Anti-Qaddafi Fighters Edge Closer to Taking Surt

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

TRIPOLI, Libya —Fighters for Libya's new government claimed to have seized the port in Col. Moammar el-Qaddafi's tribal hometown of Surt on Tuesday, tightening their noose around the stubbornly resistant Mediterranean coastal enclave devoted to the fallen Libyan leader.

But loyalists still retained control of most of Surt and another remaining loyalist redoubt, Bani Walid, and NATO said tens of thousands of trapped civilians remained under threat in both places.

NATO also announced that anti-Qaddafi forces under the command of the Transitional National Council, as Libya's new government is known, were now in full control of Colonel Qaddafi's remaining supplies of chemical weapons and nuclear material, which he had been in the process of relinquishing to Western powers before the uprising that toppled him last month.

Col. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, told reporters at a briefing held at NATO command headquarters in Naples that he was confident the new authorities in Libya would work with international organizations to guarantee the security of the chemical weapons and nuclear material and "start planning for their safe disposal."

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/world/middleeast/in-libya-anti-qaddafi-forces-battle-for-surt.html