SEDATA, Libya: The deadline expired on Saturday for forces loyal to ousted Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi 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 Qaddafi bastion southeast of Tripoli—an Agence France-Presse reporter on the town’s eastern front at Sedata, some 60 kilometers south of Misrata, could hear distant artillery fire.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization aircraft could also be heard overhead on Saturday morning, he said.
The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), meanwhile, called on Friday for the fugitive Qaddafi’s arrest for crimes against humanity, following a request by the International Criminal Court, and there were reports saying that a number of his generals had fled Libya.
The National Transitional Council (NTC) has set a Saturday deadline for towns still loyal to Qaddafi to surrender, and on-off talks have been going on for days over Bani Walid.
A number of former regime officials, including Qaddafi’s spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, are believed to be holed up there.
On another front, NTC forces were massing on Saturday some 30 kilometers from Bani Walid, another Agence France-Presse reporter said.
Fighters returning from the front reported clashes between NTC “sleeper cells” and pro-Qadhafi forces in and near the town overnight, and said that they were reinforcing advance positions amid “fierce resistance” from diehards.
According to chief NTC negotiator Abdullah Kenshil, “the attack will take place, but its timing will be decided by military leaders on the ground.”
On Friday, a top NTC commander said that “decisive military action” was imminent.
“Up to now these negotiations did not lead to positive results,” said Salem Jeha—a highly influential member of Misrata’s military council—just hours ahead of the midnight deadline.
“If the negotiations fail, then there will be decisive action, decisive military action,” he added.
Jeha, a former colonel in Qaddafi’s army, said that he expected resistance to be stiff but futile.
“What we know is that the remnants of Qaddafi’s troops are fighting until the end to hold on to their territory. I am very sure that they cannot defend the positions they are in,” he added.
On Friday ahead of the deadline, fighting erupted in Bani Walid as pro-NTC elements inside the town clashed with Qaddafi forces.
One “revolutionary” fighter was killed and four were wounded, while there were three deaths in the ranks of the pro-Qaddafi forces.
An NTC commander said earlier that “fierce fighting between our forces and pro-Qaddafi ones are under way in sectors very close” to Bani Walid.
Columns of smoke and the crump of shelling could be heard by journalists outside Bani Walid as convoys carrying fighters and ammunition headed for the town, located 170 kilometers from Tripoli.
