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Battle on for control of Gaddafi birthplace
Sirte and Bani Walid are Gaddafi`s last major bastions against the NTC.
A senior US defence official said, meanwhile, that NATO chiefs believe the fugitive former Libyan leader no longer commands his loyalists who are on the verge of defeat.
But after launching what they called a final assault on Sirte with a barrage of rocket and artillery fire, the National Transitional Council forces still faced stiff resistance late yesterday around the Ouagadougou conference centre. "We are surrounding them in the centre of the city in an area of just a few square kilometres (miles)," NTC commander Nasser Abu Zian said.
There were also particularly heavy clashes around and inside the university, near the city centre, and in the Mauritanian Quarter, said a news agency correspondent.
Following the ferocious dawn artillery and rocket barrage, hundreds of fighters tried to enter Sirte in pick-ups mounted with anti-aircraft and machineguns.
As they advanced into the city, the NTC fighters came under sustained mortar, machinegun and sniper fire but took a 700-home complex west of the centre, they said. Plumes of black smoke could be seen billowing from several parts of the city as the Ouagadougou centre was constantly shelled by 106 mm cannon and anti-aircraft guns.
NTC fighter Barak Abu Hajar said he had been in action at the Ouagadougou centre and brought out a wounded comrade.
"They`re shooting from everywhere. RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and lots of bullets. We were told this was the final assault."
Another NTC fighter Faisal Asker said: "We entered the Ouagadougou centre compound but fell back because of RPG and sniper fire. There`s no cover there."
NATO warplanes flew overhead, but there were no reports of air strikes.
The Misrata Military Council said at least 12 fighters were killed and 193 wounded as a correspondent reported that ambulances streamed in to a field hospital near Sirte every couple of minutes.
Four ambulances were destroyed by fire from Gaddafi forces, and two ambulance workers wounded, said hospital administrator Ahmed Mohammed Abu Oud.
There were no immediate casualty figures from the eastern side of the Mediterranean city, 360 kilometres east of Tripoli.
The interim defence minister Jalal al-Digheily yesterday said the end of the conflict was near.
"We are very close to the end of the war and peace will be restored all over Libya," he told reporters in Tripoli on the occasion of visits by his British and Italian counterparts Liam Fox and Ignazio La Russa.
"There are still some hot spots but they won`t resist very long," he added of Sirte and Bani Walid, a desert oasis 170 kilometres southeast of the Libyan capital.
Sirte and Bani Walid are Gaddafi`s last major bastions against the NTC, which has ruled most of the oil-rich country since its forces overran Tripoli on August 23.
Gaddafi has since gone into hiding.
PTI