Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Associated Press
HEISHA, Libya
Libyan rebels say they’re closing in on Moammar Gadhafi and issued an ultimatum Tuesday to regime loyalists in the fugitive dictator’s hometown of Sirte, his main remaining bastion: Surrender this weekend or face an attack.
“We have a good idea where he is,” a top rebel leader said.
The rebels, tightening their grip on Libya after a military blitz, also demanded that Algeria return Gadhafi’s wife and three of his children who fled there Monday. Granting asylum to his family, including daughter Aisha, who gave birth in Algeria on Tuesday, was an “enemy act,” said Ahmed al-Darrad, the rebels’ interior minister.
Rebel leaders insisted they are slowly restoring order in the war-scarred capital of Tripoli after a week of fighting, including deploying police and collecting garbage. Reporters touring Tripoli still saw chaotic scenes, including desperate motorists stealing fuel from a gas station.
In the capital’s Souk al Jumma neighborhood, about 200 people pounded on the doors of a bank, demanding that it open. Civil servants said they were told they would receive a 250-dinar (about $200) advance on their salaries for the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which starts today in Libya.
Rebel fighters were converging on the heavily militarized town of Sirte, some 250 miles east of Tripoli.
The rebels gave pro- Gadhafi forces there a deadline of Saturday — the day after the end of the Muslim holiday — to complete negotiations and surrender. After that, the rebels will “act decisively and militarily,” said Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the rebels’ National Transitional Council.
His deputy, Ali Tarhouni, said in Tripoli that “sometimes to avoid bloodshed you must shed blood, and the faster we do this, the less blood we will shed.”
In an overnight phone call to AP headquarters in New York, Gadhafi’s chief spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, said the rebels’ ultimatium would be rejected.
“No dignified, honorable nation would accept an ultimatum from armed gangs,” he said. Ibrahim reiterated Gadhafi’s offer to send his son al-Saadi to negotiate with rebels and form a transitional government.
The spokesman also claimed that a Tuesday afternoon missile attack on the regime stronghold of Sirte had killed 1,000 people and left scores more injured during public prayers marking Eid. He said 12 missiles were fired, possibly from airplanes seen circling overhead.
The spokesman said he got the information on a satellite phone call with doctors and security personnel in Sirte.
The alleged attack could not be immediately confirmed.