Rebels approach centre of Tripoli

Euphoric Libyan rebels have moved close to the centre of the capital Tripoli with little resistance as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi appeared to have melted away.

The opposition’s leaders said Gaddafi’s son and one-time heir apparent, Saif al-Islam, has been arrested.

Reporters with the rebels said they met little resistance as they moved from the western outskirts into the capital in a dramatic turning of the tides in the six-month-old Libyan civil war.

“They will enter Green Square tonight, God willing,” said Mohammed al-Zawi, a 30-year-old rebel in the force that was moving in. Green Square has been the site of night rallies by Gaddafi supporters throughout the uprising.

Gaddafi’s regime appears to be crumbling.

Earlier in the day, the rebels overran a major military base defending the capital, carting away truckloads of weapons and raced to Tripoli with virtually no resistance.

The rebels’ surprisingly swift leap forward, after six months of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few dramatic hours. By nightfall, they had advanced more than 20 miles to Gaddafi’s stronghold.

Along the way, they freed several hundred prisoners from a regime lockup. The fighters and the prisoners – many looking weak and dazed and showing scars and bruises from beatings – embraced and wept with joy.

Thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with rebel fighters shooting in the air. Some were hoarse, shouting: “We are coming for you, frizz-head,” a mocking nickname for Gaddafi.

In villages along the way that fell to the rebels one after another, mosque loudspeakers blared “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great”.

“We are going to sacrifice our lives for freedom,” said Nabil al-Ghowail, a 30-year-old dentist holding a rifle in the streets of Janzour, a suburb just six miles west of Tripoli. Heavy gunfire erupted nearby.

As town after town fell and Gaddafi forces melted away, the mood turned euphoric. Some shouted: “We are getting to Tripoli tonight.”

Once they reached Tripoli, the rebels took control of one neighbourhood, Ghot Shaal, on the western edge of the city. They set up checkpoints as rebel trucks rolled into Tripoli. A convoy of more than 10 trucks entered Ghot Shaal.

The rebels moved on to the neighbourhood of Girgash, about a mile and a half from Green Square. They said they came under fire from a sniper on a rooftop in the neighbourhood.

Sidiq al-Kibir, the rebel leadership council’s representative for the capital Tripoli, confirmed the arrest of Saif al-Islam to reporters, but did not give any further details.

Inside Tripoli, widespread clashes erupted for a second day between rebel “sleeper cells” and Gaddafi loyalists. Rebels fighter who spoke to relatives in Tripoli by phone said hundreds rushed into the streets in anti-regime protests in several neighbourhoods.

Libyan state television aired an angry audio message from Gaddafi on Sunday night, urging families in Tripoli to arm themselves and fight for the capital.

“The time is now to fight for your politics, your oil, your land,” he said. “I am with you in Tripoli – together until the ends of the earth.”