Fierce battle under way to crush last Gaddafi holdout

Sirte, Libya, Oct 19 (AFP) Anti-Gaddafi fighters launched a fresh assault today against the ousted strongman''s remaining holdouts, now pinned into a small corner of his hometown Sirte. The fighting was concentrated in the outer streets of Sirte''s Number Two neighbourhood, with both sides trading heavy gunfire and bombarding each other with mortar shells. Ali al-Rikabi, field commander of the National Transitional Council (NTC), Libya''s new rulers, said fighting was raging in "four or five streets of the neighbourhood." "It is intense and we have exchanges of gunfire," he said, as an AFP reporter saw wounded NTC fighters being hurried out towards a field hospital. There was no immediate information on a latest toll but medics said at least 11 NTC fighters were killed and 95 wounded yesterday alone in the battle to subdue the last pockets of support for Muammar Gaddafi in Sirte. Dozens of vehicles massed early afternoon in the west of Number Two district, ready to follow a bulldozer and a tank deeper into the district. According to Essam Baghhar, a field commander of the NTC''s Zintan Brigade, only Number Two neighbourhood in the Mediterranean city was still being held by Gaddafi''s forces after NTC fighters overran the adjoining Dollar district late yesterday. "The Dollar neighbourhood was liberated last night and now the fight is in Number Two neighbourhood," Baghhar said. He added that loyalist forces had been pushed into an area of Number Two neighbourhood less than one square kilometre in size. (AFP)