SIRTE, Libya – Libya's revolutionaries on Thursday mopped up pockets of resistance and continued to consolidate control over what was the last significant stronghold of forces loyal to former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Fighters inside Sirte fired assault rifles at posters of the man who was once their leader. At one intersection, they torched a billboard bearing a huge poster of Gadhafi in Bedouin garb.
Sirte is Gadhafi's birthplace, and he had rewarded what was once a sleepy fishing village richly, building hotels, villas and ornate conference centers here. Now it lies in ruins after weeks of fighting.
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PHOTOS: Libya: Battle for Sirte and Bani Walid
Libya's transitional government said that once Sirte is secure, it can move toward the next phase of establishing a democratic government.
"After we free Sirte … we will form a transitional government, and the youth and women will have a role in that," said Libya's new leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil.
Gadhafi loyalists remain in Bani Walid, a town southeast of Tripoli. Securing Sirte was a more significant problem for revolutionary forces, because the city lies on the coastal road between the capital, Tripoli, and the east of the country, where the rebellion first took hold.
Forces loyal to Libya's new leaders, the National Transitional Council, have besieged Sirte for nearly a month. Last week, they began a major offensive on Sirte. The fighters pushed in on five separate fronts.
Fighters in hundreds of pickups gathered on the main highway, blasting away with heavy guns before seizing residential neighborhoods on the outskirts of the coastal city.
By Wednesday, Sirte was overrun as transitional government fighters stormed through the streets, taking out snipers and blasting buildings with anti-aircraft guns.
The main boulevard had been flooded by Gadhafi loyalists to prevent their opponents from getting access to parts of the city, but the fighters waded through the dirty water and advanced to a small area within a neighborhood called District 2 where the last of the Gadhafi loyalists were holding out.
The streets of Sirte are filled with burned-out cars. Green flags, signaling loyalty to Gadhafi, still flew on many buildings. Wherever they could, the revolutionary forces took the flags down and set them on fire.
Shops and homes were ransacked as revolutionary fighters went from house to house shooting the locks off doors. One pair of fighters made off with a new 50-inch plasma-screen television wedged in the backseat of their mud-covered pickup. Others made off with cars and bicycles, joy-riding through the streets.
Fighters daubed buildings with graffiti, writing the names of their units in paint on bullet-scarred walls.
There were still some civilians in the city. In one home in the Zizi Bahria district, more than 30 Sudanese men, women and children were hiding in a series of rooms in the basement. They pleaded to be evacuated out of the city.
One man emerged from a villa on the sea front asking for gas for his car so he could drive out of the city.
"We are families here," said Mohammed Ahmed, 42.
He said that he had come to Sirte two months ago and hadn't left his home for more than two weeks.
The fighters used a pickup to tow his car out of the city, taking him and his family to safety.
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