TARHUNA, Libya, Sept 3, (Agencies): Libyan fighters have given forces in Bani Walid until 0800 GMT Sunday to surrender, a commander said, adding Muammer Gaddafi’s son Saadi was still there but another, Seif al-Islam, had fled.

“The revolutionaries have given an ultimatum to the tribal chiefs in Bani Walid,” Abdulrazzak Naduri, deputy chief of the military council in Tarhuna, told AFP.

“Either they raise the white flag of surrender or the fighting begins.”

However the head of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said in Benghazi that a truce declared until September 10 was still in force.

Naduri said Saadi Gaddafi, the toppled strongman’s spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, and Mansur Dau, head of the revolutionary committees that propped up Gaddafi’s regime, were still in Bani Walid, 180 kilometres (110 miles) southeast of Tripoli.

But the most prominent son, Seif al-Islam, had fled two days ago, he said, adding, “God alone knows which road he took.”

Abdel Jalil, leader of the provisional administration set up to take over power from the defeated Gaddafi, told a news conference, “We are in a position of strength to enter any city but we want to avoid any bloodshed, especially in sensitive areas such as tribal areas.

“We gave Sirte, Bani Walid... and Sabha one more week.

“This extension does not mean we are unaware of Gaddafi’s danger,” Abdel Jalil said. “Our forces will move militarily until the end of this extension.”

Gaddafi is quickly losing fighters, with many of his new recruits simply handing over their weapons to his foes, a military commander of the new leadership said Saturday.

Abdelhakim Belhaj, head of the Tripoli military council, said earlier that a civilian group ventured into Bani Walid, the Gaddafi stronghold closest to the capital, on Thursday.

They found many of the checkpoints of the city undefended with most guards abandoning their posts in what Belhaj described as a “surprising move.”

“We can now say that Bani Walid is open,” he said.

Some 600 men aboard 200 combat vehicles moved to within 20 kilometres (12 miles) of Bani Walid without meeting any opposition Saturday, but returned to their base in Misrata, fighters said.

Tarhuna lies some 80 kilometres north of Bani Walid.

Rebel fighters have started closing in on one of Muammar Gaddafi’s last strongholds, the town of Bani Walid, without encountering resistance.

Despite Saturday’s push forward, rebel officials say they’re still trying to persuade tribal elders in Bani Walid to surrender without a fight.

Associated Press reporters traveling with the rebels approaching from the north advanced to within 10 kilometers (six miles) of the town, which sits between Tripoli and Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte.

A local rebel official, Abdel-Baset Naama, says rebels also moved closer to the town from the west. Naama says forces from various area towns are gathering along the approaches to Bani Walid.

Gaddafi is on the run, and some officials have speculated he is in Bani Walid.

Fighters of Libya’s new regime on Saturday found bodies of four of their comrades reportedly executed by Muammer Gaddafi’s forces on the eastern front, an AFP reporter said.

The bodies were buried on the side of the road near the town of Um Khumsis, about five kilometres (three miles) from the frontline of Sirte, the hometown of the now fugitive Libyan strongman.

According to witnesses cited by the Bedouin fighters of the National Transitional Council, a total of 11 prisoners were executed at the same time in the area from where Gaddafi forces withdrew five days ago.

The four men found dead on Saturday belonged to a reconnaissance team which was captured when the rebels were advancing on Bin Jawad, said Adel, a commander of the fighters.

The fighters were unable to identify the bodies.

Council

Libya’s National Transitional Council on Saturday announced the creation of a supreme security council tasked with protecting the capital Tripoli.

“This committee represents all those who are concerned for the security of our new capital,” Ali Tarhuni, who chairs the newly formed body as well as the NTC’s executive committee, told reporters.

In their first meeting, the 17 members of the committee agreed that the capital’s security was the general responsibility of the interior ministry, which resumed work on Saturday, and of the police force in particular.

“The main goal is to protect citizens, as well as public and private establishments, and to eliminate what remains of pro-Gaddafi groups, or what is called the fifth column,” Tarhuni said.

The committee, which he said includes the majority of the revolutionary groups in the capital, also decided to include “remaining groups” under its umbrella and expected “no problems” in this regard.

“I do not anticipate any problems in other groups joining this committee,” Tarhuni said, adding that revolutionary units will temporarily assist police forces in securing the streets of the capital.

These groups, he said, will leave the city as soon as the city’s police, which boasts about 7,000 men, can fully take over.

Interim interior minister Ahmed Darrad told AFP on Friday that Libya’s new leaders had called on fighters from elsewhere in the country to leave the capital and go home.

“Tripoli is free and everyone should leave this town and go back to their own towns,” he said.

“Now the revolutionaries of Tripoli are able to protect their own city.”

“The responsibility for securing Tripoli should be in the hands of the sons of Tripoli,” Abdullah Naqir, head of the newly formed military council of Tripoli, also told AFP.

But NTC head Mustafa Abdel Jalil said Saturday there was no official order for the provincial fighters to leave.

“The NTC did not issue any statement calling for the departure of revolutionaries,” he told a press conference in Benghazi.

“There is only an understanding that the revolutionaries will surround the city of Tripoli to take down the remaining forces of Gaddafi.”

Tarhuni also announced the creation of a new committee charged with centralising prisoners of war in a “safe and secure” location to ensure that their legal and human rights are respected.

“We will protect them and they will enjoy all the legal and human rights despite the fact that they denied such rights to our Libyan people,” he said.

Police were back on the streets of Tripoli and business slowly resumed Saturday at the end of a week of fighting and festivities after the capital was wrested from the grip of forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

Recognition

Mali does not recognise the National Transitional Council as the new authority of Libya, President Amadou Toumani Toure said Saturday.

Toure, seen as close to Muammar Gaddafi and a member of an African Union panel that sought to mediate a negotiated settlement to the Libyan conflict, said an all-inclusive government must be set up.

“As a member of the committee in charge of mediation, you can imagine, we cannot be a judge. We follow the line taken by the AU: to speed up the formation of an inclusive government,” he said in interviews with French radio RFI and Africa24 television in Paris, where he had taken part in a “Friends of Libya” conference on Thursday.

“From that moment on, we will proceed to accept the government into the AU fold,” the president told RFI, adding recognition was “just a question of time”.

This was Toure’s first public comment on the situation in Libya since the fall of Gaddafi.

Mali was one of the countries that benefitted most from Gaddafi showering billions of dollars in largesse on African leaders, and has seen several demonstrations of support of his regime in recent months.

Security sources have said that Gaddafi had recruited some 800 Tuareg separatist fighters, mainly from Mali and Niger, to fight a popular uprising against his regime.

The Libyan conflict has nonetheless polarised Malian opinion, with some praising Tripoli for the wealth it has injected in their country and others criticising the way sub-Saharan immigrants were treated in Libya.

Toure said he had been heartened by statements of the NTC leaders at the Paris conference, saying they came across as “people of very good will”.

He said he had not been notified of violence against any of an estimated 20,000 Malians who remain in Libya after an estimated equal number fled since the start of the uprising in February.“So far, we have not heard of any acts of violence against or any problems with a Malian,” Toure said, adding that Mali’s ambassador was making daily reports.

On Africa24, Tourie deplored the fate of Gaddafi, a once “all-powerful man who has become an illegal” in his own country.

More than 50 countries, including 18 of the African Union’s 54 members have recognised the NTC interim administration as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

Talks

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday said Russia had invited members of Libya’s transitional government to Moscow for energy talks, the Interfax news agency reported.

“They suggested holding meetings. We invited representatives to Moscow on their request. We will discuss all this with them,” Lavrov was quoted as telling journalists at a regional summit in Dushanbe.

Libyan officials had asked to discuss future Russian energy projects, Lavrov was quoted as saying.

Russia on Thursday recognised the rebels who ousted its old ally Muammar Gaddafi as the legitimate rulers of Libya, three months after some Western states.

Moscow had abstained from the UN resolution on a no fly-zone in Libya at the outset of the conflict, effectively allowing the Western military action against Gaddafi to go ahead.

But it then appeared increasingly disgruntled and repeatedly accused the West of siding with the rebels in a civil war.

Russia’s Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Saturday that the issue of resuming its activities in the gas sector in Libya would be discussed.

“We are going to raise the question of the future of projects that Russian companies were running in Libya, but also in more general terms the outlook for the Libyan market,” the minister said in televised remarks.

“I think Russia has things to put forward to Libya,” he added.

Moscow has landed lucrative contracts in the Libyan gas sector over the last few years which were suspended when the conflict broke out.

Industry giant Gazprom has seen exploration projects at four sites frozen, while Tatneft has also had to suspend operations at four of its gas fields.

A second “Friends of Libya” conference will be held in New York on Sept. 20 to help with reconstruction after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Saturday.

Western powers met Libya’s new interim leadership, the National Transitional Council (NTC), in Paris on Thursday in a first “Friends of Libya” conference. They handed over $15 billion of Gaddafi’s foreign assets to start the rebuilding job.

“The conference will be on Sept. 20,” Frattini told reporters on the margins of a conference.

Frattini reiterated that Italy would maintain its role as Libya’s leading partner in the oil sector.

“It has always been so and will continue that way. We confirm all our commitments,” he said.

Italian oil and gas group Eni is Libya’s biggest foreign oil operator, producing about 270,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2010.

The state-controlled company, in Libya since 1959, has oil production contracts in force to 2042 and gas contracts to 2047.

“I see that other countries too, such as Russia, are engaged in confirming their oil contracts in Libya. What is important is that Italy remains the leading foreign partner in the country,” Frattini said.

Some analysts are concerned that Eni could lose assets or opportunities in the long run if Italy’s hesitancy in supporting the rebel government early in the conflict leads to a backlash.

Eni has said it hopes to restart gas exports from Libya by mid-October. Libya provides about 12 percent of Italy’s gas needs.