Libya Rebels Give Gadhafi Forces Saturday Deadline

Libya's rebels issued a Saturday ultimatum for Moammar Gadhafi's forces to surrender or face a military onslaught, as NATO said the strongman is still able to command his troops despite being on the run.

National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Mustafa Abdul Jalil told reporters in the rebel stronghold Benghazi Tuesday that the respite was offered to mark the three-day Eid al-Fitr Muslim feast which follows the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

"This window of opportunity will be closed at the end of Eid al-Fitr (Friday in Libya)," Abdul Jalil said, adding that talks were under way with officials in towns including Gadhafi’s birthplace Sirte to arrange their peaceful surrender.

"From Saturday, if no peaceful solution is in sight on the ground, we will resort to military force," Abdul Jalil warned.

He also warned that Gadhafi still enjoyed support inside Libya and outside the country.

Gadhafi "is not finished yet," he warned, as NATO said the strongman is still able to command and control his remaining troops even though he is on the run.

"He is displaying a capability to exercise some level of command and control," Colonel Roland Lavoie, military spokesman of the NATO air mission in Libya, told a news briefing in Brussels.

"The pro-Gadhafi troops that we see are not in total disarray, they are retreating in an orderly fashion, conceding ground and going to the second best position that they could hold to continue their warfare," he added.

Lavoie earlier told reporters that NATO's military mission in Libya was still necessary and would continue as long as Gadhafi’s forces threatened civilians.

"Despite the fall of the Gadhafi regime and the gradual return of security ... NATO's mission is not finished yet," Lavoie he said.

Algeria meanwhile on Tuesday defended its decision to give shelter to Gadhafi’s wife and three children, as the angry rebels demanded they be returned for trial.

Algerian foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani told Agence France Presse the decision to allow Gadhafi’s wife Safiya, daughter Aisha and sons Mohammed and Hannibal to cross into the country on Monday was based solely on humanitarian concerns.

"These people have been admitted to Algeria for strictly humanitarian reasons," Belani said, adding that U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council and number two leader of the rebels' NTC, Mahmoud Jibril, had been informed.

Just hours after crossing over, daughter Aisha gave birth to a girl, Algerian authorities announced Tuesday.

The NTC, already at odds with Algiers for its refusal to recognize it as the legitimate authority in Libya, had reacted angrily when news broke Monday that some of their quarry had fled.

"We'd like those persons to come back," NTC spokesman Mahmoud Shammam said in Tripoli, adding that Algeria had given the family members "a pass" to enter a third country.

"Saving Gadhafi’s family is not an act we welcome and understand," Shammam told a press conference in Tripoli.

"We can assure our neighbors that we want better relations with them ... but we are determined to arrest and try the Gadhafi family and Gadhafi himself," Shammam went on, saying the rebels guaranteed a "fair trial."

So far Algeria has not recognized the NTC and has adopted a stance of strict neutrality on the Libyan conflict, leading some among the rebels to accuse it of supporting the Gadhafi regime.

There has been no word on the whereabouts of Gadhafi himself, who went into hiding when rebel forces overran his Tripoli headquarters a week ago.

Italian news agency ANSA, citing "authoritative Libyan diplomatic sources," said he and his sons Saadi and Seif al-Islam were holed-up in the town of Bani Walid, south of the capital Tripoli.

The Western alliance earlier said its warplanes had fired a new barrage of bombs against Gadhafi forces holed up in Sirte, 360 kilometers east of Tripoli.

It said it destroyed 22 vehicles mounted with weapons, four radars, three command and control nodes, one anti-aircraft missile system and one surface-to-air missile system in the town's vicinity on Monday.

In Tripoli, Ahmed al-Tharaht, the NTC's official in charge of interior affairs, said rebels controlling the Libyan capital will be disarmed as quickly as possible.

"We will remove the weapons that are on the streets," and the plan will be quickly implemented, Tharaht said.

Disarmed rebels will be given the choice of joining the "national army" or the security forces, he added.

On the ground, rebel reinforcements were arriving on Tuesday at Bin Jawad, 100 kilometers east of Sirte, an AFP reporter said.

Occasional explosions could be heard from near Nofilia, a desert hamlet just inland from Bin Jawad, while rebel T-55 tanks and armored vehicles rumbled towards the front line, taking up positions in the sand dunes.

Nofilia was seized by the rebels on Monday, sparking celebrations among the rebels.

"Tomorrow (Tuesday), God willing, we will continue our advance. Their morale is rock bottom," a rebel commander said of Gadhafi loyalists.

Other rebel fighters had moved to within 30 kilometers of Sirte from the west and were awaiting the reinforcements, rebel commander Mohammed al-Fortiya, told AFP on Sunday.