Gadhafi loyalists found apparently executed

Latest developments:

• Bodies of government loyalists and civilians found apparently executed in Tripoli
• Gadhafi, in audio statement, calls on Libyans to 'destroy' the rebels
• Rebels storm Abu Salim district of Tripoli
• Rebel cabinet moving from Benghazi to Tripoli

TRIPOLI ? More than 30 men believed to be fighters loyal to Moammar Gadhafi have been found killed at a military encampment in central Tripoli and at least two were bound with plastic handcuffs, indicating they had been executed.

A Reuters correspondent Thursday counted 30 bodies riddled with bullets in an area of the Libyan capital where there had been fighting between Gadhafi forces and rebels.

Five of the dead were at a field hospital nearby, with one in an ambulance strapped to a gurney with an intravenous drip in his arm.

The encampment was strewn with Gadhafi paraphernalia ? caps and pictures of the Libyan leader ? and Gadhafi green flags flew nearby.

Some of the dead wore military uniforms while others wore civilian clothes. Some were African men. Gadhafi is known to have recruited soldiers from neighboring countries.

Two of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.

The incident took place at a traffic circle in an area of Tripoli that had been held by forces loyal to Gadhafi.

The encampment was littered with abandoned food, weapons boxes and wrecked vehicles. Blankets had been placed over the dead.

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Civilian bodies also found
Elsewhere in the city, a British medical worker said a hospital had received the bodies of 17 civilians believed to have been executed in recent days by government forces.

"Yesterday a truck arrived at the hospital with 17 dead bodies," Kirsty Campbell of the International Medical Corps told Reuters at Mitiga hospital.

"These guys were rounded up 10 days ago. They were found in Bab al-Aziziya when the guys (rebel fighters) went in. These guys were shot in an execution there," she said.

The wounds were not battlefield injuries, she said.

U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said the allegations of summary executions were alarming.

"It is hard for us to confirm anything at this point, but incidents such as these will be looked into by the Commission of Inquiry on Libya which issued its first report in June and is still functioning," he told Reuters.

Will a post-Gadhafi Libya look like Iraq?

Gadhafi: 'Destroy' the rebels
In a brief audio statement earlier Thursday, Gadhafi called on Libyans to "destroy" the rebels who have overtaken Tripoli and forced his regime into hiding. The message was broadcast on Al-Arabiya and other Arab stations.

"Don't leave Tripoli for the rats. Fight them, fight them, and kill them," Gadhafi said. "It is the time for martyrdom or victory," he said, calling tribes outside the capital "to continue their march to Tripoli." He said imams in mosques should call for youths to rise up "for jihad."

Gadhafi's statement came amid an intense battle between about 1,000 rebels surrounding two buildings filled with Moammar Gadhafi loyalists in the neighborhood next to the Libyan leader's captured compound.

Associated Press reporters on the scene Thursday said rebels were hammering the buildings with heavy gunfire and a huge explosion from the battle scene sent a large plume of white smoke.

Mahmoud Bakoush, a rebel commander at the site, says there are rumors that one of Gadhafi's sons might be in the buildings, but they are unconfirmed.

According to a Reuters report, opposition forces did not say why they believed Gadhafi and his sons were inside, and previous rebel claims have not always borne out.

For example, the report comes just days after after Moammar Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam, turned up free , thwarting rebel claims he had been captured.

Moussa Ibrahim, Gadhafi's spokesman, said in a phone call to the Associated Press the longtime dictator was in Libya and his morale was high. Gadhafi "is indeed leading the battle for our freedom and independence" said Ibrahim, who was recognizable by his voice.

"All of the leader's family are fine," Ibrahim said, adding that top military and political aides remained with Gadhafi.

He said Gadhafi was capable of continuing resistance for "weeks, months and years."

The rebels are struggling to take complete control of Tripoli, four days after they swept into the capital and sparked the collapse of Gadhafi's regime. The autocrat has refused to surrender and has vowed from hiding to fight on "until victory or martyrdom."

The rebel leadership has offered a $2 million bounty on Gadhafi's head, and British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said Thursday that NATO was helping in the search for the longtime dictator.

Fox told BBC Radio 4 that NATO was "providing intelligence and reconnaissance assets to help in the hunt," and had been heavily active in carrying out overnight airstrikes against Gadhafi loyalists, but refused to say if British special forces were involved.

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Britain's Defense Minister Liam Fox said Thursday that NATO is supporting Libyan rebels hunting Gadhafi and his sons and has stepped up air raids targeting loyalists.

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"I can confirm that NATO is providing intelligence and reconnaissance assets to the NTC (National Transitional Council) to help them track down Colonel Gadhafi and other remnants of the regime," he told Sky News.

He declined to comment on a report in the U.K's Daily Telegraph newspaper that British special forces were on the ground in Libya assisting with the hunt. Many analysts believe Britain, France and Arab allies, notably Qatar, may have some special forces in Tripoli.

Paris Match magazine also reported Thursday that Libyan commandos had come came close to capturing Gadhafi when they raided a private home in Tripoli where he appeared to have been hiding.

Citing a source in a unit which it said was coordinating among intelligence services from Arab states and Libyan rebels, the French weekly said Gadhafi was gone from the safe house when agents arrived about 10 a.m. (4 a.m. EDT) on Wednesday after a tip-off from a credible source. But, the magazine said, they found evidence that he had spent at least one night there ? though it did not say how recently that was.

Continued fighting
Meanwhile, rebels stormed Tripoli's Abu Salim district, one of the main holdouts of Gadhafi loyalist forces in the capital, after NATO air strikes on a building in the area on Thursday.

Some of the rebels in the area near the notorious Abu Salim prison had earlier said they hoped the fugitive strongman was hiding in the buildings with some of his sons.

Thousands of rebel fighters swept through houses and side streets to flush out snipers and were emerging with dozens of prisoners and gunfights were going on.

Local residents, some with children, were in cars trying to get out of the neighborhood, where support for Gadhafi has traditionally been strong.

Slideshow: Conflict in Libya (on this page)

There were two NATO air strikes, apparently targeting a fire station. The building was wrecked.

Reuters journalists who moved in after the strike saw two bodies and one seriously wounded man. On the floor of the fire station was a NATO bomb which had failed to explode.

Many buildings were on fire. The pro-Gadhafi forces appeared to have no heavy weapons, just snipers in buildings.

Al-Orouba TV, a station loyal to Gadhafi, said NATO warplanes were also bombing Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte on Thursday.

Ship carries foreigners out of Tripoli
The International Organization for Migration said a ship chartered to rescue foreigners trapped in Tripoli left the Libyan capital late Thursday for Benghazi with more than 200 people on board.

A spokeswoman for the group says the passengers include Filipino, Egyptian, Algerian, Canadian, Moroccan, Italian and German nationals.

The ship's arrival in Tripoli had been delayed by continued fighting. The Geneva-based group estimates that thousands of foreigners are trying to escape Tripoli.

Rebel cabinet moving to Tripoli
The rebels' National Transitional Council finance minister, Ali Tarhouni, said the cabinet is moving immediately to Tripoli from its eastern stronghold city of Benghazi.

"Members of the council are now moving one by one from Benghazi to Tripoli," Mansour Seyf al-Nasr, the Libyan opposition's new ambassador to France said earlier Thursday.

The Arab League on Thursday recognized the NTC as the "legitimate representative" of the Libyan people.

Rebel officials are eager to prove they can bring a stable political future to Libya, and that their movement is more than an often-fractious collection of tribes, ethnicities and semiautonomous militias. Mahmoud Jibril, the head of the opposition government, outlined plans for a new constitution and elections and said officials were talking to the U.N. about sending up to 200 monitors to help ensure security in Tripoli.

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Khaled al-Zintani, spokesman for the rebel military council for the western mountains, said it has set up an operations room with intelligence officers, military defectors and security officers who are trying to find Gadhafi, his family, regime members and his forces. They are collecting information on the location, size and direction of any convoys.

The operations center is in the western mountains, the staging base for the rebels who marched on Tripoli.

Mohammed al-Herizi, an opposition official, said a group of Tripoli businessmen has offered a $2 million reward for the arrest or killing of Gadhafi. The rebels themselves are offering amnesty for anyone who kills him or hands him over.

"The biggest prize is to offer amnesty, not to give money," rebel spokesman Col. Ahmed Bani said.

Libyan uprising

American writer escapes
He said the rebels had surrounded Abu Salim, home to the country's most notorious prison and scene of a 1996 massacre of protesting political prisoners, but had been unable to push into it. But late Wednesday night, al-Kabir, the rebel spokesman, said rebels released thousands of inmates from Abu Salim, many of them political prisoners who had been held there for years.

Matthew VanDyke, a writer from Baltimore missing since March in Libya, was among those who escaped, his mother said. VanDyke called her and said he had been held in solitary confinement, but fellow prisoners helped him escape to a compound where he borrowed a phone. He had traveled to Libya to write about the uprising against Gadhafi.

The State Department said Wednesday that all American citizens known to have been detained in Libya have been released.

A State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said in a statement that the families of those detained have been notified of their freedom and welfare. No further details were given.

Four Italian journalists who were abducted near Zawiya on Wednesday were also freed, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44270675/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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