NTC Fighters Enter Gadhafi Hometown Sirte
Fighters loyal to Libya's new rulers were inside Sirte, the country's military said on Thursday, after a massive convoy of its forces launched a bid to take Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown.
"Misrata's thwar (fighters) arrived at the al-Gharbiyat Bridge inside Sirte," the Misrata Military Council said in a statement.
A spokesman for the convoy of forces loyal to the National Transitional Council, which set out from Misrata earlier in the day, confirmed that the pro-NTC troops had entered Sirte.
"I confirm our forces are in Sirte, it is a big force," said the spokesman, Fathi Bashaga.
"There is still resistance but our fighters will be able to overcome it," he told an Agence France Presse correspondent in Wadi Bey, a desert town where part of the Sirte-bound convoy was held up in a battle with Gadhafi loyalists.
"They are attacking us with 40- and 43-mm mortars and all kinds of weapons."
Pro-NTC forces had earlier raised their flag on the outskirts of Sirte, the military said in a separate statement.
"Misrata's thwar at a distance of 3 km from the Sirte -- Independence flag flying over the last petrol station before the city," the Military Council said in an English statement, referring to the new regime's forces.
Source: Agence France Presse
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