Libya fighters in new push on Gaddafi desert holdout

NTC fighters take position during fighting against loyalist forces in Sirte Fighters of Libya's new regime have forced their way into the desert oasis of Bani Walid, one of the last holdouts of Moamer Gaddafi diehards, but encountered heavy resistance.The intensified fighting in the desert town some 170 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Tripoli happened Sunday, even as the battle eased in the city of Sirte, the other main holdout of fighters backing the overthrown strongman Kadhafi.
"We attacked this morning from the southwest. Our men where inside the town this afternoon. But there was heavy resistance" from the Kadhafi loyalists, Jamal Salem, a commander of the National Transitional Council (NTC) forces, told AFP.
Salem said the new regime forces "have not retreated," but by Sunday evening he was unable to specify how far his fighters had managed to advance into Bani Walid.
The NTC forces mounted their fresh assault on the stronghold after launching a barrage of artillery fire against the positions of pro-Kadhafi fighters.
Abdallah Kenshil, an NTC official, told local television channel Libya Al-Ahrar that the fighters had reached the town centre, but the claim could not be independently verified.
A commander from the city of Zawiyah said three of his men were killed in the fighting.
Bani Walid is surrounded by NTC fighters, but their commanders pulled them back last week after suffering heavy losses and to prepare for a new offensive against the 1,500 pro-Kadhafi fighters thought to remain there.
Meanwhile in Sirte on the Mediterranean coast, where fierce clashes between NTC forces and those loyal to deposed leader Kadhafi have raged for a month, Sunday saw a lull with only intermittent shelling and rocket-fire, AFP correspondents said.
"We are shelling with tanks and anti-aircraft weapons and then we will send our troops onto the streets," said Salem Ahmed, a tank commander from the eastern city of Benghazi.
Ahmed said the advance was being held up by pro-Kadhafi snipers.
"A few snipers can stop an army. They are very professional. They shoot in the heart, the head, the chest," he insisted.
The focus of the NTC operations are two seaside residential neighbourhoods, the Dollar and Number Two, where Kadhafi loyalists are holed up.
One NTC fighter told AFP there had been an exodus of civilians from the two areas Sunday and that the besieging troops wanted to give others the chance to leave.  
Sunday's lull contrasted sharply with the previous day when Kadhafi loyalists mounted a fierce counter-attack in Sirte, forcing back the NTC fighters under a barrage of rockets and shelling.
A medic at a field hospital behind the eastern front line said four NTC fighters were killed and 22 wounded in the fighting on that side of the city on Saturday.
"Those killed were mainly from sniper bullets. And the wounded were injured by explosions and rocket attacks," Dr Ahmed Bushariya told AFP.
In the eastern city off Benghazi, officers of the former Libyan army on Sunday defended the institution's role in the revolution which brought down Kadhafi and pledged its support for the country's new rulers.
The military "fought alongside civilian revolutionaries right from the start of the uprising in February," insisted General Ahmed al-Gotrani at a conference on preparations for the formation of a new Libyan army.
"We backed up the revolutionaries with our experience, our advice, but also with arms and equipment," said the general, who stressed he was speaking on behalf of the whole army.
"Our army was treated with contempt and ignored by Colonel Kadhafi," Gotrani said, adding that "many soldiers were killed and sacrificed for the revolution."
Kadhafi himself has gone into hiding.
Officials in Bamako, meanwhile, said that more than 400 armed Tuaregs had arrived in Mali from Libya where they fought in Kadhafi's army.
The Libyan nationals of Malian origin crossed into northern Mali aboard a 78-vehicle convoy on Saturday "with weapons and luggage," a Malian security source said.
The repatriation of hundreds of fighters is "a serious worry", UN special envoy to west Africa Said Djinnit told reporters. The men arrived "in confusion, with big re-entry problems, which has increased the insecurity in the north of Mali."
Stunned by the din of battle and surrounded by snipers, Egyptian workers spent a month holed up in their apartment in the heart of Sirte before being evacuated in the past few days by fighters of Libya's new regime.
Now all they want is to get back home as soon as possible.
"I am done with Sirte now. I want to go to Misrata and go back to Egypt," said Mohamed Zidan, 30, who had lived for four years in the Mediterranean city, the home town of deposed leader Moamer Kadhafi.
Zidan's home, wedged between residential zones one and two on the coast, became a front line one month ago when the offensive against Sirte was launched by National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters.
"We were trapped. We had no car to use to escape and we were afraid of the Kadhafi snipers. We could hear the bullets flying outside. The walls were shaking, all the windows exploded during the fight," he recalled.
Before becoming completely cut off from the world, without electricity and only limited water supplies, the group of Egyptians learned that Kadhafi, locally known as the "Guide," had fled the capital Tripoli.
Their only hope since that day: the liberation of Sirte by the NTC, which although it had by Saturday overrun much of Sirte, it was still battling to snuff out the last pockets of pro-Kadhafi resistance in order to declare the full liberation of Libya.
"When we heard that Kadhafi was out like Mubarak, we were happy for our Libyan brothers but we were keeping quiet. We were watching the news but with low volume because otherwise Kadhafi troops would have killed us," said another Egyptian, Mohamed Zuawi Budjelthiya.
Detained by the old regime's police in September for having a video of the Egyptian revolution on his cell phone, the young man bears a large knife scar on his arm.
"We were waiting for the rebels... When we saw them we shouted at them and came out," he said.
Since then, he has taken shelter, along with other Egyptians and Pakistanis, across from a field hospital at the exit of Sirte where ambulances shuttle back and forth carrying the latest casualties from the front.
"I am waiting for my Egyptian friends who are still stuck inside the city. I don't know what happened to them," said Hasan Abdeljali, 42, a construction worker employed for the last 25 years in Sirte.
After a month of famine, now he eats his fill "with the rebels."
"We only had flour, I ate bread for a month, that's it," he said.
Before launching a final assault on Sirte, several NTC fighters and commanders swore that they wanted to make sure the civilians were gone first.
"The only solution for Sirte to fall is to attack with full force," said NTC commander Mustafa al-Abyad.
"But families are supposed to still be inside the buildings along the coastline and we don't want to kill them, even if they are Libyans who benefited from the Kadhafi regime," he added.
"We fight, but we too are civilians," Abyad said.
Libyan NTC fighters have taken control of Bani Walid hospital after fierce fighting with Gaddafi troops.
Meanwhile, in concurrence with the fighting in Bani Walid, battles continue to rage in the southern front near the artificial river reservoir in al-Kassara district to which the fighters advanced after taking control of al-Garjoma district in south of Bani Walid.
In Sirte, NTC fighters have launched a fresh attack, using tanks and other heavy weaponry.
A number of NTC field commanders have earlier cited difficulties after fierce battles last Saturday, prompting their forced retreat.
The fighters have reorganised their ranks and launched a fresh offensive by tanks and artillery fire at Gaddafi troops, supported by additional reinforcements, besides ongoing NATO air raids on sites where Gaddafi troops were hiding.
NTC justice minister Mohamed al-Allaqi has reaffirmed that violations said to be committed by NTC fighters cited in an Amnesty International report, were "individual cases, not systematic behavior by NTC fighters".
Speaking at a press conference in Doha, Allaqi has also noted that the Libyan attorney general has added reports by civil rights organisations to the investigation file for the accusations.
Two bulldozers guarded by armed men started to demolish the walls around ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi's former home in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Sunday.
As the bulldozers set to on the Bab al-Azizyah compound, men chanted, "God is greatest. This is for the blood of the martyrs." Some fired machine guns into the air.
"We are destroying it because we want to demolish anything that belongs to Gaddafi," one gunman, Essam Sarag, told the Reuters news agency.
People driving past stopped their cars and joined a crowd waving new Libyan flags.
"We will continue until we destroy everything that belongs to Gaddafi," said Etman Lelktah, who said he was in charge of the fighters at the scene.
 "We ask that a peace organisation be built instead of Gaddafi's place."
The heavily fortified compound, six sq-km (2.3 sq mi), was both the seat of Gaddafi's power and his Tripoli home.
It was targetted by NATO warplanes several times before Tripoli fell to the now ruling National Transitional Council in August.