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The battle between revolutionary fighters and Gaddafi loyalists continues along the roads of Sirte. Gaia Anderson/AP/Press Association Images

Libya: Fierce battles continue for Gaddafi strongholds

In Bani Walid and Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte the resistance continues. The whereabouts of the Colonel himself remain unknown.

REVOLUTIONARY FIGHTERS STRUGGLED to expand the offensive into Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown today with street-by-street battles and commanders seeking to break open a new front against loyalist forces fiercely defending the most symbolic stronghold remaining from the shattered regime.

The fresh assaults into the seaside city of Sirte contrasted with a stalemate in the mountain enclave of Bani Walid where demoralised anti-Gaddafi forces tried to regroup after being beaten back by Gaddafi snipers and gunners holding strategic high ground.

Meanwhile, a military spokesman for Libya’s transitional government says revolutionaries have no certain information about Gaddafi’s location.

The spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani says he thinks anybody who knew where Gaddafi was would turn him in for the nearly $2 million bounty set by the revolutionaries.

Gaddafi has been on the run since Tripoli fell to revolutionary forces on August 21. Fierce fighting around Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte and another stronghold of Bani Walid have drawn speculation that the fugitive leader might be there.

Bani told reporters Saturday that “up to now we don’t have any certain information or intelligence about his whereabouts.”

Anti-Gaddafi fighters backed by heavy machine guns and rockets tried to push through crowded residential areas in Sirte – on Libya’s central Mediterranean coast — but were met with a rain of gunfire and mortars.

Street battles

A field hospital set up outside Sirte at a gas station filled with wounded revolutionary militiamen, including those on a convoy hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

In earlier battles, Gaddafi’s gunmen fired from mosque minarets and high-rise buildings. In the streets, the two sides battered each other with high-caliber machine guns, rockets and rocket-propelled grenades.

At least three anti-Gaddafi fighters were killed Saturday, said Dr. Ayab Bassin as he worked amid bloodstained bandages. The casualty count on the loyalist side was unknown.

“There is no full control over Sirte,” said Hassan Dourai, Sirte representative in the new government’s interim government.

He said fighters reported seeing one of Gaddafi’s son, Muatassim, shortly before the offensives began Friday, but he has not been spotted since the battles intensified.

The whereabouts of Gaddafi and several of his sons remain unknown. Other family members have fled to neighboring Algeria and Niger.

While battles raged, anti-Gaddafi commanders said they reached a surrender accord in most areas of the Harawa region, about 50 miles east of Sirte. It opens a possible new pathway into Sirte for revolutionary forces.

‘Resistance for months’

But Gaddafi’s spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, claimed loyalists are in no danger of losing the city.

“We have the ability to continue this resistance for months,” he said in a phone call Friday to Syrian-based Al-Rai TV, which has become the mouthpiece for the former regime.

The conditions inside Sirte, meanwhile, grow increasingly dire for those caught in the crossfire. Nouri Abu Bakr, a 42-year-old teacher fleeing the city, said there is no electricity or medicine and food supplies are nearly exhausted.

“Gaddafi gave all the people weapons, but those fighting are the Gaddafi brigade of loyalists,” he said.

The same types of hard-line forces are apparently leading the defense of Bani Walid, about 90 miles southeast of Tripoli. The fighters withdrew Friday after facing withering sniper fire and shelling from loyalists units holding key positions above the valley entrance to the town.

There were no signs Saturday that anti-Gaddafi forces planned a swift counter punch.

“This may be the worst front Libya will see,” said fighter Osama Al-Fassi, who joined other former rebels gathered at a feed factory where they drank coffee and took target practice at plastic bottles. “I don’t think we will have orders to move in today.”

Meanwhile, more families fled the town. At least a dozen cars streamed out during the lull in the combat.

A 50-year-old civil servant leaving with his family, Ismail Mohammed, described the pro-Gaddafi forces as “too strong” inside Bani Walid and suggested a generational divide between young people strongly behind the uprising and older Libyans often more cautious about whether the revolutionary forces can bring stability.

“The youth wanted this revolution and sometimes you can’t control your own son,” he said.

Resolve

The tough defence of the holdout bastions of Bani Walid and Sirte displayed the firepower and resolve of the Gaddafi followers and indicated Libya’s new rulers may not easily break the back of regime holdouts. It also raised fears the country could face a protracted insurgency of the sort that has played out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The loyalists still hold a swath of Libya along the central coast and into the southern deserts more than three weeks after revolutionary fighters swept into Tripoli and drove out Gaddafi.

In Libya’s southern desert, hundreds of former rebels also have massed deep in the southern desert and were trying to negotiate with villagers in a pro-Gaddafi area to surrender peacefully.

Hundreds of revolutionary forces left the captured Bani Jalloud air base and rolled through villages where they reached truces. Along the route, crowds cheered their arrival and flashed V-for-victory signs.

Each step brought them closer to the loyalist city of Sabha, the main southern urban center about 400 miles (650 kilometers) south of Tripoli.

Colonel Bashir Awidat, a revolutionary commander, said they seek to secure the surrounding hinterlands moving against Sabha. He added that the villagers had been isolated and believed Gaddafi’s propaganda.

“They think that we’ll raid their houses and rob them. The media coverage here has been bad for 42 years and it has trained people to think a certain way, and that will take time to change,” he told The Associated Press at the captured air base.

International support

The new leadership has been gaining international support in its campaign to root out the rest of Gaddafi’s regime and establish authority. French President Nicholas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan all visited Tripoli this week.

The UN General Assembly also voted on Friday to give Libya’s seat in the world body to the National Transitional Council, which is the closest thing the oil-rich North African nation has to a government.

The vote means that a senior council official will be able to join world leaders and speak for Libya at next week’s ministerial session of the General Assembly, and participate in meetings.

Also Friday, the UN Security Council approved a new UN mission in Libya and the unfreezing of assets of two major oil companies. It also lifted a ban on flights by Libyan aircraft and modified an arms embargo.

Read: UN approves Libya seat for former rebels >

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    Mute Aishling Keogh
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 6:26 PM

    RIP,another family’s heartbreak this evening :(

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    Mute Martina Ní Wynner
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 6:06 PM

    RIP

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    Mute Keith Moore
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 6:03 PM

    I hope it’s not James it would be such a waste of a young life.

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    Mute Cian O Donnell
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 7:47 PM

    seriously,how many other bodies are floating around in that river at any one time?

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    Mute Gavin Tracy
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 10:41 PM

    It would be someone else’s waste if life then….

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    Mute Susan Duffy
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 10:49 PM

    I hate to have say this why are people red thumbing that comment?

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    Mute louise
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 6:15 PM

    So sad news, I know body isn’t identified yet, thoughts with family at such a sad time, too young to die

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    Mute Richard Mason
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 7:52 PM

    What are the thumbs down about? I can’t see any contentious statements above!

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    Mute Bernadette Dunne
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 8:51 PM

    Richard just ignore the red thumbs on this story We all try too it is such a sad story for the Family who have to deal with this R.I.P and thought for the family

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    Mute Mark Vieregge
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 7:20 PM

    Oh no… :-/

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    Mute James O Mara
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 9:28 PM

    I hope it not James for hisfamly

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    Mute Laura Hannon
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 7:59 PM

    Thumbs down because any loss of life is sad whatever the age.

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    Mute Richard Mason
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 8:10 PM

    I agree Laura but I thought the idea of the thumbs was to make a statement about the comment. Apologies if I have misunderstood.

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    Mute Cian O Donnell
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 8:42 PM

    you havent mis understood at all,the thumbs system is indeed to indicate ones aggreement/disaggreement with a comment..people will thumbs down anything said on this site,no matter what it is

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    Mute Norma Kealy
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 11:43 PM

    well done to the boyne river rescue….a grim task indeed. my condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.

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    Mute kelly whelan
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 9:49 PM

    at least who ever it is has been.found. not in the way any family Will ever hope for but it Will be at least some peace for them. what a heartbreaking time for all concerned. rip.

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    Mute Aisling Doyle
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 9:09 PM

    Dont worry I seen the red thumb record here 1097 so I wouldnt take it personal sometimes with the iPhone or smart (not so Smart) when scrolling down page sometimes ppl hit off it by error I know I for one have .

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    Mute Eileen Gabbett
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 9:51 PM

    R I P . Condolences to the family of the deceased .

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    Mute Tomas Phelan
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 11:43 PM

    RIP to this poor soul, it’s someone’s son, brother etc. May his family gain the strength they will need to get them through the next week. how gives a flying f%@k about red thumbers. They are irrelevant. Trolls will be trolls.

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    Mute kelly whelan
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 9:49 PM

    at least who ever it is has been.found. not in the way any family Will ever hope for but it Will be at least some peace for them. what a heartbreaking time for all concerned. rip.

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    Mute Kay Tighe
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    Aug 24th 2012, 1:27 AM

    Very sad that someone’s son has be taken out of the river

    As for the red thumbs why won’t the journal get rid of this red / green
    Thumbs crap

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    Mute Gavin Tracy
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    Aug 24th 2012, 7:49 AM

    People are saying ” I hope it’s not James” . It’s somebody, and someone’s son!! Whoever it is are facing devastation.. I hope it’s not James just pushes the reality to some other poor family

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    Mute Mick Lennon
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    Aug 24th 2012, 8:56 AM

    am I right that the body found was that poor boy James,tragic,his life taken so young,only making his way in the world god be good to him

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    Mute Don McGuinness
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    Aug 23rd 2012, 11:47 PM

    Why was my comment deleted?

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    Mute Martin St John
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    Nov 26th 2012, 3:29 AM

    Because the journal is like that … Very picky in my opinion and just a tad conservative … It likes to think it’s an important broadsheet , but it’s not really that far removed from most Red-Tops!! Shrude and moronic!!

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