Gaddafi and his family. It is still controlled by them."

There is no independent confirmation of conditions in Sirte, which was developed into a prosperous city of 100,000 during the 42 years Gaddafi ruled Libya. NTC officials say power and water are largely cut off and supplies are low.

In Tripoli, after dawn, worshippers packed Martyrs' Square, which was named Green Square in the Gaddafi era, chanting "Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), Libya is free."

Fighters on rooftops guarded against any attack by Gaddafi loyalists and sniffer dogs checked cars. Even the interim interior minister, Ahmed Darat, was searched.

"This is the most beautiful Eid and most beautiful day in 42 years," said Hatem Gureish, 31, a merchant from Tripoli.

"Gaddafi made us hate our lives ... We come here to express our joy at the end of 42 years of repression and deprivation."

Fatima Mustafa, 28, a pregnant woman wearing a black chador, said: "This is a day of freedom, a day I cannot describe to you. It's as if I own the world. I'm glad I haven't given birth yet so my daughter can be born into a free Libya."

But the war is not over yet, with Gaddafi on the run and his loyalists defying an ultimatum set by Libya's interim council.

SATURDAY ULTIMATUM

Libyans who revolted against Gaddafi in February needed NATO air power to help them win, but, given their country's unhappy colonial history, they remain wary of foreign meddling.

Their interim leaders, trying to heal a nation scarred by Gaddafi's cruelly eccentric ways, may want United Nations help in setting up a new police force, but see no role for international peacekeepers or observers, a U.N. official said.

"They are very seriously interested in assistance with policing to get the public security situation under control and gradually develop a democratically accountable public security force," Ian Martin, special U.N. envoy for post-conflict planning in Libya, said at the United Nations in New York.

"We don't now expect military observers to be requested," he said. "It's very clear that the Libyans want to avoid any kind of military deployment of the U.N. or others."

The National Transitional Council (NTC), keen to assert its grip and relieve hardship after six months of war, won a $1.55 billion cash injection when the U.N. sanctions committee released banknotes in Britain in frozen Gaddafi accounts.

France has asked the committee to unfreeze 1.5 billion euros

($2.16 billion) of Libyan assets in France, a French government source said on Wednesday, adding that Libya has 7.6 billion euros of assets parked in French banks.

"FRIENDS OF LIBYA"

The source also said that Russia and China, which have not formally recognized the NTC, would send representatives to a "Friends of Libya" conference in Paris on Thursday to discuss support for political and economic rebuilding.

The timing of the meeting, on September 1, strikes a chord for many Libyans, who for four decades have been obliged to celebrate the date as the anniversary of the military coup that brought Colonel Gaddafi to power in 1969.

Despite the killing and shortages of fuel, power and water that Tripoli has endured since Gaddafi's fall, worshippers in Martyrs' Square were mostly ebullient about the future.

But Nouri Hussein, 42, an engineer, said that while he was glad Gaddafi was gone, he feared the guns in the hands of unruly fighters: "There is apprehension about what next. The rebels should not be blinded with the ecstasy of victory."

NTC leaders have told their forces to treat prisoners with respect -- in contrast with the reported killing and torture of detainees by Gaddafi's forces -- but Amnesty International said its staff had seen anti-Gaddafi fighters threaten and detain wounded opponents, notably black Libyans and foreigners.

"The council must do more to ensure that their fighters do not abuse detainees, especially the most vulnerable ones such as black Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans," Amnesty's Claudio Cordone said in a statement after one incident in Tripoli.

"Many risk reprisals as a result of allegations that Gaddafi forces used 'African mercenaries' to commit widespread violations during the conflict," the lobby group added.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas in Tripoli, Emma Farge, Robert Birsel and Alex Dziadosz in Benghazi, John Irish in Paris, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels and Giles Elgood, Richard Valdmanis and Alastair Macdonald in Tunis; Writing by Alistair Lyon and Alastair Macdonald)

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Libyan forces close in on Gaddafi stronghold (Reuters)

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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Gaddafi to "fight to end" as rebels seize HQ (Reuters)

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Triumphant rebels seized Muammar Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli on Tuesday after a fierce battle with a loyalist rearguard but there was no word on the fate of the Libyan leader who vowed again to fight "to the end."

Reuters journalists watched rebel fighters stream through the sprawling Bab al-Aziziya headquarters compound, firing in the air in celebration after hours of heavy clashes. But it was unclear whether the "Brother Leader" or his sons were still somewhere in the complex's maze of buildings and bunkers.

Defensive fire died away and hundreds of jubilant rebels poured in. Some smashed a statue of Gaddafi. Others hunted through dozens of buildings, unchallenged, seizing weaponry and vehicles. The rebels' envoy to the United Nations said the area was "totally in the hands of the revolutionaries."

One man shouted: "It's over. Gaddafi is finished."

The Russian head of the World Chess Federation, who visited Gaddafi in Tripoli in June, said he had received a call from him on Tuesday afternoon in which Gaddafi said he was still in the capital. He "is in Tripoli, he is alive and healthy and is prepared to fight to the end," Kirsan Ilyumzhinov told Reuters.

The rebels' envoy in Rome, Hafed Gaddur, said: "It seems clear that he is confined to his bunker complex."

"We thought Tripoli would be liberated in one month or perhaps even two months, instead that happened in just a few hours, a day, so we've made great progress," he told Reuters.

Western governments, which have backed disparate opposition groups, said they could not be sure where the 69-year-old leader was but urged him to surrender after six months of civil war which have put an end to his four decades of absolute power.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after speaking to U.S. President Barack Obama that the end of Gaddafi's rule was "inevitable and near."

NATO, which declined to confirm reports that its air forces bombed Gaddafi's compound to aid the rebels, said Gaddafi's whereabouts were unclear but no longer a major concern.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said he believed Gaddafi was still in Libya and that his forces remained a threat. He also said the United States was monitoring chemical weapons sites in Libya, amid worries that groups hostile to Western interests could try to seize stocks once built up by Gaddafi.

SWIFT END SOUGHT

Western leaders are anxious for a rapid end to fighting -- tensions among rebels are a concern for those hoping for a swift return of order and a reopening of Libyan oil exports.

"We hope this is over soon," said an unemployed engineer watching events near Gaddafi's compound. "I fear that the violence will continue until Gaddafi and his family have left the country," he added, giving his name only as Omar.

Another bystander said: "Gaddafi is finished, even if some snipers and mercenaries are still resisting. But there is no doubt that we are free and Gaddafi is finished."

There are growing concerns for civilians in the city, after days of siege and fighting in which officials have suggested hundreds of combatants may have been killed or wounded.

At a private house several miles from the center, wounded from the fighting were being treated, to the sound of gunfire.

"We need medication and stretchers, this situation is a disaster," medical student Shuaib Rais told Reuters.

CREDIBILITY

Speaking after Gaddafi's son and long-time heir-apparent Saif al-Islam confounded rebel claims of his capture by appearing to journalists at the Bab al-Aziziya compound early on Tuesday, several analysts said the credibility of the disparate opposition movement had suffered a serious setback.

Though the credibility of Saif al-Islam's claims that his father's supporters were winning the war was also threadbare, confusion among the rebels, who seemed to have allowed two of Gaddafi's sons to escape on Monday, embarrassed their backers.

Noman Benotman, senior analyst at Britain's Quilliam think tank and an associate of Gaddafi's former spy chief, said: "Gaddafi is banking on the rebels making a mess of Tripoli and causing chaos. He is relying on them to behave badly.

"They want rival militia zones to start springing up ... That's why it's critical for the rebels to get their act together."

Residents, many of whom had taken to the streets on Sunday to celebrate the end of Gaddafi's 42-year rule, stayed indoors as the irregular rebel armies that swept the capital ran into resistance from sharpshooters, tanks and other heavy weaponry.

DIVISIONS

The lack of clear control, however, has revived concerns the sprawling, thinly populated desert state could fall into the kind of instability that has beset Iraq since Saddam Hussein's overthrow. Gaddafi loyalists and anti-Western Islamists could exploit Libya's ethnic, tribal and political divisions.

Rebel officials say they have a force ready to impose order in the capital, as they have generally done in parts of the country they have taken since February. But it is not yet clear how they will handle traditional east-west divisions if they consolidate their grip on the country.

The uncharacteristically efficient rebel advance into the capital, coordinated with an uprising inside the city, seemed evidence to some analysts of the military advice and training Western and some Arab powers, including Qatar, have provided.

Many assume special forces are also active on the ground.

Outside powers, including U.S. President Obama, have been at pains to characterize the revolt against Gaddafi as quite different from the Western assault on Saddam, saying it is a home-grown uprising inspired by other Arab protest movements that overthrew Western-backed autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt.

Aid, some of it in the form of Libyan state funds seized from accounts controlled by Gaddafi, and advice will be plentiful, foreign governments assured the rebel leadership in Benghazi as it contemplates moving to Tripoli.

But all have ruled out sending in ground troops to bolster a new government which faces considerable difficulties in setting up a new administration given Gaddafi's four-decade reliance on informal governance and a personality cult.

"We've sought to learn the lessons of the failures of Iraq, which have very much influenced our thinking -- trying to make sure we don't make the same mistakes again," said British International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell.

(Reporting by Missy Ryan, Peter Graff, Ulf Laessing, Zohra Bensemra and Leon Malherbe in Tripoli, Thomas Grove in Moscow, Robert Birsel in Benghazi, William Maclean and Peter Apps in London, Hamid Ould Ahmed and Christian Lowe in Algiers, Souhail Karam in Rabat, Richard Valdmanis and Giles Elgood in Tunis, Laura MacInnis and Alister Bull in Oak Bluffs, Mass., Nour Merza in Dubai, Deepa Babington in Rome and Alexandria Sage in Paris; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

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Rebels scorn talks with isolated Gaddafi (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Rebels fighting to topple Muammar Gaddafi scorned reports of secret talks with the Libyan leader on Monday as their forces fought to secure gains and the United States said Gaddafi's days were numbered.

After 41 years of supreme power in his oil-rich desert state 69-year-old Gaddafi was isolated in the capital Tripoli, with reinvigorated rebel forces closing in from the West and South.

Libya's rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), recognized by many of the NATO nations whose air power is supporting their assault, denied any kind of negotiation with Gaddafi to resolve the six-month-old conflict.

"The NTC would like to affirm that there are no negotiations either direct or indirect with the Gaddafi regime or with the special envoy of the United Nations," said NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil.

Gaddafi must step down and leave Libya, he said. "It is unthinkable to hold any negotiations or talks that disregard this basic principle."

In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Gaddafi's forces had been thrown back onto the defensive, and reports that a senior figure in the Libyan security apparatus had defected indicated the regime was cracking.

"Gaddafi's forces are weakened and this latest defection is another example of how weak they've gotten," Panetta said.

"I think the sense is that Gaddafi's days are numbered," Panetta said at event with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Rebels fighting to topple Gaddafi seized two strategic towns near Tripoli over the past two days, cutting the city off from its supply lines and leaving the Libyan leader with a dwindling set of options if he is to stay in power.

However, pro-Gaddafi forces were mounting a fight-back in one of those towns, Zawiyah, west of Tripoli. Snipers concealed in tall buildings were picking off rebel fighters, and salvos of Russian-made Grad rockets landed in the town.

OBSOLETE

The Scud missile, an obsolete Soviet-era weapon, was fired on Sunday morning from near Sirte, Gaddafi's now isolated home town 500 km (310.7 miles) east of Tripoli.

It exploded to the east between the rebel-held towns of Brega and Ajdabiyah, said a U.S. official. The missile came down in the desert, injuring no one, said the official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity.

There was no immediate comment from Tripoli.

Analysts said using the inaccurate Scud look like an act of desperation. "It's an obvious sign that the regime's back is to the wall," said Shashank Joshi, Associate Fellow at Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Scuds have a range of about 185 miles. At rebel headquarters in Benghazi, officials said it was probably aimed at rebel forces near Ajdabiyah.

"Gaddafi troops are using his last gun. He's crazy," said Mohammad Zawawi, media director for rebel forces. "We're scared he'll use chemicals. That's why we're trying to end this war and we hope to end it with the least number of casualties."

"We can't prevent the Scuds but we hope NATO can. NATO has the technology to detect them."

Analysts say the rebel strategy is to isolate Tripoli and hope the government collapses, but they say it is also possible Gaddafi will opt to stage a last-ditch fight for the capital.

In a barely audible telephone call to state television in the early hours of Monday, Gaddafi called on his followers to liberate Libya from rebels and their NATO supporters.

"Get ready for the fight ... The blood of martyrs is fuel for the battlefield," he said.

REBEL PUSH

As he spoke rebels were making their most dramatic advances in months of fighting, shifting the momentum in a conflict that had been largely static and was testing the patience of NATO.

Rebel forces southwest of Tripoli surged forward at the weekend to enter Zawiyah about 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli straddling the main highway linking the capital to Tunisia.

A day later, they said they had taken the crossroads town of Garyan, which controls the highway south from Tripoli linking it to Sabha, a Gaddafi stronghold deep in the desert.

"Gaddafi has been isolated. He has been cut off from the outside world," a rebel spokesman from the Western Mountains, called Abdulrahman, told Reuters by telephone.

Tripoli officials deny the rebels control Zawiyah, and say their forces are preparing to drive "armed gangs" from Garyan.

Rebels on the outskirts of Zawiyah said most of Gaddafi's forces had pulled out of the town, but left behind snipers who made it dangerous for the anti-Gaddafi fighters to move around.

A Reuters reporter saw a rebel pick-up truck deliver six government soldiers to a makeshift prison. Each was blindfolded and made to kneel facing a wall and several rebels walked by, shouting at them and slapping them on the head.

"They were firing at us," said Abdel-Muiz Ramadan, 20, a rebel fighter. "We captured one of them and he gave us the location of the others."

He said the snipers were concentrated in tall buildings around Martyrs' Square, focus of a failed revolt by Zawiyah residents earlier this year. "Every time we approach the area, one of their snipers fires at us," said Ramadan.

Medical workers at one of the town's hospitals said 20 people, a mixture of rebel fighters and civilians, were killed on Monday, and the death toll for Tuesday had reached one.

A U.N. peace envoy in neighbouring Tunisia, Abdel Elah al-Khatib, said he knew nothing of any negotiations in Djerba.

He said he had held informal talks with representatives of Gaddafi's government and the rebel council but did not say who they were or what they discussed.

Talks could signal the endgame of a civil war that has drawn in the NATO alliance and emerged as one of the bloodiest confrontations in the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world.

Rebels may still lack the manpower for an all-out assault on Tripoli, but are hoping their encirclement of the capital will bring down Gaddafi's government or inspire an uprising. In the past, however, they have frequently failed to hold gains, and a fightback by Gaddafi troops could yet force them back.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Zawiyah, Libya, Phil Stewart in Washington, Missy Ryan in Tripoli, Ulf Laessing in Ras Jdir, Tunisia, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers and William Maclean in London; Writing by Christian Lowe and Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Rebels clash with Gaddafi loyalists in rebel-held east (Reuters)

BENGHAZI (Reuters) – Rebel forces fought gunmen loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in eastern Libya on Sunday in the latest incident to undermine the insurgents' grip in territory they hold.

The clashes renewed opposition fears that Gaddafi's agents had infiltrated the area, days after the mysterious killing of the rebel military commander.

The assassination of General Abdel Fattah Younes, apparently by gunmen on his own side, has hurt the opposition just as it was winning broader international recognition and making gains against Gaddafi's forces in the Western Mountains and elsewhere.

Rebel spokesman Mahmoud Shammam said clashes had broken out when rebel forces attacked a militia that had helped some 300 Gaddafi loyalists break out of jail near Benghazi on Friday.

At least six rebels were killed in the fighting with the militia, whose members appeared to be experienced and armed with machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and explosives.

Inside the barracks where they were holed up, rebels found more than 400 weapons, Libya's green flag and photos of Gaddafi.

"At 8 a.m., the barracks was brought under control. Thirty men surrendered and we took their weapons," Shammam told reporters. "We consider them members of the Fifth Column."

The clashes reflect growing fears within the opposition that Gaddafi loyalists are exploiting the lawlessness that prevails in the east, which is awash with weapons and armed gangs, some secular or Islamist rebels, some vigilantes and some criminals.

The fighting took place as speculation swirls over the murky circumstances of Younes' death. The 67-year-old general's record as Gaddafi's interior minister before his defection in February, made him the target of suspicion among many in the opposition.

Some Libyans suspect his execution was ordered by rebel leaders for treason, many say he was killed by Gaddafi spies, and others suggest a rebel splinter group had acted alone.

In an apparent effort to avert a feud, rebels named Suleiman al-Obeidi, a member of Younes' tribe, as acting military chief.

Whatever the truth, the infighting among militias in Libya's east deepens concerns among the rebels' Western backers, keen to see them prevail in a five-month-old civil war but frustrated by their lack of unity and worried over Islamist influence.

Keeping up diplomatic pressure on Gaddafi, Britain said on Sunday it would take part in the NATO air campaign for as long as it took and Germany expelled a Libyan diplomat.

REBELS TARGET GADDAFI STRONGHOLDS

The rebels, who rose up against Gaddafi in February, have seized swathes of the country but are poorly equipped and still far from ousting him, despite support from NATO airstrikes.

On Sunday, rebel tanks pounded Gaddafi troops in Tiji, some 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Tripoli, inching one km closer to the last government stronghold in the Western Mountains.

"We are going to take Tiji, I know it. And that will clear the way for us to head to Tripoli eventually," said fighter Naji Shayboukh, who was holding a home-made rocket-launcher.

About 14 rebels were killed and more than 20 wounded, hospital sources said, in a second day of heavy fighting on the front near Zlitan, some 160 km (100 miles) east of Tripoli and the largest town between rebel-held Misrata and the capital.

In the past 48 hours, rebels have advanced about 3 km toward Zlitan but have yet to solidify their gains.

Television footage obtained by Reuters showed what appeared to be buildings in Zlitan's eastern suburb of Zdou. The footage also showed heavy fighting, with rebels using machine guns against Gaddafi's troops.

"We have advanced well and God willing we will be in Zlitan soon," said Ibrahim Buwathi, 24, who had a shrapnel wound in his shoulder and was awaiting treatment at the hospital.

About 20 explosions rocked the nearby rebel-held city of Misrata overnight in an apparent attack by Gaddafi loyalists.

Libyan rebels also said they had moved closer to Brega, and were now positioned 5 to 7 km from the east of the oil town.

Fighting at Brega had slowed over the past two weeks as the rebels struggled to defuse hundreds of thousands of mines planted by Gaddafi's forces.

Rebels said they planned to advance soon on Brega, where some 3,000 heavily armed government troops remain positioned.

LIBYA'S WILD EAST

The longer the war drags on, the further eastern Libya appears to slip into lawlessness, raising questions about what kind of Libya could emerge if Gaddafi goes.

Many rebels had been uncomfortable working under Younes, a man who had been so close to Gaddafi for 41 years, and rebel sources said on Thursday he had been recalled over suspicions he or his family were secretly in contact with Gaddafi.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Younes had been killed by Fawzi Bu Kitf, head of the Union of Revolutionary Forces, a federation of armed rebel groups that works with the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council.

Moussa also accused Ismail al-Sallabi, head of the Feb 17 Brigade, an armed group that falls under the Union umbrella, of involvement in the assassination.

Both have said the had no knowledge of plans to assassinate Younes and that his killers had acted alone.

Rebel sources told Reuters that a field commander called Mustafa al-Rubh, from an armed group called the Okbah Ibn Nafih Brigade, had been sent to the front at Brega to arrest Younes and bring him back to Benghazi for questioning by three judges.

Rubh, who is not under arrest but is being questioned over Younes' death, said he had taken the military leader to a location outside of Benghazi, where he was due to hand him over.

From here, no one appears able to explain what happened.

Some rebel sources said another militia, called Obaida Ibn Jarrah, intervened, took Younes by force and killed him.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Hawamid; Mussab Al-Khairalla and Ayman al-Sahili in Misrata; Missy Ryan in Tripoli; Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Souhail Karam in Rabat; writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

(This story has been corrected in paragraph 17 to show number of rebels killed and wounded is about 14 and 20, respectively)

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Rebels brace for attacks as Gaddafi threatens Europe (Reuters)

DAFNIYA/AL-QAWALISH, Libya (Reuters) – Rebel fighters braced for further attacks on Saturday from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi after the Libyan leader staged a show of support at home and threatened to strike his enemies abroad.

Rebels in Misrata said the death toll in the western town, a longtime insurgent stronghold, had risen to seven from six, with at least 17 wounded, after a heavy attack by Gaddafi artillery the day before.

A rebel spokesman in the town on the Mediterranean coast, who gave his name as Youssef, told Reuters: "The situation is calm today in Misrata. Yesterday seven rebels were killed. We expect fighting this evening."

Rebels have advanced on two fronts against Gaddafi forces in recent days, but government troops have fought back and Gaddafi has also sought to encourage his forces.

In a defiant speech late on Friday, Gaddafi threatened to export the war to Europe in revenge for the NATO-led military campaign against him, and to crush his enemies.

The "traitors" ranged against him in Libya and elsewhere will "fall under the feet" of the Libyan masses, he said.

In Tripoli and 800 km (500 miles) to the south in the desert town of Sabha, tens of thousands -- swelled by representatives of the tribes of the region -- gathered for Friday prayers in what appeared to be an attempt to show that Gaddafi enjoys widespread support in the areas he still controls despite the rebel gains of recent weeks.

Gaddafi supporters rallied in Tripoli's Green Square, underscoring his refusal to step down after four decades in power and five months of fighting.

Speaking on Libyan television, Gaddafi threatened to send hundreds of Libyans to carry out revenge attacks in Europe.

"Hundreds of Libyans will martyr in Europe. I told you it is eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. But we will give them a chance to come to their senses," he said in an audio speech.

HEAVY FIRE

While the insurgents have advanced on two fronts, rebels in Misrata have come under heavy artillery fire from Gaddafi's forces.

A rebel sympathizer in Misrata told Reuters opposition forces had been moving closer to neighboring Zlitan, one of a chain of government-controlled towns blocking their advance to Tripoli.

As they advanced, pro-Gaddafi troops inside the city fired rounds of explosives to block their progress, the sympathizer said in an email.

"The rebels are waiting for NATO backup or for Gaddafi forces to run out of ammunition to make a move to take the city center," he said.

On the other major front, in the Western Mountains region southwest of Tripoli, NATO warplanes bombed forces loyal to Gaddafi several times on Friday, their bombs landing about 3 km (2 miles) east of the village of Al-Qawalish, according to one rebel fighter.

After weeks of static fighting, the rebels have made significant advances this week: pushing west from Misrata to within 13 km (8 miles) of Zlitan, where large numbers of pro-Gaddafi forces are based, and seizing the village of Al-Qawalish in the southwest.

Taking Al-Qawalish brings them closer to having control of a major highway into the capital.

Rebel advances over the last two weeks have allowed normal life to resume in towns no longer within shelling distance of Gaddafi's troops.

Rebels staged a military parade on Friday evening in Zintan, driving tanks through the streets of town in the Western Mountains. People fired rifles in the air including one small boy who opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle while perched on his father's shoulders.

(Additional reporting by Lamine Chikhi in Sabha, Joseph Nasr in Berlin, Tarek Amara in Tunis; Writing by Giles Elgood)

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Gaddafi can stay in Libya if he quits: rebel chief (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi is welcome to live out his retirement inside Libya as long as he gives up all power, Libya's rebel chief told Reuters on Sunday in the clearest concession the rebels have so far offered.

Gaddafi has fiercely resisted all international calls for him to go and vowed to fight to the end, but members of his inner circle have given indications they are ready to negotiate with the rebels, including on the Libyan leader's future.

Gaddafi is still holding on to power, five months into a rebellion against his 41-year rule and despite a NATO bombardment and an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for crimes against humanity.

"As a peaceful solution, we offered that he can resign and order his soldiers to withdraw from their barracks and positions, and then he can decide either to stay in Libya or abroad," rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said in an interview.

"If he desires to stay in Libya, we will determine the place and it will be under international supervision. And there will be international supervision of all his movements," said Jalil, who heads the rebels' National Transitional Council.

Speaking to Reuters in his eastern Libyan stronghold of Benghazi, Abdel Jalil, Gaddafi's former justice minister, said he made the proposal about a month ago through the United Nations but had yet to receive any response from Tripoli.

He said one suggestion was that Gaddafi could spend his retirement under guard in a military barracks.

The conflict in Libya is close to deadlock, with rebels on three fronts unable to make a decisive advance toward the Libyan capital and growing strains inside NATO about the cost of the operation and the lack of a military breakthrough.

Previous attempts to negotiate a peace deal have foundered, but some analysts say Gaddafi's entourage -- if perhaps not the Libyan leader himself -- may look for a way out as air strikes and sanctions narrow their options.

Gaddafi's daughter Aisha said last week her father would be prepared to cut a deal with the rebels though he would not leave the country, and his son, Saif al-Islam, has said Gaddafi would step down if that is what the people of Libya want.

GADDAFI THREATS

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday stepped up Western calls on Gaddafi to quit, brushing off his threat to attack Europeans in their homes and offices.

"Instead of issuing threats, Gaddafi should put the well-being and the interests of his own people first and he should step down from power and help facilitate a democratic transition," Clinton told reporters on a trip to Spain.

In an address relayed to some 100,000 supporters in Tripoli's Green Square on Friday, Gaddafi urged NATO to halt its bombing campaign or risk seeing Libyan fighters descend on Europe "like a swarm of locusts or bees."

"Retreat, you have no chance of beating this brave people," Gaddafi said.

"They can attack your homes, your offices and your families, which will become military targets just as you have transformed our offices, headquarters, houses and children into what you regard as legitimate military targets," he said.

A rebel spokesman in Misrata, about 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli, said two rebel fighters had been killed on the outskirts of the city, where they are struggling to push back government forces and advance on the capital.

"The (pro-Gaddafi) brigades heavily bombarded Dafniyah and Bourouia last night. Two revolutionaries were martyred and 12 others wounded," the spokesman, who identified himself as Oussama, said from Misrata.

OIL FACILITIES

In Tripoli, a senior source in Gaddafi's government said there was reliable intelligence indicating the rebels were planning to attack oil export terminals in the eastern towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf.

"The Libyan government will do whatever (possible) to prevent such attacks," the source, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters.

"It urges international oil companies as well as international insurance companies to put pressure on their governments to force the rebels, who are supported by NATO, to stop their destructive operations," said the source.

The conflict has already halted oil exports from Libya, helping push up world oil prices to over $110 per barrel. Most oil facilities have escaped major damage in the fighting.

A document seen by Reuters showed African Union leaders had agreed on Friday that member states would not execute the international arrest warrant for Gaddafi.

The decision left open the possibility that he could go into exile in one of the African Union's 53 nations.

The grouping also offered to host talks on a ceasefire and a transition to democratic government, but did not call on Gaddafi to step down and left open whether he had a future role.

That is likely to disappoint Western powers, which had been urging African states to send an unequivocal message to the Libyan leader to quit.

Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the Benghazi-based rebel council, told Reuters he rejected the African Union ceasefire proposal.

"It includes nothing concerning our demands. We are only demanding one thing: Gaddafi's resignation ... We can gain freedom and democracy only if Gaddafi steps down.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Lamine Chikhi and Lutfi Abu-Aun in Tripoli, Tarek Amara in Tunis and David Lewis in Malabo; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by David Stamp)

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