...Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years...
's loyalists have fired a number of rockets from inside one of his last strongholds, hours after a TV station aired an audio message reportedly from the deposed Libyan leader urging his fighters on.
At least 10 loud kabooms could be heard on Thursday along the desert front line at Bani Walid, a town of 100,000 people about 140km southeast of Tripoli, following early morning skirmishes in the same area.
Smoke billowed from the projectiles, said to be Grad rockets
...Soviet-developed 122-mm rockets, usually launched from trucks. Newer versions are reported to have a range of up to 30 km....
, after they landed in Wadi Dinar, about 20km outside the town.
Thousands of fighters for Libya's new leadership have converged on Bani Walid.
The prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
(ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has requested that Interpol issue a "red notice" to arrest Muammar Qadaffy for the alleged crimes against humanity of murder and persecution.
"Arresting Qadaffy is a matter of time," said Moreno-Ocampo, who is also requesting red notices for the arrest of Saif al-Islam Qadaffy and Abdullah Al-Senussi.
Officials have said a number of prominent regime loyalists, including Qadaffy's son and one-time heir apparent, are believed to be inside Bani Walid.
Earlier on Thursday, in a message broadcast on the Syria-based channel Al-Rai TV, Qadaffy denied rumours he had decamped Libya, vowed never to leave the land of his ancestors and exhorted followers to keep fighting.
The former Libyan leader, in power for nearly 42 years, has not been seen in public for months.
A military official in Libya's new leadership had said a day earlier that Qadaffy was cornered and would soon be captured or killed, but another senior defence official contended his whereabouts are unknown.
'Libyan land is yours'
On his first visit to Tripoli since the civil war, Mahmoud Jibril, Libya's interim government chief, warned allies who helped overthrow Muammar Qadaffy not to start "political games" against each other until Qadaffy's supporters were completely defeated.
"This is a stage where we have to unify and be together," he told a news conference on Thursday. "Once the battle is finished ... the political game can start."
Finding Qadaffy would help seal the new rulers' hold on the country, and likely trigger the collapse of the remaining regime loyalists still fighting the former rebels.
His most recent audio message encouraged Libyans to take up arms against the fighters battling his loyalists and accusing the National Transitional Council (NTC), currently running the country, of being a front for Western powers.
In his message on Thursday, Qadaffy said: "To all my beloved Libyans, the Libyan land is yours and you need to defend it against all those traitors, the dogs, those that have been in Libya and are trying to take over the land.
"They were spies for the Italians and now they are spies for La Belle France. All those germs and rats ... capture all those who are working with NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
and the UK to bomb our country and kill Libyans and our children."
Qadaffy also dismissed reports that he had decamped to neighbouring Niger as "psychological warfare and lies".
He said there was nothing unusual about a convoy of cars going to Niger.
"How many times do convoys transporting smugglers, traders and people cross the border every day for Sudan, Chad, Mali and Algeria," Qadaffy said.
"As if this was the first time a convoy was headed towards Niger."
High technology
The president of Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now...
has also deined that Qadaffy is in his country.
"We don't have any information on the presence of Libyans on our territory since these events started," he said.
On the ground, Libyan fighters claimed on Wednesday to have Qadaffy surrounded within a 60km radius.
Anis Sharif, a front man for Tripoli's new military council, however, would not say where exactly Qadaffy had been found.
Sharif said Qadaffy had been tracked using high technology and human intelligence. "He can't get out," he said.
Qadaffy, who was removed from power in August after an uprising against his rule, is believed to be travelling in a convoy of about 10 cars and may be using a tent as shelter, Hisham Buhagiar, who is co-ordinating the NTC efforts to find the former Libyan leader, said.
"It is the tent. We know that he does not want to stay in a house, so he stays in a tent. People say the cars came, and then they made a tent," Buhagiar said, adding that his sources had not seen Qadaffy themselves.
Meanwhile,
...back at the Senate, Odius Sepulcher called for war against the Visigoths...
the anti-Qadaffy forces are still working to gain full control of the country almost three weeks after the fall of the capital, Tripoli.
Fighters have been engaged in prolonged negotiations to convince representatives from Bani Walid, about 150km southeast of Tripoli, that there would be no retributions if the town surrendered peacefully.
But the representatives, upon returning to the town to deliver the message, were fired at and forced to retreat to NTC territory on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the NTC sent an additional battalion of rebel fighters to Bani Walid, where it is preparing for a showdown with Qadaffy loyalists.
Thousands of NTC fighters have been camping outside Bani Walid, which is one of Qadaffy's last strongholds.
They have also built a field hospital and deployed 10 volunteer doctors to prepare for the possibility of a fight.
Final battles
Al Jizz's Sue Turton, reporting from near Bani Walid on Thursday, said there was an apparent escalation of violence - including "four NATO
According to NTC officials, the surrender negotiations inside Bani Walid have stalled and the NTC has given them till Saturday before revolutionary fighters move on the town.
Our correspondent said fighters outside the city had been saying, "We must stay and wait ... until [NTC leaders] give us the go-ahead".
Abdullah Kinshil, the NTC's chief negotiator in Bani Walid, said one of Qadaffy's sons, Saif al-Islam, was seen there with supporters on Tuesday.
Fighters are also preparing to move towards Qadaffy's hometown of Sirte.
For now, talks have been stalled and they are awaiting orders to take the towns from Qadaffy loyalists.
Amid the Libyan fighters' push to gain full control of this North African country, news came on Tuesday of convoys of Qadaffy loyalists, including his security chief, fleeing across the Sahara into Niger.
The US said it believed the convoy was carrying senior members of Qadaffy's entourage, and urged Niger to detain anyone liable for prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the uprising.