Libya rulers say they seize Gaddafi desert outposts

• Muammar Gaddafi                                                                                                         Libya's NTC Chairman Abdel Jalil salutes upon his arrival at Libya Contact Group …

TRIPOLI/NORTH OF BANI WALID, Libya (Reuters) - Libya's interim rulers said on Wednesday they had captured one of Muammar Gaddafi's last strongholds deep in the Sahara desert, finding chemical weapons, and largely taken control of another.

With the National Transitional Council (NTC) struggling to assert full control over the country, military spokesmen said its forces had seized the outpost of Jufra about 700 km (435 miles) southeast of Tripoli, and most of Sabha.

"The whole of the Jufra area -- we have been told it has been liberated," spokesman Fathi Bashaagha told reporters in the city of Misrata. "There was a depot of chemical weapons and now it is under the control of our fighters."

His comments could not be confirmed independently. Under Gaddafi, Libya was supposed to have destroyed its stockpile of chemical weapons in early 2004 as part of a rapprochement with the West under which it also abandoned a nuclear programme.

However, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says Libya kept 9.5 tonnes of mustard gas at a secret desert location, although it could no longer deliver it.

Gaddafi loyalists have been holding out in Jufra and Sabha along with the bigger strongholds of Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli, and Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte since the fall of the capital in August.

"We control most of Sabha apart from the al-Manshiya district. This is still resisting, but it will fall," said another NTC military spokesman, Ahmed Bani.

CNN, citing a correspondent in Sabha, reported that NTC fighters had occupied its centre on Wednesday after taking the airport and a fort the day before.

NATO countries gave the NTC another boost by extending for three more months the air cover that helped anti-Gaddafi fighters to victory.

However, chaos prevailed among fighters besieging Gaddafi's other two remaining major strongholds. Several attempts by NTC fighters to take Bani Walid and Sirte in the past week have ended in disarray and panicked retreat.

BORED MILITIAMEN

At Bani Walid, bored militiamen fired weapons at camels and sheep while awaiting orders on Wednesday, as much a danger to themselves as to Gaddafi fighters holed up in the town.

One man shot his own head off and killed another fighter while handling a rocket-propelled grenade in full view of a Reuters team. In another incident, a fighter wounded himself and another fighter after losing control of his machinegun.

Seven NTC fighters were also killed in an ambush by pro-Gaddafi soldiers inside Bani Walid, NTC officials said.

At Bani Walid, troops from other areas have been arguing with local fighters, and there has been talk of traitors infiltrating the ranks and sabotaging the assault.

NTC official Abdullah Kenshil told Reuters that pro-Gaddafi forces in Bani Walid had killed at least 16 civilians there in the last two days after suspecting they supported the NTC.

"They were killed in cold blood. They were all civilians and they were killed execution-style," he said. His account could not be independently verified.

Sporadic fighting also continued outside Sirte, where an NTC push from the east towards Gaddafi's birthplace has been blocked for days by heavy artillery fire from loyalist soldiers.

Fighters making their way back from the front line said they were meeting fierce resistance at Khamseen, 50 km (30 miles) east of Sirte, and that they lacked the firepower to respond.

"I'm 100 percent sure that there is someone important in Sirte, either Gaddafi himself or one of his sons, because his forces have become suicidal in the Khamseen area," NTC fighter Hamed al-Hachy told Reuters.

NEW CABINET

Efforts to take control of all of Libya's territory are taking place alongside attempts to reshuffle the interim government. A plan to do so this week collapsed after members of the current council failed to agree.

The NTC has its roots in the eastern city of Benghazi, but most of the fighters who captured Tripoli came from the west, and Interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril is under pressure to reflect this better in his cabinet.

Jibril said in New York, where he is attending the U.N. General Assembly, that he expected to name a new government within 10 days.

Among issues being debated were the number of ministries in the new government and whether they would be in Tripoli or divided between eastern and western Libya, he added.

U.S. President Barack Obama called on Gaddafi's loyalists to give up and said the U.S. ambassador would return to Tripoli.

"Those still holding out must understand -- the old regime is over, and it is time to lay down your arms and join the new Libya," he said.

NATO, which took command of a military mission on March 31 under a U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians, agreed at a meeting of ambassadors of its 28 member states in Brussels to extend the mission for three more months, a NATO diplomat said.

Britain said its planes had struck at pro-Gaddafi troops in three areas and destroyed bases in Sirte and Bani Walid.

The Syrian-based Arrai TV, which has broadcast several audio messages from Gaddafi, his sons and his aides, said NATO warships and planes had hit a hospital in Sirte on Wednesday, wounding a Ukrainian doctor and patients.

It was not immediately possible to verify the report. Previous allegations of NATO causing civilian deaths have rarely been backed up with evidence.

Tunisia said its troops had killed several infiltrators on Wednesday in clashes near the border with Algeria.

Helicopters destroyed seven vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft guns, which had been used to fire at a Tunisian army helicopter, a Defence Ministry spokesman said.

Armed Libyans clashed with Tunisian troops last month in the final days before the fall of Tripoli.

(Reporting by Joseph Logan and Emma Farge in Tripoli, Maria Golovnina north of Bani Walid, Alexander Dziadosz west of Sirte, Sherine El Madany east of Sirte, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Barry Malone in Tunis, John Irish, Matt Spetalnick and Laura MacInnis at the United Nations and Stephen Addison in London; Writing by Barry Malone and Joseph Nasr; Editing by David Stamp)

NATO blasts Kadhafi hometown as NTC holds back

NATO warplanes pounded Moamer Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte for the second straight day on Sunday as new regime forces held back on the ground after a major push into the heart of the coastal city.

A day after entering Sirte in a surprise assault, National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters pulled back on the western side, while east of Sirte others awaited their marching orders, AFP correspondents said.

Deadly fighting also raged in the oasis of Ghadames near the Algerian border in the west, a local official said, while further north, and south of Sirte, NTC forces gathered outside Bani Walid for a fresh assault on the town.

On the political front, NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said an interim government would be announced next week and that Kadhafi's internationally "banned weapons" were now under its control.

"There is no fighting today, there is nobody inside the city," fighter Ahmed Mohammed Tajuri said on the western front outside Sirte, adding that NTC forces were deployed one kilometre (less than a mile) from the city.

"We were ordered to leave downtown Sirte because NATO has a mission to do there. We left after 7 pm (1500 GMT) last night (Saturday)," he told AFP. Other fighters said the attack on Sirte will come on Monday.

NATO aircraft launched at least a dozen air strikes around Sirte on Sunday morning, an AFP correspondent said.

On Saturday, planes plastered 29 armed vehicles, a firing position, two command and control nodes and three ammunition storage facilities in the area, the alliance said in an operational update.

East of Sirte, fighters cleaned their weapons in preparation as dozens were ferried by pick-up trucks to the city gate.

"We have been told by our commanders to keep our guns ready. We expect fierce urban battle once we fully enter Sirte," fighter Maatiz Saad told AFP.

"Some artillery tanks and heavy machine guns have moved ahead inside through the eastern gate or are controlling the gate, but there will be a lot of street-to-street gunfights once we are inside the city centre."

On Saturday fighters entered Sirte in what appeared to be a pincer movement from the south and the east.

"Our troops went seven kilometres inside through the eastern gate and there were sporadic to sometimes heavy clashes with Kadhafi's forces," said commander Mohammed al-Marimi of the Fakriddin Sallabi Brigade.

Misrata Military Council spokesman Abdel Ibrahim said seven NTC fighters were killed and 145 wounded.

The fighters used tanks and pick-ups mounted with anti-aircraft guns to clear roadblocks set up by Kadhafi forces and drove towards Sirte city centre, erecting their own defences in advanced positions.

On a beach road surrounded by craters and pock-marked buildings, a 106mm anti-tank cannon repeatedly pounded Kadhafi positions, backed by a barrage of mortar fire and multiple rocket-launchers.

One Sirte resident who managed to flee early on Sunday said fighting subsided at around 7 pm on Saturday.

"There are African mercenaries roaming across the city. They are firing at houses with anti-aircraft guns in district one" on the western edge of Sirte, he said, refusing to give his name for security reasons.

"I think they are taking revenge," added the man, stressing that almost 80 percent of Sirte's current population is originally from the anti-Kadhafi bastion of Misrata further west.

He also said he twice saw one of Kadhafi's sons, Mutassim -- once in a command centre in a hospital basement, over the past three weeks.

Front line fighters in Sirte have repeatedly said Mutassim is holed up in its southern outskirts.

Saturday's assault came after reports of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the city of around 75,000.

NATO forces struck at Kadhafi forces after reports emerged from Sirte of "executions, hostage-taking, and the calculated targeting of individuals, families, and communities within the city," a coalition statement said.

The assault on Ghadames, 600 kilometres (370 miles) southwest of Tripoli, came at dawn, killing at least five NTC fighters and wounding more than 30, said Muhandes Sirajeddin, deputy chief of the local council.

"The attack began at around 5:30 am (0330 GMT). Around 100 Kadhafi loyalists, including mercenaries who came from around Algeria (across the border), and groups of Tuareg took part in the fighting," he said.

Sirajeddin and two other residents said clashes were still under way in Ghadames, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to Roman ruins.

Heavy fighting also raged in Bani Walid, the only other remaining pro-Kadhafi bastion, with NTC fighters coming under fire from inside the town, an AFP correspondent said.

Their forces launched a widespread assault on Bani Walid on September 10 and so far 30 fighters have been killed, a doctor said on Saturday.

NTC commander Omar Mukhtar said his men are "regrouping" but would not attack on Sunday.

"We are getting ready," he said, as an AFP correspondent saw five tanks rolling up to the front line.

NTC forces believe that Kahdafi's most prominent son, Seif al-Islam, is holed up in Bani Walid. "We know exactly where he is," Mukhtar said.

NATO blasts Kadhafi hometown as NTC holds back

NATO warplanes pounded Moamer Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte for the second straight day on Sunday as new regime forces held back on the ground after a major push into the heart of the coastal city.

A day after entering Sirte in a surprise assault, National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters pulled back on the western side, while east of Sirte others awaited their marching orders, AFP correspondents said.

Deadly fighting also raged in the oasis of Ghadames near the Algerian border in the west, a local official said, while further north, and south of Sirte, NTC forces gathered outside Bani Walid for a fresh assault on the town.

On the political front, NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said an interim government would be announced next week and that Kadhafi's internationally "banned weapons" were now under its control.

"There is no fighting today, there is nobody inside the city," fighter Ahmed Mohammed Tajuri said on the western front outside Sirte, adding that NTC forces were deployed one kilometre (less than a mile) from the city.

"We were ordered to leave downtown Sirte because NATO has a mission to do there. We left after 7 pm (1500 GMT) last night (Saturday)," he told AFP. Other fighters said the attack on Sirte will come on Monday.

NATO aircraft launched at least a dozen air strikes around Sirte on Sunday morning, an AFP correspondent said.

On Saturday, planes plastered 29 armed vehicles, a firing position, two command and control nodes and three ammunition storage facilities in the area, the alliance said in an operational update.

East of Sirte, fighters cleaned their weapons in preparation as dozens were ferried by pick-up trucks to the city gate.

"We have been told by our commanders to keep our guns ready. We expect fierce urban battle once we fully enter Sirte," fighter Maatiz Saad told AFP.

"Some artillery tanks and heavy machine guns have moved ahead inside through the eastern gate or are controlling the gate, but there will be a lot of street-to-street gunfights once we are inside the city centre."

On Saturday fighters entered Sirte in what appeared to be a pincer movement from the south and the east.

"Our troops went seven kilometres inside through the eastern gate and there were sporadic to sometimes heavy clashes with Kadhafi's forces," said commander Mohammed al-Marimi of the Fakriddin Sallabi Brigade.

Misrata Military Council spokesman Abdel Ibrahim said seven NTC fighters were killed and 145 wounded.

The fighters used tanks and pick-ups mounted with anti-aircraft guns to clear roadblocks set up by Kadhafi forces and drove towards Sirte city centre, erecting their own defences in advanced positions.

On a beach road surrounded by craters and pock-marked buildings, a 106mm anti-tank cannon repeatedly pounded Kadhafi positions, backed by a barrage of mortar fire and multiple rocket-launchers.

One Sirte resident who managed to flee early on Sunday said fighting subsided at around 7 pm on Saturday.

"There are African mercenaries roaming across the city. They are firing at houses with anti-aircraft guns in district one" on the western edge of Sirte, he said, refusing to give his name for security reasons.

"I think they are taking revenge," added the man, stressing that almost 80 percent of Sirte's current population is originally from the anti-Kadhafi bastion of Misrata further west.

He also said he twice saw one of Kadhafi's sons, Mutassim -- once in a command centre in a hospital basement, over the past three weeks.

Front line fighters in Sirte have repeatedly said Mutassim is holed up in its southern outskirts.

Saturday's assault came after reports of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the city of around 75,000.

NATO forces struck at Kadhafi forces after reports emerged from Sirte of "executions, hostage-taking, and the calculated targeting of individuals, families, and communities within the city," a coalition statement said.

The assault on Ghadames, 600 kilometres (370 miles) southwest of Tripoli, came at dawn, killing at least five NTC fighters and wounding more than 30, said Muhandes Sirajeddin, deputy chief of the local council.

"The attack began at around 5:30 am (0330 GMT). Around 100 Kadhafi loyalists, including mercenaries who came from around Algeria (across the border), and groups of Tuareg took part in the fighting," he said.

Sirajeddin and two other residents said clashes were still under way in Ghadames, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to Roman ruins.

Heavy fighting also raged in Bani Walid, the only other remaining pro-Kadhafi bastion, with NTC fighters coming under fire from inside the town, an AFP correspondent said.

Their forces launched a widespread assault on Bani Walid on September 10 and so far 30 fighters have been killed, a doctor said on Saturday.

NTC commander Omar Mukhtar said his men are "regrouping" but would not attack on Sunday.

"We are getting ready," he said, as an AFP correspondent saw five tanks rolling up to the front line.

NTC forces believe that Kahdafi's most prominent son, Seif al-Islam, is holed up in Bani Walid. "We know exactly where he is," Mukhtar said.

African Union officially recognises Libya's new leadership

The African Union has officially recognised Libya's National Transitional Council as the country's legitimate leadership, the group's chairman said Tuesday.

The announcement was transmitted by the office of South African President Jacob Zuma, six days after he hosted a meeting of the AU's special panel on Libya in Pretoria.

The AU's reluctance to formally recognise Libya's new leadership had created a split on the continent, as about 20 nations had already established ties.

The president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who holds the AU's rotating chair, made the announcement after consulting with the panel in New York, ahead of the UN General Assembly, the AU statement said.

Obiang Nguema "hereby announces that the African Union recognises the National Transitional Council (NTC) as the representative of the Libyan people as they form an all-inclusive transitional government that will occupy the Libyan seat at the African Union."

"The African Union stands ready to support the Libyan people... as they rebuild their country towards a united, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Libya," it said.

At the AU panel's meeting last week in Pretoria, the group had "committed itself to working with the NTC" but stopped short of formally recognising it.

The pan-African body has doggedly stuck to its own "roadmap" for the Libyan conflict and criticised the NATO bombing campaign -- even though the rebellion had rejected the AU proposal, insisting on the removal of Moamer Kadhafi from power.

But earlier this month, the NTC gave assurances that it would work to meet key AU concerns, promising that they remained committed to the African continent and to building national unity after Kadhafi's ouster, the statement said.

The NTC also promised to protect foreign workers, including black Africans, following allegations that many had been detained on suspicions they had worked as mercenaries for Kadhafi.

"I don't think it's backtracking. At the end of the day more countries are recognising the transitional council," said Henning Snyman, senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs.

"President Zuma and the AU came out and said there are certain requirements that they have before they will recognise the NTC. I think the main one was that the NTC must assure them that they would involve everyone in the new government."

Kadhafi was a major financial backer of AU operations, and an advocate for stronger integration on the continent -- with himself at the helm.

He built a massive complex in his hometown of Sirte, which he hoped would become the capital of a United States of Africa, a drive that many nations including South Africa resisted.

"Everyone was a bit shellshocked," by Kadhafi's ouster, Snyman said. "If the strongman of Africa can be toppled, who is next? And if the strongman of Africa can be toppled with foreign intervention, who is next?"

Initially the AU's reluctance to deal with the new leadership in Tripoli stemmed from the group's policy against recognising power grabs by armed groups, said University of Pretoria analyst Laurence Caromba.

"The AU were sticking by its principles not to recognise an unconstitutional change in an African state or a coup," he told AFP.

"But there is a dangerous vacuum at the moment with the previous government which has fallen, and the new one hasn't consolidated, so it was forced to recognise the reality."

Analysis - South Africa's Zuma dodges bullets in arms deal probe

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African President Jacob Zuma's decision to appoint a panel to investigate a decade-old arms deal mired in corruption could mark a turning point in a bruising political battle in his ruling African National Congress.

The knives have been coming out for Zuma ahead of an ANC meeting next year when the party elects its leaders, with foes who are trying to oust him looking to expose as many embarrassing secrets as possible to tarnish him and his allies.

Zuma, implicated but not convicted in the arms deal, may have asked for the panel so that he can dictate the terms of the investigation and fend off his rivals, analysts said.

Zuma's biggest political fight now is with ANC Youth League leader and party power-broker Julius Malema. The two appear to have already had a tit for tat exchange of corruption allegations, and are squaring off in an ANC disciplinary hearing that could derail Malema's political career.

Youth League officials in Malema's home-base stronghold of Limpopo told financial daily Business Day they would press for an investigation into the arms deal to gain leverage for the league's leader at his ANC hearing.

"In a sense, the president's hand was forced," said Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC member of parliament who has long called for more investigations into the deal.

Feinstein told Talk Radio 702 that Zuma was staring down a court deadline to produce papers relating to the arms deal and the likely charge from Malema's supporters.

"When politicians' hands are forced in this way, they sometimes do things they hope they can control after the fact."

Zuma's two years in office have been criticised for ineffectual leadership. His support rate has slipped with the public seeing him as more focussed on domestic political fights than fixing problems plaguing Africa's largest economy.

Zuma's main policy initiatives to improve education, create jobs and stamp out corruption have been met by South Africa slipping in international rankings in the quality of its schools, increased joblessness and concerns of growing cronyism in his government.

TAINTED ARMS DEAL

The 30 billion rand (2.5 billion pound) deal to buy European military equipment from about a decade ago has clouded South Africa's politics, and Zuma, for years.

It has led to a few convictions of officials who took bribes to help land contracts but critics said investigations did not go far enough, letting several others off the hook.

Zuma -- then deputy president -- was linked to the deal through his former financial adviser, who was jailed for corruption. This almost torpedoed Zuma's bid for high office but all charges against him were dropped in 2009.

In addition to the veiled threat from Malema's supporters, a special corruption-busting police unit called the Hawks has said it wants to re-open an investigation of the case.

"It's an attempt by Zuma to regain control over the investigation process into the arms deal and any of the leaking of information into the run up to the ANC's elective conference in 2012," said Hennie van Vuuren, director of the Institute for Security Studies Cape Town office.

Several senior ANC leaders have been tainted by scandal, with groups in the highly fractious party often using corruption allegations as a way to gain leverage.

In what may be example of how the fight is fought, as frictions were growing between Zuma and Malema, a politically connected official leaked details to a major daily about a trust fund used by Malema to finance his lavish lifestyle. The story published in July led to a police probe of Malema's finances.

A few days after the story, police raided a mining company linked to Zuma's son over allegations of fraud related to the issue of prospecting rights.

The arms deal has touched many top ANC leaders, making it a fertile breeding ground for material as infighting heats up ahead of the ANC party election about a year from now.

Malema, 30, is considered too young to take on a senior position, but his calls to take over mines and redistribute wealth to the poor have made him one of the country's most popular politicians and a powerful force in the ANC.

The Malema disciplinary hearing is a high risk gamble for Zuma. If Malema is suspended from the party, Zuma removes forces that could block his re-election. But if Malema is exonerated, he will be courted by Zuma's rivals lining up their bids for power.

For Zuma, the most effective arms deal probe would be one he controls, where he could limit damage to himself and his allies.

"Given the political casualties, there is a big incentive to delay the release of the report, if not make it public at all," the country's biggest newspaper, The Star, said in an editorial on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Mmathabo Tladi; Editing by Marius Bosch)

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