Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy called on his supporters today to march on Tripoli and "purify" the capital of rebels, who he denounced as "rats, crusaders and unbelievers".
In a short audio speech broadcast on loyalist TV channels, Col Gadafy called on all Libya's tribes to rally and expel what he called foreign agents from the country.
"Libya is for the Libyan people and not for the agents, not for imperialism, not for France, not for Sarkozy, not for Italy," he said. "Tripoli is for you, not for those who rely on Nato".
Separately, Col Gadafy's onetime right-hand man Abdel Salam Jalloud said tonight he planned to form a secular political party with an eye towards future elections in Libya.
Rebels today stormed Tripoli's Abu Salim district, one of the main holdouts of forces loyal to Col Gadafy in the capital, after Nato airstrikes on a building in the area, a Reuters correspondent said.
Thousands of fighters were sweeping through houses and sidestreets to flush out snipers and were emerging with dozens of prisoners, the correspondent said, adding that gunfights were ongoing.
Local residents, some with children, were in cars trying to get out of the area, a poor neighbourhood where support for Col Gadafy has traditionally been strong, as the rebels poured in.
Rebels drove two pickup trucks with captured pro-Gadafy forces in the back away from the scene.
There were two air strikes, apparently targeting a fire station. The building was wrecked.
Reuters journalists who moved in after the strike saw two bodies and one seriously wounded man. On the floor of the fire station was a Nato bomb which had failed to explode.
Many buildings were on fire. The pro-Gadafy forces appeared to have no heavy weapons, just snipers in buildings.
The rebels said they were confident they could mop up soldiers clinging to a leader now on the run and presumed to be in hiding in the country he ruled for four decades.
"The end will only come when he's captured, dead or alive," said Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), who offered amnesty to any of Col Gadafy's entourage who killed him and announced a reward worth more than $1 million for his capture.
The US, however, distanced itself from efforts to hunt down Col Gadafy, saying neither US assets nor Nato forces were targeting him.
Comments by Pentagon and State Department officials highlighted Washington's sensitivity toward any perceived shift in Nato's military mission in Libya toward direct involvement in in regime change.
Nato's mission, as authorised by the UN, is to protect Libyan civilians - not to remove Col Gadafy, even as he becomes the focus of the apparent final chapter in the rebel overthrow of his regime.
"Neither the United States nor Nato is involved in this manhunt," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said: "I'm not speaking for any other national authorities - whether any of our partner nations might be doing something. But Nato itself, and the US as part of it, are not."
Britain's defence minister Liam Fox said earlier that Nato was aiding efforts by rebels to find Col Gadafy, as they seek to stifle any counter-attack by his family or other loyalists.
After rebel forces overran Col Gadafy's fortified Tripoli compound and trashed symbols of his 42-year rule, scattered loyalist fighters and snipers fought last-ditch battles in pockets across the city. Rebels also reported fighting deep in the desert and a standoff around Col Gadafy's home town.
"There are still many snipers in eastern Tripoli," said one rebel fighter. "We'll finish them off, but it'll take time."
In a clearing by the seafront in Tripoli, at least 100 rebel trucks mounted with machineguns were parked, their crews checking their weapons in preparation for an assault on Gadafy hold-outs in the leader's huge Tripoli stronghold overrun by rebels at the weekend.
"Gadafy is finished," said one fighter, who had driven into Tripoli from the rebel city of Misrata.
There was no clear indication of Col Gadafy's whereabouts, though his opponents surmised he was still in or around Tripoli after what Gadafy himself described as a "tactical" withdrawal from his Bab al-Aziziya compound before it fell on Tuesday.
French magazine Paris Match quoted an intelligence source saying Libyan commandos found evidence that he had stayed at a safe house which they raided yesterday. Nato was helping the rebels with intelligence and reconnaissance, Britain said, and its jets kept up their bombing campaign overnight.
"There are areas of resistance by the regime which has had considerable levels of military expertise, still has stockpiles of weapons and still has the ability for command and control," British defence minister Liam Fox told Sky News.
"They may take some time to completely eliminate and it is likely there will be some frustrating days ahead before the Libyan people are completely free of the Gadafy legacy."
Aymen, a rebel at the Mitiga airbase in Tripoli, said rebels were trying to fight their way into the Abu Slim area, not far from Col Gadafy's Bab al-Aziziya complex.
"They are surrounding it but Gadafy loyalists are putting up a fight, firing from inside. We continue to comb for supporters of the fallen regime," he said by phone.
Nouri Echtiwi, a rebel spokesman in Tripoli, said rebels had released several hundred detainees from a prison in Abu Slim. The figure not be immediately verified.
Col Gadafy's home town of Sirte, on the coast between Tripoli and Benghazi, was still not in the hands of the new leadership who have despatched forces there.
"Talks have been ongoing for two days now between NTC and tribal leaders from Sirte to liberate the city and ensure its inhabitants lay down arms and allow access to administrative buildings," Mr Echtiwi said.
Rebels also reported fighting in the southern city of Sabha.
But medical supplies, never especially plentiful, were reaching critical levels in many places where some of the hundreds of casualties from the fighting were being treated. Shooting in the street also kept medics away from work.
"The hospitals that I've been to have been full of wounded - gunshot wounded," said Jonathan Whittall, head of the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) mission to Libya.
"In one health facility that I visited, they had converted some houses next to the clinic into an inpatient department ... But because of the shortage of staff, there was no nursing staff and the patients were essentially caring for themselves."
A British medical worker said one Tripoli hospital had received 17 bodies which appeared to be of civilians executed in recent days by government forces in Col Gadafy's compound.
Meanwhile Libya's new masters are keen to forge ahead and secure the funds they need to bring relief to war-battered towns and rebuild the oil sector on which the economy depends. NTC diplomats meet their Western backers in Turkey today.
Western leaders and the rebel government-in-waiting have lost no time readying a handover of Libya's substantial foreign assets.
After talks with Arab and Western allies in Qatar yesterday, a senior rebel leader said the NTC would seek to have $5 billion in frozen assets released to jump-start the economy and provide vital relief to its citizens. The amount is double the previously given estimate of $2.5 billion.
The United States has also submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council to unfreeze $1.5 billion in Libyan assets. No vote was held on the draft yesterday, but diplomats said a vote could come on today or tomorrow.
While Libya is rich in oil, four decades of rule by personality cult has left it with few normal institutions.
After meeting rebel government chief Mahmoud Jibril in Paris, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who took a lead in pushing for Nato military intervention, said Paris would host a "Friends of Libya" summit on September 1st.
It would include Russia and China, both critics of the Western bombing campaign, who have been concerned at now losing out on business deals with the rebels. Rebels want to bring back workers to restart oil export facilities soon.
The rebels, many of whom were once supporters of Col Gadafy, have stressed the wish to work with former loyalists and officials and to avoid the purges of the ousted ruling elite which marked Iraq's descent into sectarian anarchy after 2003.
Their gains are however no guarantee of security or progress with Col Gadafy and his entourage at large. Abdel Salam Jalloud, a close ally who switched sides last week, said Gadafy planned to slip away and launch a guerrilla war: "He is sick with power," he said. "He believes he can gather his supporters and carry out attacks ... He is delusional. He thinks he can return to power."
There were signs of more supporters giving up on him, following a stream of defections during the six months of the uprising.
The second in command of Libya's intelligence services and the health minister declared their allegiance to rebel forces.
After by far the bloodiest of the Arab Spring revolts that are transforming the Middle East and North Africa, there were clear indications of new threats of disorder. Four Italian journalists have been kidnapped near Zawiya, between Tripoli and the Tunisian border.
Western officials also fear anti-aircraft missiles and nuclear material capable of making a "dirty bomb", could be taken from Col Gadafy's stocks and reach hostile groups.
Imposing order and preventing rivalries breaking out across tribal, ethnic and ideological lines among the disparate rebel factions are major concerns of both the new leaders and of their Western backers, who are working to avoid the anarchy and bloodshed that followed the overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
Reuters