Libya's new rulers, trying to establish control over all the country, set their sights on the coastal city of Sirte — Qaddafi's birthplace — and two other towns controlled by his supporters, Sabha in the southwest and Jufrah in the southeast.
One commander said his forces were within 100 km of Sirte from the east and others were advancing from the west.
"We will continue negotiations as long as necessary. However, the liberation of these cities will take place sooner or later," said the military spokesman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) in the eastern city of Benghazi.
The new rulers also made it clear they did not want to be seen as the lackeys of the West. NTC Justice Minister Mohammed Al-Alagi said the Libyan rebel government will not deport the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
New York senators on Aug. 22 asked the transitional government to hold Abdel-Baset Al-Megrahi fully accountable for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people.
"We will not give any Libyan citizen to the West," Al-Alagi told reporters in Tripoli. "Al-Megrahi has already been judged once and he will not be judged again ... We do not hand over Libyan citizens. Qaddafi does."
In Tripoli, the stench of rotting bodies and burning garbage still hung over the city, overrun by anti-Qaddafi forces last week. Many corpses have turned up, some of slain Qaddafi soldiers, others the victims of killings in cold blood.
A Libyan official said 75 bodies had been found at the Abu Salim hospital, which was caught up in heavy fighting, and another 35 corpses were found at the Yurmuk hospital.
The rebels said that one of Qaddafi's sons, Khamis, may have been killed a day ago in a clash with rebels. On Saturday, rebel fighters in the city of Tarhuna, 80 km southeast of Tripoli, "intercepted a military convoy which had several brand new Mercedes", NTC spokesman Ahmed Omar Bani told reporters in Benghazi.
"As our fighters were trying to block the passing of the convoy, they were violently attacked. The brigade in Tarhuna responded and hit two vehicles in the convoy, killing their occupants. These two cars were totally destroyed and burned with their occupants caught in the crossfire," Bani said.
He said "it is very difficult to identify the charred bodies, but the soldiers captured on the spot told us that they were bodyguards of Khamis Qaddafi."
Meanwhile, around a thousand Egyptians, Jordanians and Filipinos boarded a passenger ferry Sunday to escape continuing instability and shortages in the battered capital.
