Libya fights to restore services, gruesome find in Tripoli

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TRIPOLI - Libyan rebels embarked on getting the capital up and running again on Saturday, as a gruesome find near a base of Moamer Kadhafi's elite troops appeared to highlight the brutality of his regime.

Rebel fighters said they had captured the base of the elite 32 Brigade commanded by Kadhafi's son Khamis after a NATO airstrike and seven hours of fierce fighting.

In a building nearby an AFP correspondent saw the charred remains of some 50 people residents said were captives killed on Tuesday with rifles and grenades.

National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil, meanwhile, promised the elusive Kadhafi and his senior aides they would be given a fair trial in Libya if they surrendered.

Speaking in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the rebellion began in February, Jalil also called for emergency humanitarian aid for the capital, stressing the lack of medical supplies.

"We are calling all the humanitarian organisations and telling them that Tripoli needs medicines, first aid products and surgical material," he told a news conference.

Blaming "sabotage by Kadhafi's forces" for shortages of water and electricity in Tripoli, he said, "We are working on resolving these problems."

While fighting was still under way on various fronts, focus was increasingly turning to a post-Kadhafi era, with calls for reconciliation and a peaceful transition.

NTC spokesman Mahmud Shammam said in the capital the rebels would start distributing 30,000 tons of petrol to Tripoli residents immediately, and would be providing cooking gas within the next 48 hours.

They were also working to restore the Zawiyah refinery, Shammam said, pleading for patience and calling on all public, private and oil sector employees to return to work.

"We are starting from point zero in this situation. Do not ask for miracles, but we promise to try to make this difficult period as short as we can," Shammam said.

He admitted there was still resistance left.

"Anybody who thinks that there is not a fraction of people who support Kadhafi or that there is no fifth column who will try to trouble the peace of Tripoli would be mistaken."

Electricity in the capital is out for several hours a day. Many districts have no water and the price of food and petrol has skyrocketed, while mountains of rubbish have piled up on the sweltering streets.

Even so, life bore a semblance of normality in central Tripoli on Saturday, with some shops open and people out and about preparing for the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Tripoli airport, held by the rebels, was still being targeted by sporadic shooting and shelling but the insurgents said they had expanded the area under their control.

The dawn assault on the 32 Brigade base just south of the capital left 11 rebels dead and "higher casualties on the other side," according to a rebel commander.

The complex of mustard-walled buildings had its walls holed by bombs, its roofs caved in and windows blasted open.

Within hours of the end of the battle, rebel fighters had completely emptied the magazines of weapons from Belgium, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Russia and the United States, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

In an adjoining cinder-block building lay the blackened bones of at least 50 people. A former captive who had been transferred because it was overcrowded said Kadhafi loyalists had thrown in hand grenades and fled.

The rebels late Friday captured the Ras Jdir border post on the frontier with Tunisia, through which it was feared Kadhafi, his henchmen and family might use to escape.

They also took two of the villages from where Kadhafi forces had been bombarding Zuwarah, between the border and the capital, an AFP correspondent accompanying them said.

Meanwhile the Algerian foreign ministry denied as "baseless" an Egyptian news agency report that six armoured Mercedes that could have been carrying Libyan officials, even Kadhafi, had crossed into Algeria late Friday.

The rebels, who are making slow progress in their advance on Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte, east of Tripoli, another possible bolthole, want to find him so they can proclaim final victory in the six-month-old uprising.

"We call on Moamer Kadhafi and his associates to surrender so we can protect them and spare them illegal execution," Jalil said. "We guarantee them a fair trial, whatever their position."

The rebels have offered a $1.7 million dollar reward for Kadhafi's capture, dead or alive.

The United Nations, African Union, Arab League and European Union urged both sides in Libya to avoid reprisals, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said after talks of the so-called Cairo Group.

"Colonel Kadhafi must avoid further bloodshed by relinquishing power and calling on those forces that continue to fight to lay down their arms and protect civilians," she said.

She added: "Today, under UN leadership, we agreed to call on all parties to respect international humanitarian and international human rights obligations. There should be no reprisals."

Ashton said the Cairo Group, which also includes the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, "emphasised that the transition in Libya should be Libyan-led and inclusive."

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said after the talks, which he chaired, that an international police force may need to be sent to Libya, which is "awash" with small arms.

Egypt's news agency said NTC number two Mahmud Jibril was in Cairo for a special meeting of the Arab League that would see the rebels take over Libya's seat from Kadhafi's regime, suspended in February after the conflict began.

Charred skeletons

Charred skeletons of some 50 people were found in a makeshift prison next to a Libyan military base abandoned by elite troops loyal to Moamer Kadhafi in southern Tripoli on Saturday.

Local residents found the remains after rebel forces took control of the base of the 32 Brigade commanded by Kadhafi's son Khamis in the district of Salaheddin, a suburb just south of the capital.

"I am shocked, I never imagined I would see a scene like this in Libya," Dr Salim Rajub, who lives near the base, told AFP, indicating they were victims of a massacre last Tuesday.

"On August 23, we heard gunfire before breaking the (Ramadan) fast and people shouting for help, but there were snipers outside and nobody could get close," he said.

"These men were killed by Kalashknikovs and hand grenades, and then they were burned."

Residents said there were a total of 53 bodies in the cinder block building, which showed signs of damage. An AFP correspondent at the scene counted at least 50 human skulls in the ashes.

The walls of the prison were blackened by fire and pockmarked by shrapnel.

A former prisoner said he had narrowly escaped the same fate because he was transferred to an adjacent hangar due to overcrowding in the prison and that up to 120 people were crammed into that space at one time.

"It reached up to 120 or 130 individuals," said Moayed Burani.

The space of captivity did not exceed 20 square metres (215 square feet).

"People were crammed in together on top each other. I heard they (Kadhafi forces) sealed the door and fled. They brought hand grenades and exploded them there," he said.

Based on such accounts and a huge crater just metres (yards) from the prison, residents fear up to another 80 bodies could have been buried in a mass grave nearby.

"This is the greatest massacre in recent history," said Dr Khaled Ali, an anaesthetist.

The bodies of three men covered in winter blankets and flies lay just outside, as a fourth eyeless corpse rapidly decomposed in the heat. One of them had his ankles bound with green rope, .

A blue bulletproof jail van must have held a second group of prisoners. Inside it, an empty bottle of water swayed on a string and a metal bowl, with traces of orange porridge, hinted at the harsh conditions imposed on captives.

Majid Fayturi, a fighter from one of the Misrata units involved in the storming of Brigade 32, blamed the grisly massacre on Kadhafi forces pushed to retreat by rebels.

"They ran away like rats and then we came along and found these bodies. They burned them. We cannot say they are Muslims. They do not belong to any religion in the world."

It was the first discovery of mass violence allegedly committed by regime forces in the week since rebels seized Tripoli, now the base of the rebel National Transitional Council.

On Friday a rebel chief alleged that forces loyal to Kadhafi killed more than 150 prisoners in a "mass murder" as they fled the rebel takeover of Tripoli, a rebel military chief told AFP on Friday.

Amnesty International said earlier on Friday it had uncovered evidence that Khadafi loyalists had killed "numerous" prisoners at two military camps in Tripoli.

Prisoners who managed to escape had described how pro-regime troops lobbed grenades and opened fire on detainees as they tried to flee one camp. At another, guards shot dead five detainees held in solitary confinement, it said.

The London-based Amnesty called on loyalist forces to halt killings of captives and urged both sides to ensure prisoners in their custody were not harmed.