Leaders of the National Transitional Council, which has
Western support, pressed foreign governments to release Libyan funds frozen
abroad, warning of its urgent need to impose order and provide services to a
population traumatized by six months of conflict and 42 years of eccentric,
personal rule.
But Qaddafi's long-time allies in Africa, beneficiaries of
his oil-fueled largesse and sympathizers with a foreign policy he called
anti-colonial, offered the fugitive strongman a grain of comfort and irked the
rebels by refusing to follow Arab and Western powers in recognizing the NTC as
the legal government.
Speaking for African Union, the leaders of which were
meeting in Addis Ababa Friday, South African President Jacob Zuma rejected
NTC's call for recognition and called for an immediate cease-fire. He said the
Libyan capital of Tripoli was not yet under full rebel control.
"If there is fighting, there is fighting," Zuma
said. "The process is fluid. That's part of what we inform countries —
whether there is an authority to recognize."
Combined with the reluctance of major powers like China,
Russia and Brazil, to see Europeans and Americans dominate a nation with
Africa's biggest oil reserves, the African Union's resistance may slow the pace
at which funds are released.
Mahmoud Jibril, head of the government in waiting, said time
was short. Visiting NATO member Turkey, he said: "We have to establish an
army, strong police force to be able to meet the needs of the people and we
need capital and we need the assets. All our friends in the international
community speak of stability and security. We need that too."
Rebel leaders are determined to show they are in charge,
though estimates vary of when the NTC will move formally from its Benghazi base
in the east to the war zone that is Tripoli.
"We have come to operate the country. We are now the
legal authority," declared Mohammed Al-Alagi, a lawyer who has been the NTC's
justice minister for some months, as he met foreign journalists in the capital
wearing a rebel flag as a bandana.
Alagi voiced confidence that Qaddafi and his entourage of
sons and aides were surrounded and would soon be captured: "The area where
he is now is under siege," he told Reuters, while declining to say where
in Tripoli he thought Gaddafi was. "The rebels are monitoring the area and
they are dealing with it."
Col. Hisham Buhagiar of the rebel force in the capital said
Libyan commandos were targeting several areas: "We are sending special
forces every day to hunt down Qaddafi. We have one unit that does intelligence
and other units that hunt him."
NATO forces, notably from France and Britain, are helping
the rebels. Many analysts assume they are giving intelligence and may have
their own special forces troops on the ground.
British aircraft fired cruise missiles at a headquarters
bunker in Qaddafi's birthplace of Sirte. A city beyond rebel control, on the
Mediterranean coast 450 km east of Tripoli, some believe he might seek refuge
there among his tribesmen. Loyalist forces also still hold positions deep in
the Sahara desert.
Despite sporadic gunfire as rebel fighters tried to take
pockets of loyalist resistance, Tripoli was quieter than in recent days. Dead
bodies, the stench of rotting garbage in the oppressive summer heat, wrecked
cars and the other detritus of war were evidence of frantic battles and wildly
erratic firing.
Some of Tripoli's two million people, suffering from power
cuts, dwindling supplies and a critical shortage of medical supplies and health
care, ventured out to local mosques, some praying Qaddafi can be found by
Monday, the end of Ramadan.
