Deadline expires for Gaddafi forces to surrender

NATO aircraft could also be heard overhead,he said.

The National Transitional Council (NTC) set today as the deadline for towns still loyal to Gaddafi to surrender,and on-off talks have been going on for days over Bani Walid.

A number of former regime officials,including Gaddafi’s spokesman Mussa Ibrahim,are believed to be holed up there.

NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil,who made a halt in the port city of Misrata en route to Tripoli for his first visit to the capital since its capture by forces of the new leadership,urged Gaddafi loyalists to allow his fighters a peaceful entry into their strongholds.

“We try to extend our hands to show peace to our brothers there to let our troops enter these cities peacefully without fighting,” Abdel Jalil told reporters in Misrata where he came from the eastern city of Benghazi.

He said the new leadership’s “first priority is to liberating all Libyan soil… places like Bani Walid,Sirte and Sabha,” referring to towns held by Gaddafi forces. Abdel Jalil also said that the fugitive Gaddafi still posed a threat to Libya.

“We should not forget that Muammar Gaddafi is still alive and still has money and gold. These resources can be used to buy men,” he said.

Earlier as he left Benghazi,Abdel Jalil told AFP his visit to Tripoli was “temporary,” and that the council he heads would move to the capital only “after the (full) liberation” of Libya.

On another front near Bani Walid,NTC forces were massing some 30 kilometres from the town,an AFP reporter said. Fighters returning from the front reported clashes between NTC “sleeper cells” and pro-Gaddafi forces in and near Bani

Walid overnight,and said 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.”

Yesterday,a top NTC commander said “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,” Jeha,a former colonel in Gaddafi’s army,said from the NTC military headquarters in Misrata.

“But where this military action takes place,that is a surprise. We are in position and we can move in any direction and this is our strength.”