Libya's new rulers said on Wednesday they believed fugitive former leader Muammar Qadhafi was being shielded by nomadic tribesmen in the desert near the Algerian border, while his followers fend off assaults on his hometown. Intense sniper and artillery fire from pro-Qadhafi fighters has so far prevented National Transitional Council (NTC) forces from taking Sirte despite more than two weeks of fighting and two full-on assaults.
One of Qadhafi's last two bastions, it has withstood a siege, NTC tank and rocket fire as well as Nato air strikes, and the United Nations and international aid agencies are worried about conditions for civilians trapped inside. More than a month since NTC fighters captured the capital Tripoli, Qadhafi remains defiantly on the run pledging to lead a campaign of armed resistance against the new leaders. Qadhafi himself may be holed up near the western town of Ghadames, near the Algerian border, under the protection of Tuareg tribesmen, a senior NTC military official said.
"There has been a fight between Tuareg tribesmen who are loyal to Qadhafi and Arabs living there (in the south). We are negotiating. The Qadhafi search is taking a different course," Hisham Buhagiar told Reuters, without elaborating. Many Tuaregs, nomads who roam the desert spanning the borders of Libya and its neighbours, have backed Qadhafi since he supported their rebellions against the governments of Mali and Niger in the 1970s and allowed them to settle in Libya.
Buhagiar said Qadhafi's most politically prominent son, Saif al-Islam, was in the other final loyalist holdout, Bani Walid, and that another son, Mutassem, was in Sirte. Lack of coordination and division at the front-line have been hampering NTC attempts to capture Sirte and Bani Walid. Fighting continued on separate eastern and western fronts in Sirte on Wednesday and commanders said they would try to join the two fronts together and take the city's airport.