Libyan interim government forces prepared today for a final attack on Muammar Gadafy's hometown and one of his former lieutenants said he believed the deposed leader was still in the country and would fight on till the end.
"I think Gadafy ... has not left the country. I strongly believe, based on my knowledge of him, that he is fighting with his weapons and alongside his men," Gadafy's former prime minister Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, who is in prison in Tunisia, said in comments passed to Reuters by his lawyer.
"He will not give up and he will not lay down his weapons until the end," Mahmoudi said.
Gadafy and several of his sons are still at large seven weeks after rebel fighters stormed the capital and ended his 42-year rule. His supporters hold Sirte and the town of Bani Walid, south of Tripoli.
Government forces who had for three weeks been pinned down by artillery and rocket fire on the eastern edges of Sirte were able to advance several kilometres into the city yesterday, capturing the southern district of Bouhadi.
Bullet-holed cars carrying terrified, ill and hungry civilians crawled out of Sirte, one of the last pro-Gadafy bastions. Aid agencies say they are concerned about civilians inside Gadafy's hometown who are trapped by the fighting and running out of food, water, fuel and medicine.
Commanders of forces loyal to the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) are talking of a "final" push to take the town. Backed by Nato warplanes, they have been bombarding pro-Gadafy positions inside Sirte.
Gadafy's former prime minister, who is in prison while the authorities in neighbouring Tunisia consider a request from the NTC for his extradition, said he would be ready to cooperate with Libya's new rulers if they dropped that request.
"I am ready to cooperate with the transitional council but on condition that they drop all requests for extradition and the negative campaigns against me," he said. "I hope to be a part of the solution in Libya and not part of the problem."
Concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Sirte have focused on the Ibn Sina hospital. Medical workers who fled Sirte said patients were dying on the operating table because there was no oxygen and no fuel for the hospital's generators.
"It's a disaster," a doctor who gave her name as Nada told Reuters as she fled the city today. "They are hitting the hospital. Two kids have died there. There is random shooting at the hospital from both sides."
On the east of the city, NTC fighters said they were trying to clear a corridor to the hospital but that they were being hampered by pro-Gadafy snipers.
Gadafy's former prime minister, who is not on the list of former Libyan officials wanted by the International Criminal Court, distanced himself from the repression of the old regime.
"I tell you one thing: I was hated by Gadafy's entourage," al-Mahmoudi said. "I am convinced that I have done nothing bad to the Libyans," he said. "My role was to ensure food supplies for the Libyan people, particularly during the crisis."
"The French know very well that this was the role I played ... I had no military role."
Reuters