Rebel forces say they will advance on Tripoli on Sunday
Reports tell of four loud explosions in Tripoli on Sunday morning.
Earlier Col Gaddafi spoke on state TV, where his son Saif al-Islam appeared, vowing to "resist... and win".
On Saturday rebels took Zlitan, 160km (100 miles) east of Tripoli, and Zawiya 30km to the west.
A rebel official said the uprising had begun in Tripoli.
However, pro-Gaddafi forces have been fighting back at the
oil port of Brega, with the rebels admitting that they had fallen back
from the eastern town's industrial zone under heavy bombardment.
Clerics 'call to rise up'
Four loud explosions were heard in Tripoli on Sunday morning following hours of sustained gunfire in the city.
Explosions could also be heard. The disturbances seemed to be
coming from pockets to the north and east of the city centre, and to
the south-west. A government spokesman blamed small groups of armed
gangs. He said pro-Gaddafi forces would be "victorious".
Rebel sources said this was the start of the uprising in
Tripoli. One said many pro-Gaddafi units have fled. There does though
appear to be considerable support in the city for Col Gaddafi. Over the
last few weeks armed men have stood at checkpoints across Tripoli. And
civilians have been given weapons training.
There were reports of protests
and gunfire in areas to the north and east of Tripoli, including the
Tajoura district, where there was trouble at the start of this uprising
against Col Gaddafi, the BBC's Matthew Price reports from the capital.
Our correspondent says that the overnight fighting is almost
certainly opponents of Colonel Gaddafi already in scattered parts of
Tripoli rising up against pro-Gaddafi forces, rather than rebel forces
advancing into the capital.
Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the rebel National
Transition Council (NTC), was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency:
"The zero hour has started. The rebels in Tripoli have risen up."
"There is co-ordination with the rebels in Tripoli. This was a pre-set plan," said Mr Ghoga.
But Col Gaddafi's Information Minister Moussa Ibrahim later put the trouble down to "small armed gangs".
"Tripoli is safe, and completely under the control of the
armed people committees and the volunteers and the honourable people of
Tripoli," the minister said.
"Some gunmen entered two or three areas of Tripoli. They were confronted and everything ended within half an hour."
In an audio broadcast shortly afterwards, Col Gaddafi congratulated his supporters for repelling the rebels.
Click to play
Engineer Abdul Haken in Tripoli: "The situation is under control"
"Those rats were attacked by the masses tonight and we eliminated them," he said.
"I know you are happy and I saw the fireworks in Green
Square, I know that there are air strikes but the fireworks were louder
than the air bombing."
His son, Saif al-Islam, ruled out any possibility of surrender.
"I see ourselves as victorious, I see our position is strong," he said in a speech on state TV.
He did, however, urge the rebels to open talks.
"If you want peace, we are ready," he said.
The Libyan leader certainly has support in Tripoli, our correspondent says.
Pro-Gaddafi men and women have received weapons training in recent weeks, while checkpoints have sprung up across the city.
A Tripoli resident told Reuters that Muslim clerics had called for people to rise up in parts of the Libyan capital.
The resident said the imams made the call as Muslims were
breaking their daytime fast during the holy month of Ramadan on Saturday
evening.
In his audio message, Col Gaddafi condemned "traitors" who were "defiling mosques" in the mainly Muslim country.
'Rebel momentum'
The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Zawiya says that rebel
forces are preparing to advance along the road to the capital on Sunday
after securing the town.
He says they advanced into the countryside on Saturday before pulling back to allow Nato to carry out air strikes.
Click to play
The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Zawiya says pro-Gaddafi forces no longer control the area
Our correspondent says this rebel advance seems to have more momentum than previous ones and has more support from Nato forces.
They have also seized most of the town of Zlitan and are advancing from the south.
Nato, enforcing a UN-mandated no-fly zone to protect civilians since March, controls sea access to the Libyan capital.
However, rebel military spokesman Col Ahmed Bani confirmed that rebel forces had fallen back in the eastern oil port of Brega.
Brega, home to Libya's second-largest hydrocarbon complex and
where oil from the country's main fields is refined, has repeatedly
changed hands during the six-month-old conflict.
"Yesterday, the industrial zone was under our complete
control, but the truth is that today the situation has changed due to
heavy artillery shelling," Col Bani said on Saturday.
"We withdrew to the eastern part of the industrial zone."
Meanwhile, reports suggest fresh senior figures in the Gaddafi camp may have defected:
- Abdel Salam Jalloud, who helped Col Gaddafi come to power in
1969 but fell out with him in the 1990s, is believed to be making his
way to Europe from neighbouring Tunisia
- Libyan Oil Minister Omran Abukraa failed to return to Libya on
Thursday after a visit to Italy and went to Tunisia instead, Tunisian
sources said
Libya's conflict broke out in February, inspired by
uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt which toppled the presidents of those
countries.
Rebels in the east rapidly consolidated their gains, but a
stalemate developed in the west as rebels there faced overwhelming
military force.
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