Libyan rebels said they were closing in on fugitive strongman Muammar Gaddafi and would merge their disparate fighters in the capital under one command to streamline operations.
There was no sign of a swift end to the war, which they have said will only end when Gaddafi is captured dead or alive, but the rebels claimed victory in Ras Jdir, raising their flag at the border post with Tunisia after clashes with loyalists.
A rebel detachment was also turning its attention to Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace 450 km (300 miles) east of Tripoli, where British aircraft have fired cruise missiles at a headquarters bunker.
A city beyond rebel control on the Mediterranean coast, some believe Gaddafi might seek refuge there among his tribesmen. Loyalist forces also still hold positions deep in the Sahara desert, days after gleeful rebels took much of the capital, ransacked Gaddafi’s compound and paraded their stolen souvenirs.
“Sirte remains an operating base from which pro-Gaddafi troops project hostile forces against Misrata and Tripoli,” a NATO official said, adding that its forces had also acted to stop a column of 29 vehicles heading west toward Misrata.
Leaders of the National Transitional Council, which has Western support, pressed foreign governments to release Libyan funds frozen abroad, warning of its urgent need to impose order and provide services to a population traumatised by six months of conflict and 42 years of eccentric, personal rule.
But Gaddafi’s long-time allies in Africa, beneficiaries of his oil-fueled largesse and sympathisers with a foreign policy he called anti-colonial, offered him a grain of comfort and irked the rebels by refusing to follow Arab and Western powers in recognising the NTC as the legal government.
Combined with the reluctance of major powers like China, Russia and Brazil, to see Europeans and Americans dominate a nation with Africa’s biggest oil reserves, the African Union’s resistance may slow the pace at which funds are released.
