Fighters of Libya’s new regime launched a fresh assault on the desert oasis of Bani Walid yesterday, even as fighting eased in the city of Sirte, the other main holdout of Muammar Gaddafi diehards.

“We have resumed combat operations and we have advanced from the northern front as well as from the south,” said Musa Yunis, who heads National Transitional Council (NTC) forces in Bani Walid, some 170 kilometres southeast of Tripoli.

NTC fighters have surrounded the town but their commanders pulled them back last week after suffering heavy losses and to prepare for a new offensive against the 1,500 pro-Gaddafi fighters thought to remain in Bani Walid.

The disparate forces of the new regime had a week ago paid a heavy price for their lack of coordination, having to abandon control of the airport and suffering heavy casualties with 17 men killed and more than 80 wounded.

In Sirte on the Mediterranean coast, where fierce clashes between NTC forces and those loyal to deposed leader Colonel Gaddafi have raged for a month, yesterday saw a lull with only intermittent shelling and rocket-fire, AFP correspondents said.

“We are shelling with tanks and anti-aircraft weapons and then we will send our troops onto the streets,” said Salem Ahmed, a tank commander from the eastern city of Benghazi.

Mr Ahmed said the advance was being held up by pro-Gaddafi snipers.

“A few snipers can stop an army. They are very professional. They shoot in the heart, the head, the chest.”

Focus of the NTC operations are two seaside residential neighbourhoods, the Dollar and Number Two, where Gaddafi loyalists are holed up.

One NTC fighter said there had been an exodus of civilians from the two neighbourhoods early yesterday and that the besieging troops wanted to give others the chance to leave.

A medic at a field hospital behind the eastern front line said four NTC fighters were killed and 22 wounded in the fighting on that side of the city on Saturday.

“Those killed were mainly from sniper bullets. And the wounded were injured by explosions and rocket attacks,” Ahmed Bushariya said.

A commander on the western side of the city echoed the concern about the sniper threat.

“At the very front line, they have very professional snipers,” said Salah al-Jabo. “According to doctors, 80 per cent of the fighters killed in the past two days were shot in the head or in the chest.”

Officials in Bamako, meanwhile, said yesterday that more than 400 armed Tuaregs had arrived in Mali from Libya where they fought in Gaddafi’s army.