The fighters in Tripoli are rising up in two places at the moment. Some are in the Tajoura neighbourhood and the others near the Matiga airport," he told al-Jazeera.
Mohamad Abdul Rahman, a deputy organiser for the opposition committee inside Tripoli, said that the uprising had erupted inside the capital, with fierce fighting. He said he was in direct contact with rebel commands in Benghazi, Misrata and the western mountains. He added: "We started the uprising in Tripoli without waiting for the other revolutionaries to arrive."
Al-Jazeera said the rebels were now fighting Gaddafi's forces at a bridge 17 miles from Tripoli.
This week's rebel advances on Tripoli – Gaddafi's last major stronghold – have transformed the war by cutting the capital off from its main road link to the outside world and putting unprecedented pressure on the Libyan leader.
Washington says the veteran leader's days are now numbered, and reports have emerged of more defections from his ranks.
The six-month-old war came close to the Tunisian frontier after rebels suddenly seized the coastal city of Zawiyah just 30 miles west of Tripoli, surrounding the heavily fortified capital and severing its vital supply routes. The imposition of a siege around Tripoli has trapped its residents and cut it off from fuel and food supplies.
The International Organisation for Migration said on Friday it would organise a rescue operation to evacuate thousands of foreign workers, probably by sea.
Wild celebrations erupted across Libya after Libyan TV reported that Gaddafi and his two sons had left the country. In the town of Zintan, the opposition stronghold in Libya's western mountains, local people fired wildly into the sky with Kalshnikovs and opened up with anti-aircraft guns as the report spread.
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