UN recognises Libyan interim government

THE UN Security Council has unanimously approved a new UN mission in Libya and the unfreezing of assets of two major oil companies.

It came as the General Assemnly approved a Libyan request to accredit envoys of the country’s interim government as Tripoli’s sole representatives at the world body, effectively recognising the National Transitional Council (NTC).

Officials said Libyan UN ambassador Abdurrahman Shalgham is expected to keep the post He defected to the rebels during the uprising, and his example saw many more top diplomats turn their backs on Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

A UN resolution also lifted a ban on flights by Libyan aircraft and modifies the arms embargo on Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

It came as diehard Gaddafi loyalists threw rockets, mortars and heavy gunfire at Libyan fighters who pushed into two besieged towns yesterday, in a bid to end months of civil war.

Smoke hung over Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, as the NTC mounted its biggest advances after weeks of stalemate. But they encountered opposition, even as fighting continued in Bani Walid.

Libya’s new leaders are getting on with the business of government, trying to impose order on irregular armed forces and restart the oil-based economy. Their latest visitor was Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who hailed the fate of Gaddafi as an example to Turkey’s Syrian neighbour.

He also called on the people of Sirte to give up and make peace.

“It’s a very strong resistance,” said Abusif Ghnyah, a spokesman for the NTC forces at Bani Walid. “The most difficult part is the central market, that is where they are firing from.”

Many of Bani Walid’s 100,000 residents have fled. It was unclear how many are in Sirte, a sprawling city which Gaddafi created out of his native village.

NTC fighters, who brought up scores of machine gun-mounted pickup trucks and a handful of tanks, spoke of scattered but heavily armed opponents.

Contact has not been possible with Gaddafi loyalists inside the two towns, as well as at Sabha, deep in Libya’s southern desert where several senior Gaddafi aides have been lately.

Details of developments around Sabha are scant, but a British military spokesman said that British jets had fired about two dozen missiles to destroy a group of Libyan armoured vehicles near the town on Thursday.

Gaddafi, 69, is still at large and commanding loyalty from at least hundreds of armed men, concentrated from Sirte, through Bani Walid and Sabha, creating a corridor in the vast empty spaces of the desert through which family members and senior aides have reached Algeria and Niger.