Gaddafi taunts West as rebels fight on

MUAMMAR GADDAFI taunted his Libyan enemies and their Western backers last night as rebel forces battled pockets of loyalists across Tripoli in an urgent quest to find and silence the fugitive strongman.

Rumours of Gaddafi or his sons being cornered, even sighted, swirled among excitable rebel fighters engaged in heavy machine gun and rocket exchanges. But two days after his compound was overrun, hopes of a swift end to six months of war were frustrated by fierce rearguard actions.

Western powers demanded Gaddafi’s surrender and worked to release frozen Libyan state funds, hoping to ease hardships and start reconstruction in the oil-rich state. But with loyalists holding out in the capital, in Gaddafi’s coastal home city and in the inland desert, violence could go on for some time.