The deadline expired on Saturday for forces loyal to ousted Libyan strongman Moamer Gaddafi to surrender, with fighters of the country’s new leadership poised to attack hold-out strongholds.
After fierce clashes on Friday in Bani Walid, a Gaddafi bastion southeast of Tripoli, an AFP reporter on the town’s eastern front at Sedata some 60 kilometres (40 miles) south of Misrata could hear distant artillery fire. NATO aircraft could also be heard overhead, he said. The National Transitional Council (NTC) set Saturday as the deadline for towns still loyal to Gaddafi to surrender, and on-off talks have been going on for days over Bani Walid.
A number of former regime officials, including Gaddafi’s spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, are believed to be holed up there. NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil arrived in the port city of Misrata while en route for his first visit to Tripoli since the fighters of the new leadership captured the capital. Abdel Jalil told AFP his visit to Tripoli from NTC headquarters in Benghazi was “temporary,” and that the council he heads would move to Tripoli “after the (full) liberation” of Libya.
An AFP correspondent said Abdel Jalil was due to give a news conference in Misrata, a city which suffered a lengthy siege by pro-Gaddafi forces that was lifted only in August.
