Street-Fighting Reported as NTC Fighters Increase Pressure on Pro-Al Qathafi Loyalists in Sirte

NATO renewed air strikes on the besieged coastal city of Sirte, the Libyan leader Muammar Al Qathafi's hometown, while National Transitional Council fighters on war tanks shelled the Al Qatahfi loyalists as they bid to capture one of the last two remaining bastions loyal to the fugitive leader.

The anti-Al Qathafi forces pushed forward from the east in scores of pick-up trucks and tanks and even fought street battles with Al Qathafi's men still intent on defending the fugitive leader's stronghold that sits between Tripoli and Benghazi

NATO aircraft on Sunday hit targets in the city and its attacks continued Monday. NTC fighters still hope to take the city in the next day or two as it would by a huge boost for them as the council tries to establish credibility as a government able to unite Libya's fractious tribes and regions.

Reuters reported that NTC forces backed by NATO warplanes raced into the eastern outskirts of Sirte on Monday and fought street battles with Al Qathafi loyalists.

The humanitarian situation inside the besieged city is reported as precarious, and humanitarian organisations are anxious to see an end to the fighting to help the civilians caught inside. They have reportedly raised the alarm over conditions for civilians cut off in Sirte and also in the other Al Qathafi bastion of Bani Walid to the south.

Reuters journalists report heavy resistance on the outskirts of Sirte and they were told by NTC fighters that there were Al Qathafi snipers targeting them. However, they said that God willing they can enter Sirte by tonight.

Thick black smoke billowed into the air as NTC fighters battled loyalist troops at a roundabout about 2 km from the centre of the city, with the anti-Al Qathafi fighters saying that the NATO jets were striking the positions occupied by the Al Qathafi loyalists. On the west of Sirte NTC tanks shelled loyalist positions in the centre.

NATO would not comment on its operations in Sirte on Monday.

On Sunday NTC forces on the west of the city pulled back in what was described as a tactical retreat in order to allow for NATO bombing. Then they took up the fighting again Monday while scores of civilians in cars laden down with personal belongings continued to stream out of the town to both the east and west.

In a statement, Georges Comninos, who heads International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Libya said they were very concerned about the people inside and near Bani Walid and Sirte.

"Food reserves and medical supplies are reportedly running short in both cities. We are receiving many appeals to help the wounded and come to the aid of civilians generally," he said.

The United Nations has food and medical supplies on the outskirts of Sirte, and cannot get in to distribute them, the UN's top humanitarian official in Libya said on Monday. A UN spokesman said there was no direct information coming out of Sirte because no UN or non-governmental aid groups had been able to get into the town.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya Panos Moumtzis told a Geneva media conference: "We are mobilising food and medical supplies on the outskirts. That is all we can do for the moment. For security reasons, we cannot cross over the lines. We gather that there is a shortage of water and that electricity is cut off," he said.

He added that the information they have comes from people who have managed to leave, about 1,700 so far.

Meanwhile, reported Moumtzis saying that the United Nations is expected to end its emergency humanitarian operations in Libya at the end of November.

He told reporters that humanitarian operations are "for the time being expected for the next eight weeks until the end of November.

"We hope the country will be in a new phase" by then, Moumtzis said,explaining that at that point Libya would be in need of "technical" assistance, to develop the country and bring about electoral and judicial reforms.

He added that the country's new authority, the Transitional National Council, had indicated it wanted to take responsibility for humanitarian issues by the end of November. "The TNC thinks they can handle the purchase of food and medicines by the end of November," he said.

Moumtzis added there was a sense of "optimism" in Tripoli, but there were still "large preoccupations" in Bani Walid, 170 km southeast of the capital, and in Sirte.

NTC fighters and people who have fled Sirte have alleged that pro-Al Qathafi fighters were trying to prevent civilians from getting out of the city, effectively using them as human shields,

According to UN figures, some 24,000 people have escaped the fighting in Bani Walid, and around 2,000 have fled Sirte.

Oil Production Resumes Abu-Attifel Fields

In the meantime, Italian energy giant Eni said Monday that Libya has resumed oil production for the first time since the revolution, tapping 15 wells and producing some 31,900 barrels per day,.

Eni said production had resumed at the Abu-Attifel fields, about 300km south of the city of Benghazi. Other wells would be reactivated soon to reach the "required volumes to fill the pipeline" between the Abu-Attifel field and the Zuetina port.

The operations are being conducted by Mellitah Oil & Gas, a partnership between Eni and Libya's state-run National Oil Corp, NOC, AP reports.

Before the uprising in id-February, Eni was producing 273,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in Libya. The country sits atop Africa's largest proven reserves of conventional crude.

With a small population of only 6mn, Libya raked in $40bn last year from oil and gas exports.

Experts say it could take about a year or more to get back to its pre-war production of 1.6mn barrels a day.

Earlier this month, Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni visited Tripoli to lay the groundwork for relaunching gas exports to Italy via the Greenstream pipeline, which can carry roughly 10bn cubic meters of natural gas per year. It hasn't been operational since late February.

Scaroni has set October 15 as an optimistic deadline to restart the gas flow.

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