Talks break down at besieged town where Gaddafi may be holed up

“As chief negotiator, I have nothing to offer right now. From my side, negotiations are finished,” Abdallah Kanshil told reporters at the site of earlier talks with tribal elders from the town, one of the last bastions of support for Gaddafi.

Mr Kanshil said: “They said they don’t want to talk, they are threatening everyone who moves.

“They are putting snipers on high-rise buildings and inside olive groves, they have a big fire force. We compromised a lot at the last minute.

“We will leave this for the field commanders to decide, for the NTC to decide what to do next,” he said of the interim authority, the National Transitional Council.

Mr Kanshil said he believed that two of Gaddafi’s sons and his spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, were in the town.

The rebels have said the hard-core loyalists are a small minority inside Bani Walid, but are heavily armed and stoking fear to keep other residents from surrendering.

“We feel sorry for the people of Bani Walid,” said Kanshil, himself a Bani Walid native. “We hope for the best for our city.”

Tribal elders from the town had come out to negotiate after NTC spokesmen had said several times over the previous day that talks were over and they were about to attack.

There has been speculation that members of the Gaddafi family, even the former Libyan leader himself, may be hiding in the town.

NTC commanders said they suspected Gaddafi’s most politically-prominent son, Saif al-Islam, may have fled the town on Saturday and headed deeper into the southern desert.

One NTC commander said that about 20 pro-Gaddafi fighters still controlled the centre of Bani Walid, though other NTC officials estimated there may be as many as 100 fighters waiting in the town.

Bani Walid, along with Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte and Sabha, deep in the Sahara desert, are three of the last main areas not under NTC control, though its forces are massed nearby.

Libya’s largest tribe, the Warfala, dominates Bani Walid. The one-million-strong Warfala make up a sixth of Libya’s population.

Gaddafi said in an audio message last week that the Warfala would be among the tribes defending him to the death.

But Bani Walid also has a history of opposition to Gaddafi. Western diplomats in Libya and opposition leaders abroad reported in 1993 that the air force had put down an uprising by army units in Misrata and Bani Walid. They said many officers were arrested and executed.

Nato, meanwhile, reported bombing a military barracks, a police camp and several other targets near Sirte overnight, as well as targets near Hun, a possible staging ground in the desert halfway between Sirte and Sabha. It also reported bombing an ammunition storage facility near Bani Walid.

MARIA GOLOVNINA