SIRTE, Libya, Sept 27, (Agencies): Anti-Gaddafi fighters overran Sirte’s port on Tuesday, scoring a strategic victory in the battle for control of the defeated Libyan leader’s birthplace, as intense fighting carried on inside the city.
But in the other main redoubt of Bani Walid, Muammar Gaddafi’s forces returned to the offensive after the fugitive ex-strongman broadcast a message rallying resistance to a weeks-long siege by National Transitional Council forces.
Meanwhile, a member of the NTC said formation of a transitional government, already delayed by squabbling over power-sharing, has been postponed until the entire country is liberated.
And a pregnant American woman and about 150 other people who had been trapped in a mosque near Sirte’s western front for a week were evacuated on buses and taken to safety, NTC fighters said.
Hundreds of fearful civilians have fled Sirte, a sprawling Mediterranean city 360 kms (225 miles) east of Tripoli, as the new regime’s forces close in from east, south and west.
NTC fighter Fateh Marimri, who drove out of Sirte’s eastern gate in what he said was a captured Gaddafi 4X4, said clashes were continuing around the Mahari Hotel.
“There is intense fighting between us and them. They are using heavy weapons but we are not as we want to cause minimum damage to civilians,” Marimri said.
“They are now fighting us in civilian clothes and there are African mercenaries everywhere in Sirte,” he told AFP.
Without giving names, he claimed Gaddafi’s family members were inside Sirte, backed by a “large number of his forces.”
Gaddafi diehards have been putting up a fierce resistance, and there is the danger of intense street fighting hanging over the remaining residents.
“As we move closer to the city centre, it’s going to be face-to-face street fighting and we are preparing for it,” said another fighter, Ali Zaidi.
Commander Mustafa bin Dardef of the NTC’s Zintan Brigade said “there were clashes in the night and we now are controlling the port.”
NTC troops said fighting raged on Tuesday morning around Al-Batahady University where they had come under sniper fire from Gaddafi forces hidden on the campus.
Dr Yusuf al-Badri said the overnight clashes were the fiercest so far in the battle for the city.
“Today’s level of casualties was intense. We had some 40 fighters being treated of whom two died,” he said, adding the average number of casualties in recent days had been about 20.
The port and university lie on the northeastern side of Sirte but it is in the centre that Gaddafi’s compound and military bunkers lie and NTC fighters said they expected the fiercest resistance.
Fleeing residents spoke of dwindling supplies of food and water and said Gaddafi forces were trying to prevent people from leaving.
“There’s no food, no electricity; we were eating just bread,” said Saraj al-Tuweish, who got out with his extended family of some 60 people on Tuesday.
“I’ve been trying for 10 days to get out and every time the army forced us back,” Tuweish told AFP.
“We would go the checkpoint and they would refuse, they would shoot in the air. Today we used a dirt road early in the morning and we managed to escape.”
The lack of clean drinking water has triggered an epidemic of water-borne diseases, and an AFP correspondent saw dozens of children being treated at a clinic in the town of Harawa, 40 kms east of Sirte.
“We have medicines but no nurses to treat the constant flow of patients, mainly children, suffering from vomiting and gastrointestinal diseases,” said Dr Valentina Rybakova, a Ukrainian working in Libya for eight years.
“This is a big humanitarian crisis. We are trying to get help from everybody but the main problem is that these people have no access to clean drinking water,” she said.
On the main road between Misrata to the north, on the western edge of Sirte, an AFP correspondent was with around 30 NTC fighters parked underneath a highway flyover, sheltering from occasional shelling.
At another point, a roundabout on the western edge, he said a pair of NTC tanks occasionally fired into the city.
He added NATO warplanes could occasionally be heard flying over, but he had not seen or heard of any strikes on Tuesday, the quietest day he had experienced in five days.
But NTC fighter Ashraf Sola said “we are tired and we want to go home. But we want to get the civilians out and go in and finish the job. We’re not scared, because God is on our side.”
In Gaddafi’s radio message, a transcript of which was carried by a loyalist website, the toppled strongman said he was still fighting and was ready to die a martyr.
“Heroes have resisted and fallen as martyrs and we too are awaiting martyrdom,” Gaddafi said.
Fugitive Libyan strongman Gaddafi has told his supporters that he is still fighting on the ground and is ready to die a martyr, a loyalist website reported on Tuesday.
“Heroes have resisted and fallen as martyrs and we too are awaiting martyrdom,” the website of the defunct Allibiya state television channel quoted Gaddafi as saying in a speech broadcast on local radio in Bani Walid, one of his last remaining bastions.
The toppled despot hailed the fierce resistance put up by his loyalists in Bani Walid, a desert city, 170 kms (105 miles) southeast of Tripoli, which has resisted a bloody siege by forces of the NTC for several weeks.
The region’s Warfalla tribe was a major source of recruitment for the elite troops of Gaddafi’s regime and the strongman told its members that they were continuing in that martial tradition.
“Through your jihad, you are imitating the exploits of your ancestors,” he said.
“You should know that I am on the ground with you. They lie when they say Gaddafi is in Venezuela or Gaddafi is in Niger. I am among my people and an unexpected shock awaits this clique of agents in the coming days.”
Meanwhile, a television station broadcast footage on Tuesday of what it said was Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam dated Sept 20, apparently rallying his forces in one of the last strongholds of the Libyan leader, now surrounded by rebels.
“This land is the land of your forefathers. Don’t hand it over,” Saif al-Islam, shouted to a crowd of followers, according to the footage broadcast by Arrai TV.
Saif al-Islam has not been since in public since Libyan capital Tripoli was overrun by rebels in August.
Brandishing an automatic rifle and wearing a military uniform, he said: “Brothers, you need to enter Tripoli today by force.” It was not immediately possible to verify the footage.
Meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry official says Algerian authorities have warned Gaddafi’s daughter and other relatives they will be expelled from Algeria if they make comments to the media.
The warning comes days after recorded comments by Aisha Gaddafi were broadcast on Syrian-based TV, and an Algerian newspaper report that alleged some of the deposed Libyan leader’s relatives had flown to Egypt.
The ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted Tuesday that Gaddafi’s relatives remain in Algeria. His wife, daughter Aisha and two sons fled to Algeria after Tripoli’s fall late last month.
Aisha said in an audio recording aired Friday on Syrian-based Al-Rai TV that her father was in high spirits and fighting alongside his supporters. The Algerian foreign minister has called such public comments “unacceptable.”