London: Britain`s David Cameron says frozen Libyan assets will soon be released to help the country`s rebels establish order.
Cameron says that Britain "soon will be able to release frozen assets that belong to the Libyan people," after imposing financial sanctions against Moammar Gaddafi`s regime.
He said Monday that events unfolding in Tripoli showed yet another nation in the Middle East was seeing the "end of dictatorship and oppression."
Cameron says Gaddafi`s regime is "falling apart and in full retreat." British diplomats would move from the eastern city of Benghazi to Tripoli as soon as it was safe to do so.
The international community meanwhile called on the longtime leader to step down as euphoric residents celebrated in the Green Square, the symbolic heart of the Gaddafi regime. NATO promised to continue airstrikes until all pro-Gaddafi forces surrender or return to barracks.
Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, who was in Tripoli, cautioned that pockets of resistance remained and that as long as Gaddafi remains on the run the "danger is still there."
The clashes broke out early Monday at Gaddafi`s longtime command center known as Bab al-Aziziya early Monday when government tanks emerged from the complex and opened fire at rebels trying to get in, according to Abdel-Rahman and a neighbor. A reporter at the nearby Rixos Hotel where foreign journalists stay could hear gunfire and loud explosions from the direction of the complex.
Gaddafi is the Arab world`s longest-ruling, most erratic, most grimly fascinating leader — presiding over this North African desert nation with vast oil reserves and just 6 million people. For years, he was an international pariah blamed for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. After years of denial, Gaddafi`s Libya acknowledged responsibility, agreed to pay up to $10 million to relatives of each victim, and the Libyan rule declared he would dismantle his weapons of mass destruction program. That eased him back into the international community.
Bureau Report
