Libya: as it happened August 26

20.57 Sources from the French Presidents Office say Gaddafi has been located in his hometown of Sirte, according to a report in Le Parisien.

The same report also says Nicolas Sarkozy - and possibly David Cameron - will visit Libya once Gaddafi has been caught.

20.21 Victorious rebels have been enjoying the luxuries of Aisha Gaddafi's apartment:

20.03 The Washington Times are reporting that Gaddafi troops massacred more than 180 prisoners earlier this week.

The report chimes with the claims of rebel military chief Abdel Nagib Mlegta (see 18.32).

19.37 Rob Crilly has also written an in-depth blog on the tribal splits that threaten Libya's rebel movement.

The ongoing tension over Abdel Fatah Younis is a reminder of how far the rebels have to travel if they are to unite their divided country and hold together their fragile coalition. The West has turned a blind eye to divisions and tensions within the opposition, focusing on their promises of justice and democracy, while showering cash and missiles on their struggle.

19.31 There's an apparent black-out in Tripoli. CNN's Sarah Sidner tweets:

Tripoli has gone dark. Lights out across the city.

18.45 Telegraph reporter Rob Crilly files on the tension between a pro-Gaddafi trive and the rebels files on the tension between a pro-Gaddafi tribes:

One of eastern Libya’s most powerful tribes has said it is prepared to detain and try senior rebel leaders it believes were behind the murder of the opposition’s top military commander.

The move is in a sign of the tribal tensions that could undermine attempts to form a new government.

Abdel Fatah Younis was assassinated on July 28 after being summoned to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi for questioning.

Members of his Obeidi tribe are unhappy at the way the rebel’s National Transitional Council (NTC) has investigated his murder, amid allegations that senior opposition figures ordered the killing.

The spectre of splits and tribal tension has haunted the six-month old rebellion and could now damage attempts to unite the country.

^{A bdel Fatah Younis}

18.34 Libyan Youth Movement site shabablibya.org has posted a harrowing diary by a doctor who left Tunisia for Tripoli in order to help medical workers.

The diary gives a clear picture of the chaotic turmoil on the ground in Tripoli. It also tells how civilians have set up local checkpoints to keep control of their immediate neighbourhood.

18.32 Rebel military chief Abdel Nagib Mlegta - who earlier claimed rebels now control 95pc of Tripoli (see 18.02) - has said Gaddafi forces killed more than 150 prisoners in a "mass murder" as they fled the rebel takeover of Tripoli.

There were instances of revenge in the last few hours before the fall of the regime

In Bab al-Aziziya there was a mass murder. They killed more than 150 prisoners. The guards did it before running away. They threw hand grenades at them

18.23 Britain is seeking approval to release about $1.6 billion in seized Libyan bank notes to help the country's rebel government pay the salaries of public sector workers, according to an anonymous government official.

British diplomats have opened discussions with members of the U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Libya to authorize the proposal.

The move comes as Mahmoud Jibril, head of the NTC, said Libya's interim government needs about $5 billion in frozen assets to pay state salaries and maintain essential services.

Yesterday, the US won approval to release $1.5 billion in frozen Libyan assets.

18.02 The Telegraph's foreign correspondent Rob Crilly tweets on Tripoli's water supply:

Hearing that Gaddafi forces have been trying to disrupt Tripoli water supplies (and I hope nothing more sinister besides) #libya

17.53 A local military chief has told reporters that the libyan rebels now control 95 percent of the capital Tripoli.

Abdel Nagib Mlegta said "There are just a few pockets of resistance" in the neighbourhoods of Salah al-Din and Abu Salim.

He added that he hoped to catch Gaddafi within the next 72 hours.

17.25 A spokesman for the US Secretary of State describes the finding of a Condoleezza Rice photo album in Gaddafi's compound as "deeply bizarre and deeply creepy", adding the US administration was unaware of the dictator's crush.

"I support my darling black African woman," he told al Jazeera in 2007. "I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders . . . Leezza, Leezza, Leezza . . . I love her very much. I admire her, and I'm proud of her, because she's a black woman of African origin."

17.08 Donald Rumsfeld has today released a new set of documents from his time as US Secretary of Defense to the Ford administration in 1975-77. (It was a job he would do again for George W. Bush). Amongst them is a memo to the President on 'Libyan Terrorist Intrigues'

While Qadhafi's quixotic actions are difficult to predict there is ample evidence that he has provided cash, equipment and training for an increasing number of subversive and terrorist groups... Qadhafi believes his cause is just and makes no secret of his involvement and support for a wide range of terrorist activities.

16.58 Claims from armchair foreign editors that BBC reporters have been "wimps" in Libya are flatly disproved in this dispatch from Orla Guerin. After a tour in the Gaddafi bunker she delivers a piece to camera from the midst of a street battle.

It captures the familiar pattern of street combat in Tripoli: a single sniper round, followed by cries of 'Alluah akhbar', indiscriminate automatic fire from the waist and joyriding pick-up trucks.

16.41 Andrew Simmons at Al Jazeera reports on the unfolding horror at the Abu Salim trauma hospital.

The International Red Cross have now evacuated the hospital, with 21 seriously sick, including a boy with a bullet wound to the chest and a male civilian with a round in his spine.

It was the front line hospital as rebels closed in on Tripoli - but has been abandoned for five days after medical staff fled sniper fire.

16.34 Red herrings or hard leads? Abdul Karim Bazama, NTC security advisor, tells Times of Malta that fighters are chasing a convoy of trucks believed to contain Col Gaddafi 40 to 50km south of Tripoli.

He cannot move to the mountain, we are squeezing the only gateways he has left. He is being cornered. I don't think he can reach Sirte or Sabha anymore. He is manoevering in one area south of Tripoli and could be captured or killed anytime now... it's a matter of a few days.

16.22 Some images from Abu Salim prison - the notorious jailed seized by rebels, and the scene of a notorious massacre in which 1200 people were killed.

Here journalist Andy Worthington explains how the massacre inspired the uprising this year.

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16.20 Tom Rayner, Sky News: Big rebel push towards Saladin neighbourhood, Tripoli now - attempting to take the Khamis Brigade base.

16.17 CNN's Sarah Sidner has been on a tour of the tunnels underneath Bab al-Aziziya. She finds an office lined with dozens of VHS tapes containing Gaddafi speeches, some up to 90 minutes long.

16.06 Sam Tarling, a British photojournalist based in Beirut, has been talking to Telegraph reporter Josie Ensor from Abu Salim, a southern district in the Libyan capital where rebels have conducted house-to-house sweeps for snipers. He saw rebels capture more than a dozen mercenaries after heavy fighting:

I saw around maybe 10-15 prisoners of war. They were fighting [the rebels] and they surrendered - they were Gadaffi fighters who were cornered, they came out and gave up rather than be killed. They were all black, but then so were all the civilians in that neighbourhood. It's a staunchly loyal area. Some said they were from Chad.

The rebels were firing fairly indiscriminately at the houses in which sniper fire was coming from with heavy machine guns at times.

I saw a number of residences on fire, some people were evacuated, but others were stuck in their homes.

There are bodies lying on the street.

He said the Corinthia Hotel, where he is staying, came under sniper attack last night, but fortunately no one was injured. He's now waiting for a boat to take him to Malta, along with several of the freed journalists from the Rixos Hotel.

These are his pictures:

^{A Gaddafi loyalist soldier reacts after being struck by a rifle butt by his rebel captors}

^{A resident is evacutated by rebel troops in Abu Selim}

^{Rebel fighters fire on pro-Gaddafi snipers in the neighbourhood of Abu Selim}

^{A suspected mercenary is captured by rebel fighters}

16.00 AFP Libya's rebel-led authority is not yet legitimate as fighting continues against forces loyal to Gaddafi, South African President Jacob Zuma said.

"There is a process in Libya wherein the NTC (National Transitional Council) forces are in the process of taking over Tripoli ... but there is still that fighting going on.

"So we can't therefore stand and say this is the legitimate one now," Zuma said.

15.52 Alex Thomson, Channel 4 news, has blogged from the abandoned Abu Salim hospital

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^{Survivors are evacuated by the Red Cross from Abu Salim hospital. It is believed at least 80 bodies lie in the wards.}

In one room a picture of Colonel Gaddafi smiles down on at least 23 more corpses shoved onto trolleys at all angles.

There is no language for the stench. You fear even to breathe in here.

A hospital orderly vomits quietly in a corridor.

This is a lost place, abandoned in the chaos of fighting.

A hospital worker says we have seen only the bodies from fighting in Abu Salim in the past few days.

Downstairs, a fighter shoots the lock off the hospital basement and here are scores more bodies. Some are Col Gadaffi’s soldiers but another, broken child lies abandoned here too. Some were clearly shot dead but in all honesty most are too far gone to investigate.

I couldn’t do it.

15.45 Ruth Sherlock, a Telegraph reporter in Tripoli, rings to say a party has broken out at the Gaddafi Bab al-Aziziya complex.

There's dead bodies still strewn around and the green Gaddafi flags are still flying.

But for the first time since the complex fell women and children feel safe to venture out and are exploring the complex.

In the courtyard where Gaddafi once made speeches locals have set up a sound system and are playing rap music and Bob Marley, and people are whirling round, dancing.

Men have raided Gaddafi's wardrobe and are dancing in his flowing pink gowns. Others have dressed up as him and are pretending to deliver his speeches, mocking his accent.

I asked one man, will you miss Gaddafi. He said: "We will miss the jokes we could make."

Young children are holding hands with their mothers. There is a lot of celebratory gunfire but the children do not flinch; they are clearly used to it.

"Can you taste the freedom?" one woman asked me.

Many people lived next to the complex but had never seen in - but one man told me they were taken inside on school trips in 1986, when it was bombed by Nato and Gaddafi wanted to show off the damage.

15.21 Jonny Hallam, a BBC producer in Brega, tweets:

15.15 AFP: Amnesty International says it has evidence Gaddafi forces killed "numerous" prisoners at two military camps in Tripoli.

Prisoners who managed to escape described how pro-regime troops lobbed grenades and opened fire on detainees as they tried to flee one camp.

At another, guards shot dead five detainees, including a doctor, they were holding in solitary confinement, Amnesty claimed.

Amnesty said that on Tuesday, the day rebel forces stormed Gaddafi's Bab al-Azizya compound in Tripoli, about 160 detainees tried to flee the metal hangar where they were being held at a military camp in Khilit al-Ferjan, southwest Tripoli.

Two guards told them the gates were unlocked, but as the detainees made a break for freedom, two other guards opened fire and threw five hand grenades at the group, one eyewitness told Amnesty.

15.00 Some remarkable pictures here of two burnt-out A300 airliners at Tripoli airport, which came under rocket fire by Gaddafi forces, at Flightglobal website. One is believed to Gaddafi's VIP transport plane with Afriqiyah Airbus livery; the other is a Libyan Airlines plane.

14.39 Al Jazeera have taken a tour of the capture headquarters of Libya's secret intelligence services. They reach the office of Abdullah Senussi - Gadaffi's head of intelligence, right hand man and brother in law who along with Gaddafi has been indicted for crimes against humanity by the ICC. They find files of political suspects and cells where people say they were tortured.

But the cells have quickly been put back to use - and now house people whom the rebels allege are mercenaries.

Thanks to James Shine, a reader who pointed this video out. All tips on the best reporting from Libya gratefully received at matthew.holehouse[at]telegraph.co.uk.

14.37 Nato sources tell Sky: Gaddafi forces are regrouping in Sirte and present a direct threat to civilians - that is why they are pursuing them. It isn't about finding Gaddafi.

14.34 On the blogs: Dr Tim Stanley, a research fellow in American History at Royal Holloway College, writes Obama's war in Libya may be wasteful and naive - but it's liberal, not neocon

Obama’s Left-wing critics are wrong when they call him George Bush Mark II. His foreign policy is liberal all the way – right down to its frustrating mix of decency, cowardice and confusion.

14.31 Sebastian Payne, a Telegraph data reporter, has updated our map of the latest events in Libya.

14.27 Ann Marlowe writer for the Weekly Standard claims she "helped call in" a Nato airstrike yesterday in Zwara, 70 miles from Tripoli.

We were being shelled. A commander I was driving with asked me whether I had NATO’s number—NATO, here, is always being referred to in the third person masculine. I tried to explain that NATO isn’t usually very keen on journalists calling in these sorts of things

14.25 The EU has warned that unfrozen Libyan assets must not end up in the hands of Gaddafi supporters.

"We are looking at how we should do this. There are several options," Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, at a briefing today.

14.22 AFP say latest estimates put the number of dead found at Abu Salim hospital at 80, with 17 patients, including a child, found alive. They were trapped for days after the hospital was surrounded by Gaddafi snipers who prevented people from arriving or leaving as rebel fighters edged towards the area.

The International Red Cross today evacuated the remaining patients.

Almost all the doctors and nurses fled, leaving the patients to die one by one, the news agency said. The walls are sprayed with blood and the dead bodies line the corridors, gardens and basement after the morgue was filled.

"It is a disaster," said medical-student-turned-nurse Mohammed Yunis.

"There is no more medicine in the hospital, no more medical personnel. They all left for fear of the snipers."

14.17 Margaret Ward, journalist at Ireland's RTE, has been to the main hospital in Tripoli. There is no running water and a doctor died this morning after his ambulance was fired upon.

14.15 Liam Fox: "We must not allow the Gaddafi regime to regroup"

14.13 The African Union will not recognise the Libyan rebel council, a senior Western diplomat tells Reuters. It suggests Gaddafi still has supporters among the African nations and some doubt how long the NTC will remain in power. The African Union earlier said its members ought not feel obliged to fulfil ICC indictments on the head of Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief.

South Africa, for example, is sympathetic to Gaddafi - the Colonel was a faithful ally of the ANC, now the ruling party, during the apartheid struggle.

14.07 Sky News' reporter in Ras Lanuf says he spotted some Nato special forces. They are involved in identifying targets for airstrikes and co-ordinating with Nato rather than combat, he says. The fighting resembles conventional warfare with frontlines, artillery and strong command structures compared to the chaotic and fast-moving rebel uprising of six months ago.

Rob Crilly, the Telegraph's man on the Libyan eastern front, reports:

Sounds like the opposition move to Tripoli is rather cosmetic for now. They have a tent set up in the western, Nafusa mountains and then commute in for meetings or press conferences. Will be a while before the city is secure enough for a proper move, I guess.

13.09 From BBC World at One today: an extraordinary interview with Sidney Kwiram, an investigator for Human Rights Watch, conducted as she walks through Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound and uncovers evidence of suspected executions. On air she counts the bodies she can see.

Oh God. This one has his hands bound. Civilian clothes. He's clearly been here for a while... I'm sorry. Give me a second.

12.58 This is a passport photo of Hana Gaddafi, the adopted daughter the autocrat claimed had been killed as an infant during a Nato bombing raid, uncovered by the Irish Times from the Gaddafi compound.

^{Credit: Mary Fitzgerald, Irish Times}

12.51 Alex Thomson, Channel 4's chief correspondent, has covered 20 wars in the Gulf, Balkans, Africa and Afghanistan. He is today at Abu Salim hospital. He tweets:

Abu Salim hosp - some of the worst things I ever saw - untransmittable horror. Piles of rotting people outside, inside, in corridors, offices -all over. Filmed last injured screaming as Red X evacuated. Got fighter to shoot off door if basement - stuffed with bodies from previous fighting. Whole place filled with stench, flies and maggots all over abandoned hospital. Most fighting age males but two women, three children at least. Counted 78 bodies here.

12.43 Paul Danahar, BBC Middle East bureau chief, has posted this picture on Twitter of two bound and dead Gaddafi fighters. The white zip tie is visible around the wrists of one. When he tried to get closer a sniper shot at him.

^{Credit: Paul Danahar, BBC}

12.34 Twitter user @k_thos has created a superb collection of detailed maps of Libya and the capital, showing troops movements and battles during the course of six-month uprising and of where the known prisons, military bases and checkpoints are in the capital (he cautions that there are likely to be many more secret prisons to be uncovered in the capital which don't feature on the map.)

12.14 An update on the fierce street fighting which continued today. Gaddafi forces overnight retook some of the positions hard-won by rebel fighters yesterday in clearance operations.

In Abu Salim the Gaddafi flag still flies. Nato bombed the neighbourhood last night with an unexploded device sitting in a fire station. Rebels are undertaking building-to-building sweeps of apartments and have arrested dozens of mercenaries who are being bound and lying face down, Sky News shows. The Gaddafi fighters lack heavy weapons and have resorted to sniper attacks.

Tripoli airport is again under attack from Gaddafi forces and several planes are on fire.

Around the Rixos area - the heart of Gaddafi's Tripoli and home to regime men and foreign dignatories, and one of the last redoubts of the government - regime fighters have won back two pieces of territory lost in yesterday's fighting.

At the Bab al-Aziziya roundabout a contingent of government forces at 2am last night retook the blocks of flats where Gaddafi was thought to be hiding and have mounted sniper positions. Rebels are, as yesterday, gathering ahead on an assault on the area.

And in the Rixos woods and hotel area, where huge underground arms caches were uncovered, a second contingent of troops took the hotel and, Sky's Stuart Ramsay reports, managed to reach the hospital where they took away some of their wounded fighters.

There are many bodies, some with their hands bound, Ramsay said.

12.00 Liam Fox, the defence secretary, tells the Gaddafi regime: "The game is up"

It's still important that we remove the potential for the regime to counter-attack against the NTC and to continue to wage war on their people, but it is far too early yet to say what the security situation will be in the weeks ahead.

We have information that there are some elements of the regime in Sirte. Where they are still continuing to wage war on the people of Libya, we will continue to degrade their military capabilities.

The regime needs to recognise that the game is up. It is all over and they need to stop attacking their own people.

But as long as they do continue to attack the people, Nato will continue to attack as we have done under the UN Resolution 1973 to degrade the command and control and the military assets that they are using against the people of Libya.

11.52 New video of rebels storming the Gaddafi stronghold of Abu Salim yesterday

11.43 More on that RAF bombing raid on Gaddafi's home town of Sirte.

Nato's bulletin today says the alliance flew 133 sorties yesterday, of which 46 were strike sorties.

In Sirte jets hit 29 armed vehicles and one 'Command and Control Node'.

In Tripoli they struck a further command post, one surface-to-air missile transloader and one surface-to-air missile launcher.

Yesterday six Nato ships and nine aircraft delivered humanitarian aid.

Update: Full statement from Major General Nick Pope, Chief of Defence Staff comms officer

Yesterday morning, Royal Air Force Tornado aircraft located and destroyed one of Colonel Gaddafi's few remaining long- range surface-to-air missile systems, near Al Watiyah, close to the Tunisian border. During the afternoon, Tornados and Typhoons destroyed a command and control node that remained in former regime hands on the road south from Tripoli to the International Airport. Then, at around midnight, a formation of Tornado GR4s, which had launched from RAF Marham in Norfolk on a long-range strike mission, fired a salvo of Storm Shadow precision-guided missiles against a large headquarters bunker in Gaddafi's home town of Sirte. As ever, these missions, and those conducted by allied fast jets over Libya, relied upon Nato's large fleet of combat support aircraft, including RAF VC10 and Tristar tankers, plus Sentry and Sentinel surveillance platforms.

11.35 Gaddafi fighters have raped children, while rebels are holding African migrant workers as prisoners, Amnesty International claims.

A delegation from the human rights group this week uncovered evidence of boys being taken from their cells at the city's Abu Salim prison by loyalist forces and raped by a guard, Amnesty said.

One former detainee said: "One of the boys was in particularly bad shape after being brought back to his cell. His clothes were torn and he was almost naked.

"He told us that he had been raped. This happened to these two boys several times."

Amnesty said rebels had committed abuses in the coastal town of Zawiyah, and had threatened to kill migrant workers from Chad, Niger and Sudan, believing them to be 'foreign mercenaries'.

A Libyan boy of 14 told Amnesty he had answered the call for volunteers to fight for the loyalists, but surrendered after NATO bombed the miltary camp in Zawiyah where he had been taken to collect a weapon.

He said a rebel fighter shot him in the knee at close range and then beat him with their rifles.

Source: AFP.

11.27 Reports of further large underground weapons caches found in the wooded area between the Rixos hotel and Tripoli zoo, the scene of bitter fighting yesterday and today.

11.25 RAF strike Gaddafi hometown bunker

RAF Tornado jets have bombed a large bunker in Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte.

The formation of Tornado GR4s took off from RAF Marham in Norfolk on a long-range strike mission on Thursday night, the MOD said, and fired a salvo of precision guided Storm Shadow missiles against a "large headquarters bunker".

11.20 Could this be evidence of Gaddafi's WMD?

US intelligence officials are pushing to expand the CIA's role in hunting down Gaddafi's arsenal of mustard gas, the AP reports. The administration is pushing instead for other NATO partners to step in and take up the hunt.

Libyan opposition figures have directed us to this video of what they say are chemical weapons found in a Gaddafi arms dump in Misrata some months ago.

This is a transcript of the audio (with thanks to Rima S. Aboulmona in Beirut for the translation.)

These are biological and chemical weapons in the form of bombs of various sizes used for genocide found in depots belonging to the security battalions in Misrata.

This is a sample of poisonous gases in the form of biological bombs that we unfortunately found in the heart of Misrata.

Regretfully, these battalions were stationed in the center of Misrata which ignited fears such bombs were used to wipe out the people of Libya. But the rebels strengthened themselves around the city of Misrata and put their hands on these bombs which are now in a safe place after last night’s fierce and armed battle in Misrata.

Are they right? What do the canisters contain? Email me at matthew.holehouse[at]telegraph.co.uk if you think you can identify them.

Update: thanks to the readers who spotted the round containers are most likely aircraft ejector seat explosives...

11.02 Al Jazeera reports continued fighting in Tripoli this morning, including around the Bab al-Aziziya compound.

10.56 A very fine piece from Christopher Hitchens on the foul deeds of Col Gaddafi.

From Slate

In George Orwell's 1939 novel, Coming Up for Air, his narrator, George Bowling, broods on the special horrors of the new totalitarianism and notices "the colored shirts, the barbed wire, the rubber truncheons," but also, less obviously perhaps, "the processions and the posters with enormous faces, and the crowds of a million people all cheering for the Leader till they deafen themselves into thinking that they really worship him, and all the time, underneath, they hate him so that they want to puke."

It was particularly satisfying to see, in the filling of Green Square in Tripoli and the over-running of the vulgar Xanadu of Muammar Qaddafi's so-called private "compound," the use as real space of areas that had hitherto been reserved for that special kind of degradation and humiliation—the rally for The Leader.

10.50 The rebel leadership has said the transitional government-in-waiting is seeking a seat at the United Nations.

"We hope that next month Libya will be occupying the seat it holds at the United Nations," Mahmoud Jibril told a news conference in Istanbul.

He said again his government needs funding to keep the lights on in the Libyan state.

"When the regime collapses all eyes will turn to the NTC to provide the Libyan people with services they have been deprived of for the last six months, including power and salaries," he said.

"In order to meet the expectations we need the finances. It is very important that the Libyan people don't feel deprived of resources."

"We have to establish an army, a strong police force to be able to meet the needs of the people and we need capital and we need assets. All our friends in the international community speak of stability and security. We need that too."

10.45 It was only a matter of time...

Sky's Alex Crawford interviewed Mr Al Windi, the Libyan rebel who nabbed Gaddafi's hat from the Bab al-Aziziya compound.

Now it's been remixed.

10.30 Revealed: the double agent in Gaddafi's camp

From the Wall Street Journal

For more than five months in a city locked down by forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi, regime opponents in Tripoli's Fashloom neighborhood relied on a fellow resistance leader who told them with uncanny accuracy how to evade security sweeps and tipped them off to impending raids against them.

On Thursday, as a rebel advance broke Col. Gadhafi's grip over his capital, the man identified himself to those beyond his underground cell: He is Mahmoud Ben Jumaa, a senior officer in Col. Gadhafi's personal security force.

In his double-agent role in the uprising, Mr. Ben Jumaa by day issued orders to arrest or tail suspected rebels. By night, the 54-year-old met secretly with those trying to overthrow his boss, who in turn were part of a city-wide opposition to the strongman.

10.15 The African Union is meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss Libya. It is expected the AU Peace and Security council will recognise the NTC, with heavy lobbying from Nigeria. But there may be conditions - such as ensuring security and allowing Gaddafi officials to take part in the transition process.

10.05 Andrew Simmons reports from the abandoned Abu Salim trauma hospital, close to the fierce fighting yesterday, for Al Jazeera English.

Piles of dead bodies lie in blood-soaked beds in wards, and rot in the gardens outside. It is thought more than 100 dead people have been left here; the mortuary was already full.

In the intensive care unit rebels and loyalists lie side by side with wounds including missing limbs and spinal injuries, he says.

Normally the hospital has hundreds of staff, but they fled, leaving just seven medical staff including two doctors. Aid agencies can't send staff because of the risks. The television crew were fired on as they arrived and left.

"It's a stench of death. It's like something out of a horror movie, but worse, because it is real," says Simmons, pulling down his face mask.

10.00 Sky: Gaddafi forces launched a counter-attack near the Rixos hotel and Gaddafi compound early this morning.

09.58 Most of Libya is still under the control of Col Gaddafi, African "news agency" Mathaba reports.

"Things are not going well for NATO with mercenaries and terrorist rebels trapped in the center of Tripoli, surrounded by loyalist forces," the agency says, citing Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.

09.32 Yet more evidence that Hana Gaddafi, the dictator's daughter claimed killed by a Nato airstrike in 1986, has been alive and well in Tripoli.

At the time an American journalist was shown the body of a baby and told it was Hana. On the 20th anniversary of the US attack, the Libyan regime organised the “Hana Festival of Freedom and Peace” to commemorate the incident.

But Mary Fitzgerald of the Irish Times has found a woman's bedroom at the Bab al-Aziza residence:

I came across a room which seemed to be part-study, part-lounge. Its contents – including a Sex and the City DVD box set; CDs of the Backstreet Boys ; cellulite treatments; WellWoman vitamin supplements and stuffed toys – hinted that it belonged to a young woman.

Amid the bookshelves lined with medical textbooks and copies of Col Gadafy’s Green Book , I found passport photographs of a woman, dressed in medical garb, who appeared to be in her mid- 20s.

I found an examination paper from a Libyan university medical faculty which was signed “Hana Muammar Gadafy” in Arabic. A photograph showed a woman who seemed to be Hana with a group of people, including Col Gadafy’s blood daughter Aisha.

A British Council certificate, dated July 19th, 2007, showed that a Hana Muammar Gadafy had completed an English language course at its Libyan centre, achieving an A grade.

A small envelope marked “Miss Hana Muammar, Room 510” contained undated notes from Mohamad Azwai, who referred to himself as Libya’s ambassador to the UK, and his wife, wishing Hana a pleasant stay in London.

It follows revelations by the Daily Telegraph that a British dentist was hired by the Libyan embassy to fly to Tripoli to treat Hana Gaddafi.

^{Picture credit: Mary Fitzgerald, Irish Times}

09.30 Bloomberg, the financial news wire, reports four aeroplanes were destroyed when Gaddafi forces pounded Tripoli airport with rocket fire - including an Airbus A330.

“As the Libyan regime and its forces begin to melt away you have residual groups who are going to continue to fight,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said. “They will start to target airports, seaports, oil and gas infrastructure and anything that represents the authority of the new government.”

Among the planes found at the airport when it was overrun by rebels is Gaddafi's personal jet - the same used by Lockerbie bomber al-Megrahi on his homecoming flight from Scotland two years ago.

09.25 An update from Rob Crilly, who is following the movements of the NTC in the east:

Lots of priorities for the rebel leadership but Mahmoud Jibril, head of the opposition's cabinet in waiting, spelled out that the number one challenge remains security in Tripoli. At a press conference in Istanbul this morning, he talked about the risk of a political vacuum and the need for the rebel leadership to move to the capital as soon as possible. An advance party has already moved through, but there's a long way to go.

09.20 Ruth Sherlock, a Telegraph reporter in Tripoli, calls. She says the capital is very quiet today as Libyans prepare for Friday prayers.

In all the footage emerging from Libya of men fighting there are very few women to be seen - and they are suffering indoors, Ruth says.

I met two women in an alleyway in the crumbling back streets of Italian colonial Tripoli. They said "Look, look, this is the last of our money," waving five dinars at me - about £2.50. "We can't buy anything with it. There's no water, no money, no gas, no food. This is Ramadan and we can't get Iftar [the feast to celebrate the end of the Muslim fast.]" They pointed at the crumbling buildings and said: "Look at these crumbling buildings. This country is oil rich but this is how we live." One said: "I have ten children and I cannot feed them all." I asked them if they prepared food for the rebels. They said they couldn't - there's nothing to cook. "We stay indoors hearing the explosions and our children are terrified and we just pray to God."

09.10 AP reports 41 bodies have been found at an abandoned hospital in Abu Salim, the district of central Tripoli that saw fierce fighting yesterday.

The four-story hospital in the Abu Salim neighborhood was completely empty Friday morning. Shattered glass is scattered over the floors, dark with dried blood stains and with medical equipment strewn about.

In the hospital yard next to the parking lot is a pile of 20 decomposing bodies, all of them darker skinned than most Libyans, covered with blankets. Gadhafi had recruited fighters from sub-Saharan Africa.

In one hospital room are 21 bodies, piled onto gurneys. Another body lies on the driveway outside, a white sheet over it. The identities of the deceased are not known.

08.55 Matthew Chance from CNN tweets:

08.45 The UN has called for restraint amid reports of abuses by both sides.

UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said it was difficult to confirm reports of summary killings and torture, but said such incidents would be investigated by the existing Commission of Inquiry on Libya.

"We urge all those in positions of authority in Libya, including field commanders, to take active steps to ensure that no crimes, or acts of revenge, are committed," he told Reuters.

The UN has previously said some military action in Libya could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Bodies of fighters who appear to have been executed at Gaddafi's compound have arrived at Tripoli hospitals, while a Sky News crew yesterday found dead Gaddafi troops found with their hands bound.

08.16 BBC reports from the road to Sirte that rebels now 60 miles from Gaddafi's fishing village hometown of Sirte, where approximately 1,500 Gaddafi fighters remain. If the Colonel is not there it's possible one of his sons is.

Rumours are flying from the town of mass graves and executions of rebels. They might not be true - but they are spurring on the advancing rebels.

"The revolution is won but there's a lot of unfinished business," one rebel leader said.

Update: Rob Crilly, our man on the rebel front line, says he expects rebels will remain in Ras Lanuf for a day or two as they reinforce. One fighter tells him they want to match the feats of the fighters in Tripoli, saying: "We want our place in history too."

07.57 Back in July the twitter feed of Libya Telecom, Libya's main internet provider, fell silent with the message:

We would like to inform our customers of scheduled maintenance on the network that will take place between 26/07 - 27/07.

Libya Telecom is part of the state telecom company GPTC, of which Muhammed Gaddafi, the Colonel's eldest son, is chairman.

As the uprising spread the government severed the country's 'backbone' fibre optic cable, connecting eastern rebel cities with servers in the west.

But last night the feed sputtered back into life with the simple message:

Free #Libya

followed by

Work is to open the Internet in all regions of Libya after the suppression system of Gaddafi. It is now available in all parts of Tripoli, at no cost.

Please cooperation! Please stop the loading effect in the line speed! Please use the Internet in the wisdom in these difficult times!

PC Mag has the latest on how Libya's internet is coming back to life, while Al Jazeera has a superb piece on how the rebel phone network evaded shutdown.

7.45 A reader draws attention to this video posted on the live blog yesterday of heavy exchanges between rebels and Gaddafi forces around the Corinthia Hotel, close to the Gaddafi compound. The fighter in the video is firing single, targetted rounds using what he believes to be a Heckler and Koch G36 assault rifle - the high powered assault rifle which is the preferred weapon of the German Bundeswehr and in which the Specialist Firearms Command of the Metropolitan Police have been trained in case of a terrorist attack.

It is an indication of how far the NTC's rag-tag army of former butchers and labourers has come since February, the reader says

What have you spotted amongst the wealth of footage emerging from Tripoli? Get in touch: matthew.holehouse[at]telegraph.co.uk.

07.30 A round up of the front-line Libya coverage in today's Daily Telegraph:

Richard Spencer drives straight into the fierce firefight at the apartment block hiding Gaddafi, explores Tripoli's secret tunnels and reports on evidence that the Lockerbie bomber has fled Tripoli with Col Gaddafi.

Damien McElroy reports on the bitter fighting as loyalists strike back behind enemy lines and how the National Transitional Council has moved to Tripoli

Andrew Gilligan reveals how Boy Scouts, dressed in full uniform, are aiding the rebels by carrying food and stretchers at the front and uncovers evidence of a massacre of 180 people including children.

Rob Crilly in Ras Lanuf reports on the Battle for Sirte and the fresh assault on the final Gaddafi stronghold.

Martin Evans reports on accusations of mass killings by both sides of the conflict

Aislinn Laing and Jon Swaine report on the release of funds by the UN after South Africa was accused of risking a humanitarian crisis by trying to block a deal

Gordon Rayner, chief reporter, reveals how inside the Gaddafi palaces looters discover everything but good taste - while Jojo Moyes says dictators are habitually gauche.

Shashank Joshi, a Libya expert at the Royal United Services Institute says revolution is proving contagious - but tyrants are not beaten yet.

06.58 The Gaddafi government carried out a lobbying operation to try to stop NATO's bombardment of Libya, it has emerged.

Documents in Tripoli showed Libya's rulers believed NATO forces were likely to launch a full-scale invasion in "either late September or October".

Tripoli approached key international opinion formers in the United States, including U.S. President Barack Obama.

Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic congressman who voted against NATO military action in Libya, declined a Libyan approach to visit as part of a "peace mission".

Read the full report here

06.55 This map has all the latest news from the Battle for Tripoli, where gun battles continue in the streets

View Map: The Battle for Tripoli, LIBYA in a larger map

06.45 Good morning and welcome back to our live coverage of the revolution in Libya.

The big developments overnight:

- Libyan rebels annouced the transfer of their leadership to Tripoli from their Benghazi base

- Bitter fighting continued around the rebel stronghold of Sirte and in Tripoli. Loyalists continued to attack Zawara overnight

- Gaddafi is still on the loose and taunted rebels in a new audio message

- The State Department expressed confidence that Libya's raw nuclear material and deadly chemicals are secure

- The UN Security Council released $1.5 billion of seized Libyan assets to be used for emergency aid after the United States and South Africa ended a dispute over the money.

- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged support for a "new Libya"

Our team in Libya:

Damien McElroy in Tripoli

Rob Crilly in Ras Lanuf

Nick Meo in Zintan

Andrew Gilligan in Tripoli

Richard Spencer in Tripoli

Libya: latest live coverage

• Libya, August 25 as it happened
• Libya, August 24 as it happened
• Libya, August 23: fall of Gaddafi's Tripoli compound
• Libya, August 22: endgame for Gaddafi
• Libya, August 21: fall of Tripoli