NTC forces assault Qadhafi home town

SIRTE: Fighters for Libya's interim rulers entered Moamer Qadhafi's hometown Sirte on Saturday in a surprise assault that NATO said it backed to halt brutal acts by followers of the ousted regime.

National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said an interim government would be announced next week and that the new authorities had control over Qadhafi's internationally "banned weapons".

Misrata military council spokesman Abdel Ibrahim said seven NTC fighters were killed and 145 injured in what appeared to have been a pincer movement launched from the south and east.

Using tanks and pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, the NTC forces cleared away roadblocks set up by Qadhafi forces and drove toward the city centre before putting up their own defences in advanced positions.

On a beach road surrounded by craters and pock-marked buildings, a 106mm anti-tank cannon repeatedly pounded Qadhafi positions, backed by a barrage of mortars and multiple rocket-launchers.

"We are pushing them back" after a "surprise" order to attack issued by the NTC's military top brass, commander Mohammed al-Aswawi said in a radio truck monitoring units on the front.

"First we get the families out, and then the order is to attack and free Sirte," he told AFP.

"There is also an advance from the south," he added, as the Misrata Military Council said that front was being reinforced by NTC fighters who had taken part in "the liberation of Al-Jafra."

Frontline fighters in Sirte are convinced that one of Qadhafi's sons, Mutassim, is holed up in the city's southern outskirts.

"Mutassim is in there. We hear him on the radio giving orders," NTC operations commander Osama Muttawa Swehly told AFP on Saturday.

As the battle raged into the evening, another commander, Hassan Tarhar Zaluk, said NTC forces would have to resume the fight for Sirte on Sunday.

"We're going to stop for the evening. There's no light in there. We'll start again tomorrow," he said.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011