NTC forces storm into Gaddafi hometown Sirte: military
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Fighters loyal to Libya's new rulers stormed into Sirte from three fronts on Thursday, the military said, launching a massive assault on Muammar Gaddafi's hometown and one of his final pockets of resistance.
"Misrata's thwar (fighters) arrived at the Al-Gharbiyat Bridge inside Sirte," the Misrata Military Council said, adding that "our revolutionaries have entered Sirte today on three main axes."
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 said from in Wadi Bey, a desert town where part of the Sirte-bound convoy was held up in a battle with Kadhafi loyalists.
"They are attacking us with 40- and 43-mm mortars and all kinds of weapons."
The military said Misrata hospital had so far received 'one martyr and five wounded' from the fight in Sirte, based on initial reports from the battlefront.
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 kms from 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.
The convoy of battle-hardened fighters had set out from Misrata early on Thursday before splitting at the crossroads town of Abu Qurin, where a commander said they would approach Sirte in a pincer movement.
The Misrata Military Council said the convoy comprised of more than 900 armoured cars aimed at 'freeing the city and raising the banner of independence'.
Comprised of heavy artillery and pickup trucks loaded with machine guns, rocket launchers and Katyusha rockets, the convoy and its fighters were well stocked with food, water and ammunition.
But roadside support dropped off as the convoy headed through villages towards Sirte, with children and teenagers running alongside but adults standing further back with arms folded and showing little emotion.
One arm of the convoy took the coastal road to Sirte, another followed a looping desert road, while Sawawy's went deeper south before coming under fire at Wadi Bey.
As they edged farther to the east, an AFP correspondent received unconfirmed reports that NATO struck a south-bound convoy of pro-Gaddafi armoured vehicles about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Sirte.
The rooftops of vehicles in the Misrata convoy were painted yellow and red in an apparent signal to NATO that they are not Gaddafi's forces.
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