Libyan forces on Monday awaited orders to storm a desert town held by fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi after negotiations failed to dislodge them from one of the deposed leader’s remaining bastions.
Military units under Libya’s interim council are trying to winkle pro-Gaddafi forces out of Bani Walid, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Tripoli, as well as the coastal city of Sirte and a swathe of territory stretching far into the desert interior. “The door is still open for negotiations. Our offer still stands,” said Mohammed al-Fassi, a field commander for the National Transitional Council (NTC), outside the town. “The offer is that people who committed crimes in Gaddafi’s name will be put under house arrest until the new government is formed. Some of them have accepted this but others said no.”
Asked whether the NTC was considering taking Bani Walid by force, Fassi said: “There is no other option”.
A flurry of weekend talks with Bani Walid tribal elders failed to make headway and that effort appears to be over.
“As chief negotiator, I have nothing to offer right now. From my side, negotiations are finished,” Abdallah Kanshil said at a checkpoint some 60 km outside Bani Walid. “They said they don’t want to talk, they are threatening everyone who moves. They are putting snipers on high-rise buildings and inside olive groves, they have a big fire force. We compromised a lot at the last minute,” he said. It would be up to the NTC to decide what to do next, he added. “I urge Gaddafi’s people to leave the town alone.”
NTC officials have suggested that sons of Gaddafi or even the former leader himself may be hiding in Bani Walid, which like other besieged towns is cut off from normal communications.
The region around Bani Walid is traditionally pro-Gaddafi. In the nearby town of Tarhouna, Gaddafi-era green flags were still flying not far from the NTC’s red, green and black flags.
NTC forces have also closed in on Gaddafi’s birthplace in Sirte, which lies across Libya’s main east-west coastal highway.
