Latest developments in the Libyan conflict

Agencies | Updated: 2011-09-23 06:37

Sept 22 - Following are the latest political and military developments in the Libyan crisis.

* The U.S. ambassador returned to work in Libya on Thursday, raising the U.S. flag over a re-opened embassy a month after Muammar Gadhafi was driven from power with the help of a NATO-led bombing campaign.

* Forces loyal to Gadhafi who control the city of Sirte have been executing residents suspected of sympathising with Libya's new rulers, forces backing the interim government and fleeing residents said.

* Oil is starting to trickle onto the world market but it could take as long as three years to get back to pre-war output levels, analysts say.

* Libya's interim rulers said they had further consolidated their control over Sahara desert towns that had been among Gadhafi's last strongholds and said he himself was running out of places to hide.

* Former prime minister, Al Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, has been arrested in Tunisia, Al Arabiya television reported.

* Gadhafi's spokesman said NATO air strikes and shelling of Sirte by interim government forces on Wednesday and Thursday killed 151 people.

* Government forces have occupied all districts of the desert city of Sabha, until now a stronghold of supporters of Gadhafi, and are investigating reports he may have fled the city, a government spokesman said.

* NATO said it was confident it could conclude its mission in Libya before the end of a 90-day extension agreed this week, and called on forces loyal to Gadhafi to surrender.

* The interim government said it captured one of Gadhafi's last strongholds deep in the Sahara desert, finding a secret stock of chemical weapons, and had largely taken control of another.