Fighters loyal to Libya's interim government have reportedly taken control of the eastern portion of Sirte, the hometown of deposed leader Muammar Gadafy and one of the last bastions supporting him.
"The Libyan rebels controlled the eastern portion after tough fighting," Al-Jazeera TV reported today.
Forces of Libya's new rulers, the National Transitional Council (NTC), broke weeks of resistance from Gadafy loyalists to enter Sirte in recent days, but heavy gunfire has prevented them from reaching the city centre.
As Nato warplanes, which have been pounding targets in Sirte to clear the way for NTC forces to enter, were flying overhead, a local NTC military commander said he was in talks about a truce with an elder from Col Gadafy's tribe inside the besieged city.
Touhami Zayani, commander of the El-Farouk brigade outside Sirte, told Reuters the elder, whom he did not identify, had contacted him on his satellite phone and asked for a truce. "He called me and said we are looking for a safe passage for the families and for the militia to leave the city," he said.
Mr Zayani said he had given his agreement for families from Col Gadafy's tribe to be allowed to leave Sirte but was still negotiating terms for the surrender of armed Gadafy loyalists. He said he did not know where members of the tribe, who make up the majority of Sirte's population, would go once they leave the city.
Taking Sirte would be an important symbolic trophy for Libya's new rulers, and would bring them closer to finally gaining control of the whole country more than a month since their fighters seized the capital Tripoli.
Col Gadafy built lavishly, turning his birthplace - once a sleepy coastal town - into an informal second capital. It was in the marble halls of Sirte's Ouagadougou conference centre that he hosted heads of state for summits designed to burnish his image as "African king of kings".
Libya's new rulers are under pressure to bring the fighting to an end. Humanitarian organisations have raised the alarm over conditions for civilians in Sirte and in the second pro-Gadafy bastion, the desert outpost of Bani Walid southeast of Tripoli.
Scores of civilians in cars laden with personal belongings streamed out of the town to both the east and west yesterday.
"We are very concerned about the people inside and near Bani Walid and Sirte," Georges Comninos, who heads the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Libya, said in a statement.
Col Gadafy's fugitive spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, said yesterday the ousted leader was in Libya and "very happy that he is doing his part in this great saga of resistance".
He would not comment further on Col Gadafy's whereabouts but said he himself had been in Sirte the previous day. "The situation is quite bad."
Reuters