Rebel fighters are continuing to step up pressure on fugitive Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi as the deadline for his surrender nears.
Negotiations held over the peaceful handover of a loyalist area have failed, they said.
Abdullah Kanshil, a rebel negotiator outside the town of Bani Walid, said fighters outside were waiting for the green light to launch a final assault.
Pro-Gaddafi forces have been given a deadline of Saturday to surrender in their strongholds of the old regime or face an attack.
The rebels have said the hardcore loyalists are a small minority inside Bani Walid, but are heavily armed and stoking fear to keep other residents from surrendering.
Meanwhile it has emerged that Britain was threatened by the Gaddafi regime that there would be «dire consequences» for UK-Libya relations if Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi died in his Scottish jail cell.
The extent of lobbying by the Libyan government leading up to Megrahi’s release in August 2009 was laid bare after confidential documents were discovered by reporters in the abandoned British embassy building in Tripoli.
In one, senior Foreign Office official Robert Dixon wrote to Foreign Secretary David Miliband in January 2009 that Gaddafi wanted Megrahi to return to Libya «at all costs».
«Libyan officials and ministers have warned of dire consequences for the UK-Libya relationship and UK commercial operations in Libya in the event of Megrahi’s death in custody,» he wrote, adding: «We believe Libya might seek to exact vengeance.»
Megrahi – the only person convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing – was released on compassionate grounds after the Scottish government was told he had only three months to live. He is still alive today.
Fuente: AP