Fierce clashes erupt for Gaddafi bastion

The deadline expired yesterday for forces loyal to ousted Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi to surrender, with fighters of the country's new leadership poised to attack hold-out strongholds.
After fierce clashes on Friday in Bani Walid, a Gaddafi bastion southeast of Tripoli, an AFP reporter on the town's eastern front at Sedata some 60 kilometres south of Misrata could hear distant artillery fire.
Nato aircraft could also be heard overhead, he said.
The National Transitional Council (NTC) set Saturday as the deadline for towns still loyal to Gaddafi to surrender, and on-off talks have been going on for days over Bani Walid.
A number of former regime officials, including Gaddafi's spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, are believed to be holed up there.
NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil arrived in the port city of Misrata while en route for his first visit to Tripoli since the fighters of the new leadership captured the capital.
Abdel Jalil told AFP his visit to Tripoli from NTC headquarters in Benghazi was "temporary," and that the council he heads would move to Tripoli "after the (full) liberation" of Libya.
An AFP correspondent said Abdel Jalil was due to give a news conference in Misrata, a city which suffered a lengthy siege by pro-Gaddafi forces that was lifted only in August.
Fighters returning from the front reported clashes between NTC "sleeper cells" and pro-Gaddafi forces in and near Bani Walid overnight, and said they were reinforcing advance positions amid "fierce resistance" from diehards.
According to chief NTC negotiator Abdullah Kenshil, "the attack will take place, but its timing will be decided by military leaders on the ground."
On Friday, a top NTC commander said "decisive military action" was imminent.
On Friday ahead of the deadline, fighting erupted in Bani Walid as pro-NTC elements inside the town clashed with Gaddafi forces.
Reports said one "revolutionary" fighter was killed and four wounded, and there were three deaths among pro-Gaddafi forces.
Columns of smoke and the crump of shelling could be heard by journalists outside Bani Walid as convoys carrying fighters and ammunition headed for the town 170 kilometres (105 miles) from Tripoli.
Meanwhile, on the road to Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, rebels who had captured Red Valley, 60 kilometres to the east on Thursday, were under counter attack, an AFP correspondent reported.