New Libyan flag flies over one of Gaddafi’s final strongholds

LIBYAN interim government forces have raised the country’s new flag over Bani Walid after securing control over most parts of the desert town – one of the last bastions held by loyalists of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Ahmed Bani, the interim government’s military spokesman, said: “Ninety per cent of Bani Walid has been liberated.”

Reporters saw the flag hoisted on several buildings in a central square where scores of government fighters fired guns into the air in celebration.

Along with Col Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, Bani Walid is one of the last places in the country where there is still armed resistance to the rule of the National Transitional Council (NTC). It is nestled in rocky hills 90 miles south of the capital, Tripoli.

Bani Walid is an ancestral home to the Warfalla, Libya’s biggest tribe and one of its most politically influential. The Warfalla number about one million out of the country’s six million population and were traditional supporters of Col Gaddafi.

The town has been under siege for weeks, with hundreds of Gaddafi loyalists dug into its valleys and on its hillsides resisting advancing interim government forces.

As well as ordering the military assault, NTC officials have been negotiating with Bani Walid’s tribal leaders for its surrender.

In Sirte, where Gaddafi loyalists have been under siege for weeks, there was little or no sign of the disorganised NTC forces making any progress yesterday and, amid chaos and confusion, in some places they had even been pushed back.

A doctor for the medical aid charity Médecins Sans Frontières in Sirte has estimated 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 Gaddafi loyalists.

Libya’s new leaders say they will only begin the transition to democracy after they capture the city.

Frustration is growing on the front line. Some fighters are irritated their commanders have not ordered a big push to take the rest of the city.

On a visit to Tripoli yesterday to reopen the British embassy there, Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Libya’s neighbours not to shelter Col Gaddafi or members of his entourage who have been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

“We’ve been very active in reminding other countries in Africa of their responsibilities … to apprehend and to hand over to Libya or the ICC any of those people who go on to their territory,” Mr Hague said.

Meanwhile, a television station based in Syria that supports Col Gaddafi has confirmed that the deposed leader’s son, Khamis, had died in fighting south-east of the capital Tripoli on 29 August.

Khamis commanded an elite military brigade and his death marked the highest-profile pro-Gaddafi casualty since the uprising began that ended Col Gaddafi’s 42 years in power.

Arrai television announced Khamis’s death, along with that of his cousin Mohammed Abdullah al-Senussi, son of Col Gaddafi’s wanted intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, saying they were killed during a battle with NTC forces in the city of Tarhouna, 60 miles from Tripoli.

The TV station, which has broadcast audio messages from Col Gaddafi and his spokesman since the Libyan capital was overrun by NTC forces in August, posted pictures of Khamis and Mr Senussi and broadcast verses of the Koran, reflecting a traditional way of mourning