SIRTE: Families of former Libyan regime officials streamed out of Sirte on Monday, including the mother and brother of Moammer Qaddafi’s spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, an NTC field commander said.
"These are families of regime officials; there is Mussa Ibrahim’s mother and brother among them," said Wessam bin Hamaidi gesturing at seven cars loaded with men, women and children fleeing a disputed pocket of Qaddafi’s hometown.
A throng of some 150 National Transitional Council fighters formed around the vehicles in a chaotic scene before the families were whisked off, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Hamaidi, in charge of military operations in Sirte’s eastern front, said the passengers included other "wanted" people but "no big fish," adding there were fighters mixed in with the fleeing civilians.
"Our strategy of surrounding the neighborhoods is working as you can see families of regime officials are coming out," he said.
Shortly afterwards, NTC fighters firing machineguns and mortar stormed the Dollar and Number 2 neighborhoods, where diehard Qaddafi loyalists and snipers are holed up, the AFP reporter said.
"The fighting is very intense," said fighter Ahmed Fatala, who took a bullet to his thigh and was one of three patients treated at a makeshift hospital on the edge of the fighting zone.
Hassan Al-Droe, an NTC representative from Sirte, told AFP that relatives of Qaddafi regime officials started fleeing in the morning, taking advantage of a lull in the fighting.
"This morning a lot of families from the regime left the two neighborhoods in 20 cars," Droe said, adding that the passengers included men, women and children.
NTC fighters, he said, took the families to Qasr Abu Hadi, a village just south of Sirte and Qaddafi’s birthplace.
"They told us that Mutassim is inside," he added in reference to Qaddafi’s son and national security chief, whom combatants believe to be hiding in the desert city on the Mediterranean coast.
As NTC fighters shuttled back and forth to the front line and surrounded the contested neighborhoods, Droe said it was only a matter of time before they took control over the last two pockets of resistance in Sirte.
"The way the families came out has raised hope that we will capture the neighborhoods very soon," he said as machinegun and mortar fire rocked the area besieged by NTC fighters.
