Fierce battle under way to crush last Gaddafi hideout

Anti-Gaddafi fighters launched an all-out assault on Wednesday against the ousted strongmans remaining holdouts, now pinned into a small corner of his hometown Sirte.The fighting was concentrated in the outer streets of Sirtes 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), Libyas 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.Medics at a field hospital in east Sirte said seven fighters were killed and 74 wounded. Two other fighters were reported wounded on the western side of the city.At least 11 NTC fighters were killed and 95 wounded on Tuesday alone in the battle to subdue the last pockets of support for Moamer Gaddafi in Sirte, according to medics.NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said, meanwhile, that Libyas new rulers will compensate the fighters who helped overthrow Gaddafi, the wounded and the families of the martyrs.Families of the martyrs, the wounded and the fighters themselves will be compensated, he said in Benghazi, urging Libyans to be patient, however, because of lack of funds.The popular uprising that erupted in mid-February to topple Gaddafi has claimed more than 25,000 lives, according to the NTC.According to Essam Baghhar, a field commander from the Zintan Brigade, only Sirtes Number Two neighbourhood in was still being held by Gaddafis forces after NTC fighters overran the adjoining Dollar district late on Tuesday.The Dollar neighbourhood was liberated last night and now the fight is in Number Two neighbourhood, Baghhar said.Loyalist forces had been pushed into an area of Number Two less than one square kilometre (0.4 square mile) in size.We have captured many snipers in the past two days, including two women snipers, he said.