Fresh clashes in a former bastion of Muammar Gaddafi killed at least 26 people, as confusion swirled on Sunday over the fate of one of his most-wanted former aides, Mussa Ibrahim.
The government had announced on Saturday that Ibrahim, mouthpiece of the toppled regime, had been captured in the western town of Tarhuna, between Bani Walid and Tripoli, exactly year after Gaddafi was himself captured and killed.
But later a government spokesman said there was no confirmation of the capture and an audiotape surfaced on the internet purportedly with Ibrahim himself denying the report.
Mohammed Megaryef, president of the national assembly, gave a sombre assessment of the post-Gaddafi period on the first anniversary since his capture and killing on October 20, last year.
Not all areas had been successfully “liberated”, he said, and warned that loyalists and criminals, particularly those sheltered in Bani Walid, continued to pose a threat to the country.
“The campaign to liberate the country has not been fully completed... Bani Walid’s misfortune is that it has become a sanctuary for a large number of outlaws and anti-revolutionaries and mercenaries,” he said.