"Where is Gaddafi? Where is the rat? We will catch him," said Bashar Ali, an officer with the forces of the National Transitional Council (NTC) as he steered his pickup truck deeper into the desert toward Bani Walid, a town where Muammar Gaddafi is believed to be hiding.

An important tribal stronghold southeast of the capital Tripoli, Bani Walid is one of Gaddafi's last remaining bastions of power in a country now largely under NTC control.

Along with the coastal city of Sirte further east and Sabha in the south, Bani Walid lies inside a vast triangle of desert land where support for Gaddafi has been traditionally strong.

For now, with Libya's new rulers hoping to negotiate their peaceful surrender, NTC forces massing at Bani Walid's gates are locked in an uneasy standoff with a town still under the spell of Gaddafi's rule.

At the last dusty outpost east of Bani Walid, NTC fighters said they engaged in almost daily skirmishes with Gaddafi loyalists scouting the area but had yet to receive orders from their commanders to advance.

The NTC fighters take turns to man watch towers, training their binoculars into the desert for any sign of approaching vehicles.

Kicking up columns on dust, NTC convoys make daily incursions into the area but avoid open hostilities unless provoked, they said.

Yet, no one is firmly in control of the vast swathe of land stretching between Bani Walid, home to Libya's biggest and most important tribe, the Warfalla, and Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast.

"Right now we are waiting. Everyone is ready to fight. Sirte will be liberated first, then Bani Walid," said Ibrahim Obaid, an NTC fighter.

The NTC fighters said they had 168 units -- or about 16,000 men -- deployed in the area around their regional stronghold of Misrata, but conceded that any fight for Bani Walid or Sirte would be tough.

"It's not about the numbers. Bani Walid is surrounded by hills, and Gaddafi's men have tanks and Grads (rocket launchers) deployed on hilltops. Sirte will be equally difficult," said Ismail Sabhi, an NTC unit commander.

Global Arab Network

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