Libyan fighters raise flag over Gaddafi’s ex-base as allies flee

BANI WALID, Libya, Monday

Libyan fighters raised the new government’s flag over the oasis of Bani Walid Monday and hoped for the swift fall of the other remaining redoubt of Muammar Gaddafi loyalists, Sirte, as relatives of his henchmen fled.

Cries of Allahu Akhbar (God is Greatest) and bursts of celebratory machinegun fire filled the desert air over the centre of Bani Walid, as the new regime troops feted their capture of the loyalist bastion after a six-week siege.

“The city of Bani Walid has been completely liberated,” said Saif al-Lasi, a commander of the Zliten Brigade, one of the National Transitional Council units which took part in the final assault launched on Sunday.

“The road is now open east towards Sirte, south to Sabha and west to Tripoli,” he told AFP.

NTC field commander Jamal Salem said his fighters had encountered “heavy resistance” from Gaddafi loyalists holed up in the Saharan town, 170 kilometres southeast of Tripoli.

Meanwhile, a pro-Gaddafi TV channel confirmed the death of Gaddafi’s youngest son, Khamis, who had been reported killed by National Transitional Council fighters late in August.

Arrai, a Damascus-based broadcaster that has become the favoured forum for Gaddafi and the remnants of his ousted regime, said late on Sunday that Khamis was killed on August 29 in Tarhuna, some 80 kilometres southwest of Tripoli while fighting “enemies of the homeland.”

His cousin Mohammed, son of Gaddafi’s close ally and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, was killed in the same incident, added the broadcaster.

It is the first time that pro-Gaddafi media has confirmed the death of Khamis, whose demise had been announced several times since Libya’s conflict erupted but always denied by the ousted regime.

The most recent official statement on his death came on August 29 when interim justice minister Mohammed al-Allagy said Khamis had been killed and buried in Tarhuna.

But that statement was denied by a pro-Gaddafi channel the next day.

Khamis, 28, commanded a brigade seen as the most effective and loyal force of the Libyan leader.

Meanwhile, families of former Libyan regime officials streamed out of Sirte today, including the mother and brother of Gaddafi’s spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, an NTC field commander said.

“These are families of regime officials; there is Mussa Ibrahim’s mother and brother among them,” said Wessam bin Hamaidi gesturing at seven cars loaded with men, women and children fleeing a disputed pocket of Gaddafi’s hometown.

A throng of some 150 National Transitional Council fighters formed around the vehicles in a chaotic scene before the families were whisked off, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Hamaidi, in charge of military operations in Sirte’s eastern front, said the passengers included other “wanted” people but “no big fish,” adding there were fighters mixed in with the fleeing civilians.

Hassan al-Droe, an NTC representative from Sirte, told AFP that relatives of Gaddafi regime officials started fleeing in the morning, taking advantage of a lull in the fighting.

“This morning a lot of families from the regime left the two neighbourhoods in 20 cars,” Mr Droe said. NTC fighters, he said, took the families to Qasr Abu Hadi, a village just south of Sirte and Gaddafi’s birthplace.

Meanwhile, five wounded Libyan fighters are receiving hospital treatment in Germany, and some 40 more are to be flown in by the German military on Tuesday, hospital and foreign ministry officials said today. (AFP)