Fighters with Libya's interim government fired their guns into the air and hoisted the country's new flag over the centre of Bani Walid today to celebrate their capture of one of the final bastions of Muammar Gadafy's loyalists.
A Reuters team that drove into the heart of Bani Walid, in desert hills 150 km (90 miles) south of Tripoli, saw no signs of resistance from supporters of the deposed leader who have been holed up inside the town for more than six weeks.
"Bani Walid is completely free. It is liberated, 100 percent," said Mohammed Shakonah, a military commander with the National Transitional Council (NTC).
The apparent capture of Bani Walid brought Libya's new rulers a step closer to being in full control of the vast, oil-producing North African country almost two months after rebels entered Tripoli and ended 42 years of one-man Gadafy rule.
Along with Col Gadafy's hometown of Sirte, Bani Walid was one of Libya's last repositories of armed resistance to the NTC. Bursts of gunfire, fireworks, and car horns merged into a cacophony on streets littered with empty bullet casings and lined with buildings damaged or destroyed by the fighting.
Some buildings were still ablaze, others were flattened by Nato air strikes. Several shops looked like they had been looted. Thick black smoke billowed in the distance.
An NTC fighter in camouflage fatigues and with an AK-47 assault rifle hanging from his shoulder, embraced a medical worker and both men wept in joy.
"If Gadafy could see this, he would give up," said Abdelfattah, another NTC fighter in the central square.
There was no evidence of civilians joining in the street celebrations in Bani Walid, home to the Warfalla, Libya's biggest tribe, whose members are traditional supporters of Col Gadafy.
"This is a very important day because it now means Gadafy doesn't have even one town in Libya," said Ayad Sayed al Russi, a senior NTC commander. "We hope that the residents who fled will come back now that the town is free."
The town had been under siege for weeks, with hundreds of Gadafy loyalists dug into its steep valleys and hills resisting advancing interim government forces. NTC officials had been negotiating with Bani Walid's tribal leaders for its surrender.
In Sirte, where Gadafy loyalists have been under siege for weeks, there was little or no indication of the often disorganised NTC forces making any progress today. Chaos and confusion forced them to retreat in some places.
A doctor for the medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in Sirte has estimated that 10,000 people remain trapped in the city of 75,000. Many are women and children, some are sick or injured.
NTC tanks and rockets bombarded a small area of central Sirte where they have boxed in the remaining Gadafy loyalists. Libya's new leaders say they will only begin the transition to democracy after they capture the city.
Reuters