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| Rebels hold most of Tripoli, Gaddafi out of sight |
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 TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan government tanks and snipers put up scattered, last-ditch resistance in Tripoli on Monday after rebels swept into the heart of the capital, cheered on by crowds hailing the end of Muammar Gaddafi's 42 years in power.The 69-year-old leader, urging civilians to take up arms against rebel “rats”, said in an audio broadcast that he was in the city and would be “with you until the end”. But there was little sign of popular opposition to the rebel offensive, two of Gaddafi's sons were seized and it was unclear where he was. Reuters correspondents saw rebel forces hunt sharpshooters from building to building. Sporadic gunfire and shelling kept civilians off the streets, waiting anxiously for the fighting to end after a brief outpouring of jubilation late on Sunday. “Revolutionaries are positioned everywhere in Tripoli,” said a senior rebel in the city, who used the name Abdulrahman. “But Gaddafi's forces have been trying to resist. “There is gunfire everywhere,” he added, saying government tanks were in action near Tripoli's Mediterranean port and downtown near Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound. “Snipers are the main problem,” he said. “There is a big number of martyrs.” World leaders were in no doubt that, after six months of an often meandering revolt backed by NATO air power, the disparate and often fractious rebel alliance was about to take control of the North African desert state and its extensive oil reserves. Some warned of a risk of a longer, anarchic civil war after what has been the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings inspired by the overthrow of autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt. The fall of Gaddafi could also give new heart to embattled opposition groups across the Middle East, notably in Syria. “Time has run out,” said Franco Frattini, foreign minister of Libya's former colonial ruler Italy, adding that Gaddafi's forces now controlled only 10 to 15 percent of the capital. Laila Jawad, 36, who works at a Tripoli nursery, told Reuters after the rebels arrived: “We are about to be delivered from the tyrant's rule. It's a new thing for me. “I am very optimistic. Praise be to God.”
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| Last Updated on 22 August 2011 14:01 |