Gadafy's son captured in battle-torn stronghold

SIRTE – Libyan government fighters captured Muammar Gadafy’s son Mo’tassim as he tried to escape the battle-torn city of Sirte…

SIRTE – Libyan government fighters captured Muammar Gadafy’s son Mo’tassim as he tried to escape the battle-torn city of Sirte, National Transitional Council officials have said.

The capture of the deposed leader’s national security adviser is a boost to Libya’s new rulers, whose forces are still battling pro-Gadafy fighters in Sirte, his home town.

“He was arrested today in Sirte,” Col Abdullah Naker said. Other council sources said Mo’tassim was taken to Benghazi, where he was being questioned. He was uninjured but exhausted, the officials said.

Gadafy loyalists have fought tenaciously for weeks in Sirte, one of just two major towns where they still have footholds, two months after rebels seized the capital, Tripoli. “We have control of the whole of the city except neighbourhood ‘Number Two’, where the Gadafy forces are surrounded,” said Khaled Alteir, a field commander in Sirte.

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Green flags, the symbol of Gadafy’s 42 years in power, still fly above many of the buildings there.

Government tanks moved close to buildings used by snipers and blasted large holes in the walls. Behind them came pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns and the infantry, armed with AK-47s, began the assault.

Gadafy loyalists have been firing on the attackers with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, but they were no longer using heavier weapons and their forces had lost some cohesion, a council commander said.

“We’ve noticed now they are fighting every man for himself,” said Baloun Al Sharie, a field commander. “We tried to tell them it’s enough and to give themselves up, but they would not.”

The government forces’ assault is still being aided by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation aircraft. Britain said its jets had destroyed two pick-up trucks belonging to Gadafy’s forces in Sirte on Wednesday.

A senior council military official told Reuters Mo’tassim had cut his usually long hair shorter to disguise himself.

Gadafy and his most politically prominent son, Saif al-Islam, have been on the run since the fall of Tripoli in August. Gadafy is believed to be hiding somewhere south in the vast Libyan desert.

Government forces found 25 corpses wrapped in plastic sheets in Sirte’s “Number Two” district and accused pro-Gadafy militias of execution-style killings.

Five corpses shown to a Reuters team wore civilian clothes and had their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to the head.

Medical staff at a hospital near Sirte said four council fighters were killed and 43 wounded on Wednesday. – (Reuters)