Rebels: Gadhafi loyalists on brink of collapse

SIRTE, Libya?? Libyan government forces brought more tanks into the city of Sirte on Friday to try to break the last pocket of resistance by loyalists of ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi in his home town.

The mostly untrained militia army of the National Transitional Council (NTC) has been gradually tightening its strangle-hold around Sirte for weeks in a chaotic struggle that has cost scores of lives and left thousands homeless.

It has also held up the attempt by Libya's new leaders to try to build a democratic government as they say the process will begin only after the city is captured.

NTC commanders say Gadhafi's diehard loyalists now only control an area measuring about 700 yards north to south, and around a mile east to west; a residential area of mostly apartment blocks.

The biggest obstacle to taking the town has been Gadhafi's snipers hiding in the buildings. Tanks are used to hit the buildings from close range and dislodge the snipers.

Behind the tanks, lines of pick-up trucks and scores of infantry readied for battle Friday.

Green flags, the banner of Gadhafi's 42-year rule, flew above of the buildings ahead. Gadhafi himself is believed to be hiding somewhere in the vast Libyan desert.

'They are finished'
Rebels reportedly said there were possibly as few as 100 Gadhafi loyalists left in Sirte.

"There are a hundred fighters, maybe a little more, holding us up. That is all," former dentist Salah al-Obeidi, now a rebel commander, told The Guardian newspaper.

The paper said other rebels estimated there were 200 loyalists in the city.

"They are finished. All they can do is surrender. There has been no attempt to negotiate with them. We don't negotiate with terrorists. We hear them talking on their radios. Talking about 'rats' and killing infidels," al-Obeidi told The Guardian.

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Libya's de facto leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, said Wednesday he expected to declare total victory in less than a week, which would pave the way for a new interim government to be named to guide the oil-rich North African nation to elections within eight months.

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A senior NTC official however denied reports by other officials in the new government that Gadhafi's son Muatassim had been captured in Sirte.

Surrounded now on all sides, Gadhafi's remaining forces in Sirte can have no hope of winning the battle, but are still fighting on, inflicting dozens of casualties with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms.

One field hospital received two NTC dead and 23 wounded on Thursday. One of the dead men had been hit while taking food up to the fighters on the front line, doctors said.

'It's enough'
One NTC commander said Gadhafi's besieged forces were no longer using heavier weapons and he said they appeared to have lost their cohesion as a fighting force.

"We've noticed now they are fighting every man for himself," said Baloun Al Sharie, a field commander. "We tried to tell them it's enough and to give themselves up, but they would not."

NTC officers say Gadhafi loyalists fear reprisals if they give themselves up.

Moammar Gadhafi's family tree

Some captured fighters have been roughed up by NTC forces and Amnesty International issued a report on Wednesday saying Libya's new rulers were in danger of repeating human rights abuses commonplace during Gadhafi's rule. The NTC said it would look into the report.

Close to the center of the fighting in Sirte, government forces found 25 corpses wrapped in plastic sheets. They accused Gadhafi militias of carrying out execution-style killings. Five corpses shown to a Reuters team wore civilian clothes, had their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to the head.

But as the battle for Libya draws toward what the NTC and NATO hope will be a close, both the new government and the Western alliance which helped topple Gadhafi are looking toward a return to normality.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44900784/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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