NORTH OF BANI WALID/EAST OF SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan fighters trying to capture one of Muammar Gaddafi’s last strongholds battled for control of the desert town of Bani Walid on Saturday and Gaddafi loyalists hit back with rockets.
Despite the bombardment, columns of vehicles drove toward the front line, with fighters in pick-up trucks shaking their fists in the air and shouting “Here come the Libyans.”
“We are going in today,” Abdullah Kanshil, an official of the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), told reporters outside the town, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Tripoli.
“Civilians will be protected. We are already inside the city and we have found rocket launchers in the houses. We have thousands of fighters,” he said.
Kanshil said about 1,000 Gaddafi soldiers were defending the town — far more than the 150 previously estimated.
“They are launching Grad rockets from private houses so NATO (warplanes) cannot do anything about it,” he said.
Heavy fighting erupted around Bani Walid and the coastal city of Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace, on Friday, a day ahead of a deadline for a negotiated surrender set by the NTC.
NTC officials said the truce was effectively over, paving the way for what could prove the final battles of a
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