The new rulers in Libya believe that the fugitive ex-leader, Muammer Qadhafi, was being shielded by nomadic tribesmen in the desert near the Algerian border, while his followers fended off assaults in his hometown. Intense artillery and sniper fire from the pro-Qadhafi fighters has so far prevented the National Transitional Council (NTC) forces from taking Sirte, despite more than two weeks of fighting and two full-on assaults. One of the two last bastions of support for the ousted strongman, it has withstood a siege by NTC fighters hitting it with rocket and tank fire as well as Nato airstrikes.

The United Nations and the international aid agencies are worried over conditions for civilians trapped inside. More than a month since the NTC fighters captured the capital Tripoli, Qadhafi remains defiantly on the run, pledging to lead a campaign of armed resistance against the new leaders. A senior NTC military official said that Qadhafi himself could be likely holed up near the western town of Ghadames, situated near the Algerian border, under the protection of Tuareg tribesmen. Hisham Buhagiar told Reuters, without elaborating, that there has been a fight between Tuareg tribesmen who are loyal to Arabs and Qadhafi living there (in the south). They are negotiating and the Qadhafi search is now taking a different course.

Many Tuaregs, who are nomads and roam the desert spanning the borders of Libya and its neighbors, have backed Qadhafi since he supported their rebellions against the governments of Niger and Mali in the 1970s and allowed them to settle in Libya. Buhagiar said that Qadhafi’s most politically-prominent son, Saif al-Islam, was in the other final loyalist holdout, Bani Walid, and that another influential son, Mutassem, was in Sirte. Lack of coordination and the divisions at the front have been hampering NTC attempts to capture Bani Walid and Sirte.

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