Libyan fighters have launched a two-pronged assault on one of the last towns to resist the country’s new rulers, clashing with Muammar Gaddafi’s supporters inside Bani Walid as a week-long standoff dissolved into street-to-street battles, the revolutionary forces said.

Troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, including his security chief, have fled into neighbouring Niger in multiple convoys but the dictator’s location is still unknown.