Libya's revolutionary forces have captured Moammar Gadhafi's son Muatassim as he tried to escape the battle-torn city of Sirte, National Transitional Council officials said.
The capture of the deposed leader's national security adviser is a boost to Libya's new rulers, whose forces are still battling pro-Gadhafi fighters in his hometown of Sirte.
"He was arrested today in Sirte," Colonel Abdullah Naker told Reuters on Wednesday. Other NTC sources said Muatassim was taken to Benghazi where he was questioned at the Boatneh military camp where he is being held. He was uninjured but exhausted, the officials said.
Muatassim had a strong role in the military and security forces under his father's regime.
A senior NTC military official told Reuters that Muatassim had cut his usually long hair shorter to disguise himself.
Hundreds of NTC fighters took to the streets in several Libyan cities and fired shots in the air in celebration.
However, the Associated Press quoted Jalal el-Gallal, a spokesman for the NTC in Benghazi, as saying Thursday that while revolutionary forces had captured some fighters close to Muatassim he had no information that the fugitive leader's son himself has been seized.
Muatassim is seen as belonging to a conservative camp — rooted in the military and security forces — which resisted his brother Seif al-Islam's reform attempts.
Gadhafi loyalists have fought tenaciously for weeks in Sirte, one of just two major towns where they still have footholds, two months after rebels seized the capital Tripoli.
"We have control of the whole of the city except neighborhood 'Number Two' where the Gadhafi forces are surrounded," said Khaled Alteir, a field commander in Sirte.
Libya's de facto leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, said Wednesday he expected to declare total victory in less than a week, which would pave the way for a new interim government to be named to guide the oil-rich North African nation to elections within eight months.
NTC tanks moved close up to buildings used by snipers and blasted large holes in the walls. Behind them came pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns, and behind them, the infantry armed with AK-47s began the assault.
'Every man for himself'
The remaining forces still loyal to Gadhafi have been firing back on the attackers with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, but they were no longer using heavier weapons and their forces had lost some cohesion, an NTC commander said.
"We've noticed now they are fighting every man for himself," said Baloun Al Sharie, a field commander. "We tried to tell them it's enough and to give themselves up, but they would not."
The assault by the new government forces is still being aided by NATO reconnaissance and strike aircraft. Britain said its jets had bombed and destroyed two pick-up trucks belonging to Gadhafi's forces in Sirte on Wednesday.
Gadhafi and Seif al-Islam have been on the run since the fall of Tripoli in August. Gadhafi himself is believed to be hiding somewhere far to the south in the vast Libyan desert.
His daughter Aisha, her brothers Hannibal and Mohammed, their mother Safi and several other family members fled to Algeria in August and have lived their since. Another son, Saadi, is in Niger.