Fighting erupted in Tripoli late Saturday as rebels closed in on the capital by claiming a third key city in 24 hours and predicted Muammar al-Gaddafi's 42-year-old rule was on its last legs.
Blasts and gunfire rocked Tripoli after the break of the dawn-to-dusk fast of Ramadan and witnesses reported fighting in the eastern neighbourhoods of Soug Jomaa, Arada and Tajura.
As jubilant rebels in newly-conquered towns were champing at the bit for a final push on Tripoli, a government spokesman said the fighting in the capital had not lasted long and the situation been brought under control.
"The situation is under control," Moussa Ibrahim said on television, adding that pro-regime volunteers had repelled insurgents attacks in several neighbourhoods.
Ibrahim dismissed mounting speculation that the regime was on the brink as a "media attack" but more gunfire was heard after he spoke on television.
In his eastern stronghold of Benghazi, Libyan rebel chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil claimed Saturday that victory was within reach, six months after the insurgency was launched.
"We have contacts with people from the inner circle of Gaddafi," said the chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC). "All evidence (shows) that the end is very near, with God's grace."
Abdel Jalil was speaking to reporters as a flurry of rumours suggested that Gaddafi was preparing to flee Libya.
"I expect a catastrophic end for him and his inner circle, and I expect that he will a create a situation within Tripoli. I hope my expectation is wrong," Abdel Jalil said, before the latest fighting in the capital.
"That would be a good thing that will end the bloodshed and help us avoid material costs. But I do not expect that he will do that," Abdel Jalil added.
Rebels were jubilant after claiming to have captured the strategic eastern oil hub of Brega, a day after saying they had seized Zawiyah and Zliten, two other key towns.
However, rebel Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani said retreating Gaddafi forces were shelling Brega's industrial zone on Saturday and that his men had pulled back to its eastern edge to avoid unnecessary casualties and property damage.
In Sabratah, around 50 kilometres west of Tripoli, rebels were celebrating their camp's latest advances and waiting for a chance to take part in an offensive on the capital.
"I'm dying to go to Tripoli," Mohamed, an 18-year-old fighter from Manchester, said as fighters fired shots in the air and residents stayed to their TV sets, monitoring what they believe are Gaddafi's final hours.
"We have to stay here and await orders. I would like to go right now to Tripoli by boat but I can't because I don't have contact with NATO," said Akram Mohamed Ramadan, another fighter.
While the rebels' pincer movement on the capital intensified, another sign of the regime's fragility came when rebels said former premier Abdessalam Jalloud, who fell out of favour with the Libyan strongman in the mid-1990s but remains a popular figure, had defected and joined their ranks.
Yet both they and the regime downplayed the significance of his departure, after he reportedly flew to Italy from neighbouring Tunisia with his family.
The official JANA news agency simply said "Jalloud had remained away from politics out of his own free will, and spent most of his time abroad for (medical) care for heart disease."
He was among the officers who grabbed power with Gaddafi in 1969 and was long considered the regime's second-in-command before being gradually sidelined in the 1990s.
In Zawiyah, families were fleeing the battle-scarred city in cars and pickups loaded with personal possessions, a day after the rebels claimed it had fallen as they advanced on Tripoli from the west.
Queues of cars hundreds of metres long snaked out of petrol stations after rebels decided to distribute fuel from the nearby refinery for free.
The refinery is the only source of fuel to Tripoli, and could leave it without critical supplies.
At the start of the main road heading south, rebels set up a checkpoint with a list of names of informants whom they accused of having helped Gaddafi's fighters in their now-lost battle for the city.
Insurgents also said they seized Zliten from Gaddafi's forces, hours after saying they were in the town's centre, 150 kilometres (93 miles) east of Tripoli.
Rebels have been seeking to sever Tripoli's supply lines from Tunisia to the west and to Gaddafi's home town of Sirte in the east, hoping to cut off the capital, prompt defections and spark an uprising inside Tripoli.
Meanwhile, a Tunisian defence official said Tunisian troops clashed with a group of armed Libyans overnight in the country's southwest.
An army patrol came under fire from men travelling in several 4X4 vehicles with Libyan registration plates in the Douz region, the official said.
No one was caught and the attackers were still being hunted Saturday by ground and air forces, the official said, adding there were no casualties on the Tunisian side.
With the rebels vowing to take Tripoli before the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan ends in late August, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has urged the population of the capital to rise up against Gaddafi.
"We hope the people of Tripoli... understand the regime has harmed its own people and will therefore join a process of political change to cut off room for manoeuvre for Gaddafi's regime," Frattini said.
Meanwhile, the International Organisation for Migration said it was drawing up plans to evacuate thousands of migrants stranded in Tripoli because exit points have been cut off after a spate of rebel successes.
"There are already thousands of Egyptians who are ready for evacuation now, and what we are hearing is that every day there are more and more requests," IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya said.
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