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Summary A divide is emerging between the rebel groups in Libya as some fighters are looting Gaddafi tribe.
After capturing this hamlet, a center for Moammar Gadhafis tribe, revolutionary fighters have gone on a vengeance spree, looting and burning homes and making off with gold, furniture and even automobiles.Other fighters are trying to persuade them to stop and have sought to protect the tribesmen of the ousted leader. As a result, the rampage in Abu Hadi, a suburb of Gadhafis home city of Sirte, has underscored a geographical split among the forces loyal to Libyas new interim government.Most of those looting homes are unorganized, volunteer bands of gunmen from the city of Misrata, to the west, which was brutalized in a bloody siege by Gadhafis forces during the nearly 7-month uprising against his rule. Trying to rein them in are revolutionaries from eastern Libya, which shook off GadhafisThe loyalists in the city center have been putting up a powerful defense for three weeks now, and on Wednesday the two sides traded artillery, tank and mortar shelling. Still, a spokesman for the revolutionaries Defense Ministry, Col. Ahmed Bani, vowed on Wednesday that its forces will be able to completely dominate Sirte in the next few days.Deputy Defense Minister Fawzy Abu Kataf said it would take two days of heavy shelling to uproot the remaining pro-Gadhafi fighters in the city. But he said revolutionary fighters were holding off on an all-out assault to allow residents to leave.Abu Hadi, a center of the ousted leaders Gadhadhfa tribe 10 miles (16 kilometers) from downtown Sirte, was a ghost town. Streets were littered with bullet casings, and black smoke billowed from four homes that had been set ablaze by fighters.Many of the homes laid out in rows in the residential complexes had been broken into, with wooden doors busted, stoves and refrigerators overturned, baby clothes and homework strewn all over the floors.
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