Libyan rebels put a price of two million dinars ($1.67 million, 1.2 million euros) on the head of strongman Moammar Gadhafi, dead or alive, the head of the National Transitional Council said on Wednesday, as battles rocked the capital Tripoli.

"The NTC supports the initiative of businessmen who are offering two million dinars for the capture of Moammar Gadhafi, dead or alive," Mustafa Abdul Jalil said in Tripoli.

Britain and France said Wednesday they were seeking a new United Nations resolution to unlock frozen Libyan assets in a bid to deliver urgently needed funds to the rebels.

As rebel forces battled to cement their victory a day after overrunning the Tripoli compound of strongman Moammar Gadhafi, officials in Britain and France said they were seeking a new resolution at the U.N. to release the blocked assets.

Some 30 mostly foreign journalists who had been held against their will in Tripoli's Rixos Hotel by guards loyal to Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi were freed on Wednesday.

The journalists, who were growing short of food and water after being confined to the hotel since Sunday, left there around 1 pm (1500 GMT), they reported.

The EU on Wednesday named Iran's elite al-Quds force, five Syrian generals and the military intelligence network in Damascus on a new list of those sanctioned for their role in repression the U.N. says has killed 2,200 people.

The much-feared wing of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was listed for having provided "technical assistance, equipment and support to the Syrian security services to repress civilian protest movements," the European Union's Official Journal showed.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said there were still two powers in Libya despite the success of rebels against the forces of Moammar Gadhafi, and called for talks to resolve the situation.

"Despite the successes of the rebels, Gadhafi and his supporters still have a certain influence and military potential. We want them to sit down at the negotiating table and reach agreements on future peace," he said.

A woman died under torture in western Syria and more than 150 people were arrested over the past 24 hours in a Damascus suburb, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday.

The Britain-based group said that a 28-year-old woman who was arrested a week ago died under torture in the city of Khan Shehoun on Wednesday.

At least five people, including a woman and a child, were killed and nine wounded in a series of attacks in Iraq's restive central province of Diyala on Wednesday, security and hospital officials said.

In the worst attack, four people were killed and seven wounded when insurgents detonated bombs at the homes of three town criers whose job was to awaken people for the Ramadan pre-dawn meal, at around 3:00 am (00:00 GMT) in the town of al-Hudaid, west of provincial capital Baquba, according to an Iraqi army colonel in Diyala's security command centre.

Israeli air strikes on Wednesday killed a Palestinian militant, prompting a flurry of mortar fire into southern Israel just days after armed groups agreed to a temporary truce.

Heightened tensions in and around the Gaza border raised fears of a fresh descent into violence scarcely 48 hours after militant factions had agreed to end rocket fire on southern -- Israel on condition the Israeli air force also stopped its raids.

European nations and the United States pressed Wednesday for U.N. sanctions against Syria's President Bashar Assad and his entourage for their deadly crackdown on opposition protests.

A draft resolution circulated to the 15 nation Security Council on Tuesday by Britain, France, Germany and Portugal also calls for a total arms embargo against the country.

Libyan rebels Wednesday hunted for Moammar Gadhafi and battled remnants of his forces, as the defiant strongman boasted he went walkabout and urged residents to cleanse Tripoli of "rats."

Two powerful blasts thought to be caused by an air attack rocked the capital early in the morning as a NATO warplane flew overhead, hours after rebel fighters overran Gadhafi's Bab al-Azizya compound in the center of Tripoli.