Opposition forces close in on Gaddafi stronghold

Capture of former Libyan dictator's birthplace brings rebels one step closer to taking neighbouring city of Sirte. Portia Walker reports

(Reuters)

Revolutionary forces inched closer to their goal of taking the Libyan coastal city of Sirte last night after capturing a neighbouring village said to be the desert birthplace of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Troops loyal to the country's new transitional leadership entered the tiny village of Qasr Abu Hadi, where Gaddafi was said to have been born in a Bedouin tent in 1942. "Abu Hadi is completely free [of Gaddafi fighters]," Dr Taha Sultan, a medic, told the Agence France-Presse news agency at a field hospital on the outskirts of Sirte. "Our medical team came through the village and they tell us it is free."

The apparent capture of the hamlet came as anti-Gaddafi forces continued their siege of Sirte, where fighters were battling to subdue the last vestiges of support for the toppled dictator. Hundreds of pick-up trucks carrying heavy machine-guns have encircled this last loyalist redoubt. Within Sirte is a hard core of Gaddafi loyalists continuing to hold out against the rebel onslaught.

Fighters on the side of Libya's interim government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), advanced on the conference centre in which Gaddafi used to receive foreign dignitaries. They met fierce resistance from within the city as loyalists pounded rebel positions with devastating accuracy. The NTC trucks soon retreated as they came under fire. One driver, whose gunman was hit, smashed through other vehicles on the road away from the centre. Doctors at a medical evacuation clinic said 20 casualties had been brought in by late afternoon but many more were expected.

The fighting outside Sirte is being hampered by a chaotic command structure and lack of co-ordination between rebel brigades. Most days, advances occur spontaneously as a vanguard of fighters spontaneously pushes forwards.

"Every attack they are entering more and more without orders," said Ismail Taweel, a fighter on the frontline. "You can see one brigade inside without communication with the others."

Progress has also been delayed by the presence of civilians within the besieged city. Lawmakers and rebel commanders have repeatedly called ceasefires in order to allow residents to leave safely. A steady stream of cars carrying families and laden with bedding and hastily packed possessions filled the roads leading away from Sirte last night, but many people stayed behind.

"When I talk to the people from there, the young people are okay with us, but the old men are stubborn and hard-headed and don't want to leave their homes," said Amin Garman, manning a checkpoint where civilian cars were being searched for weapons and fleeing officials of the Gaddafi regime.

In the eastern port city of Benghazi, the NTC's interim leaders named a new Cabinet after weeks of delays, saying they would step down once the country was fully secured. "We have signed a pledge ... that we will not take part in any future government in any way," said the head of the NTC, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil.

The interim council plans to hold elections eight months after the fighting ends. The capture of Sirte has been defined as the end of hostilities – an implicit recognition that another town, Bani Walid, remains loyal to Colonel Gaddafi and will continue to repel attempts to take it.

Thousands of shoulder-mounted, heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles are missing from weapons stockpiles kept by Gaddafi's army in Libya following its defeat by rebel forces, it was claimed yesterday.

Admiral Giampaolo di Paola, the head of the committee of Nato military chiefs, told a secret briefing of German lawmakers that at least 10,000 such missiles – which could be used by terror groups to bring down civil airliners – could not be accounted for, according to a report in the news magazine Der Spiegel.

The Nato secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, would not confirm the report.