TRIPOLI / SABRATHA, Libya - The Libyan rebels' interim government announced it is moving from the country's second city of Benghazi to the capital Tripoli, another step toward taking control as bursts of heavy gunfire erupted around Muammar Gadhafi's last stronghold early on Friday.

Before daybreak, eruptions of gunfire were heard coming from near the Tripoli neighborhood of Abu Salim, where rebels had battled Gadhafi's fighters holed up in residential buildings for most of the day on Thursday.

Gadhafi is still on the run, but a minister in the rebel government said his capture is not a prerequisite for setting up a new administration in the capital. "We can start rebuilding our country," Finance Minister Ali Tarhouni of the National Transitional Council (NTC) told a news conference late on Thursday. "He (Gadhafi) is the one who is basically in the sewer, moving from one sewer to another."

About two dozen bodies - some with their hands bound by plastic ties and with bullet wounds to the head - lay scattered on grassy lots in an area where Gadhafi sympathizers had camped out for months.

The identities of the dead were unclear, but they were in all likelihood activists who had set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with Gadhafi in defiance of the NATO bombing campaign.

Five or six bodies were in a tent erected on a roundabout. One of the dead still had an IV in his arm, and another body was completely charred, its legs missing. The body of a doctor, in his green hospital gown, was found dumped in the canal.

It was unclear who was responsible for the killings.

Rebels also girded for what they expect to be the last big battle in western Libya - breaking the siege by Gadhafi's forces of Zuwarah town and opening the Tripoli-Tunisia road."Inshallah (God willing) we will finish it" quickly, said Anwar Elmeshri, one of the commanders in charge of the operation.

Since Wednesday, rebels in the region have been mobilizing for an assault on Zuwarah, a Berber coastal town about 30 kilometers east of the Tunisian border.

For now Zuwarah remains within rocket range of other Gadhafi strongholds - Zelten to the west, Al-Jamil to the south and Al-Ajilat to the southwest, from where regular bombardments are launched.

The 40-km road linking Zuwarah and Sabratha, to the east, is also not fully secure.

"The rebels of Zuwarah appealed to Zintan and other regions to send reinforcements," said Colonel Abdu Salem, military coordinator for Zintan, southeast of the besieged town.

The local commander of the rebels at Sabratha, Bilal Mansur, said reinforcements were expected to arrive for the attack on the pro-Gadhafi troops but numbers were limited because many fighters had gone to Tripoli where they are trying to put down the last pockets of resistance.

The United States and South Africa reached a deal on Thursday that will release $1.5 billion in frozen Libyan assets in American banks which the US is earmarking for the cash-strapped rebels fighting.

The Libyan opposition said it urgently needs at least $5 billion in frozen assets to pay state salaries, maintain vital services and repair critical oil facilities.

Analysts estimate that as much as $110 billion is frozen in banks worldwide and several European nations are also seeking to release funds, including Britain, France and Italy, which announced on Thursday it wants to release $505 million for the rebels.

South Africa had earlier blocked an agreement in the Security Council committee on unfreezing the $1.5 billion in US banks over concerns that it implied recognition of the opposition NTC. South Africa has not recognized the rebel government and said neither has the African Union nor the United Nations.

AP-AFP

(China Daily 08/27/2011 page8)