in misratah, they managed to grow the area there.t's taken time to build this kind of momentum that we're seeing right now and beyond doubt, we are seeing the rebels being able to work more effectively with nato, what nato can offer. many journalists like myself have been bombarded over the past several months from e-mails from rebels, these are the exact coordinates at the exact time of some gadhafi weapons in the battlefield. send them to nato, tell nato to take out these targets right now. you can be sure if we're getting these coordinates from the rebels, they're passing it on to nato as well. we've heard reports of weapons -- of missiles, stockpiles running low for nato. nato knows that the's got a political time deadline on this. it's had to pull all the stops out of the bag. it had to accelerate this. it had to show success and now it does seem to be coming to fruition. there are perhaps other elements that a nato force would normally have on the ground. forward air controllers, other elements like that. certainly we're not be

that went on and on and on in misratah until the battle was pushed far out of that city. it gives you some idea of what is happening now. we are hearing lots of small arms fire and also some -- what sounds like artillery fire. you hear that there. some more fire coming from the western part of the city. but they are now pushing east, and that's where they've been going because that is towards tripoli. they were able to push the gadhafi forces farther and farther back. they say that they've been able to push them actually almost all the way to tripoli at this point. the fighting was fierce today. we were on the frontline. about 27 kilometers, so it's about 15 miles from the edge of tripoli. and we were out -- had to turn back because the fighting was so fierce there. we saw some buildings on fire. we saw te stroied buildings, shemed buildings. a lot of fire going on in the air which is celebratory. we also hear what sounds like a battle that is probably about 30 kilometers from us. so very close to tripoli. >> sara, last hour i spoke with a resident out of tripoli talking

. >> i think misratah and zlitan took the most toll. i would say maybe around 15,000 to 17,000, in that area. >> hsham said many others were killed in the western mountains and the northeastern city of brega. he said many protesters arrested by gadhafi's government are now missing and presumed dead suggesting the death toll could rise. libya's opposition leader has urged followers of gadhafi to surrender before saturday. he said if not, the opposition forces will opt for military action to put them under control. the head of libya's national transitional council mustafa abdul jalil spoke to reporters in the eastern city of benghazi on tuesday. jalil said the ousted leader remains a threat to the libyan people until he is placed in custody. gadhafi's regime has collapsed since opposition forces seized control of the capital tripoli last week, but gadhafi supporters are maintaining a resistance in his hemtown of sirte ands other places across the country. the ntc is continuing talks with loekist tribes on a peaceful solution while mobiliz

now, bring people from in gaza, from misratah. ones it will be large but we will see other people coming. these are the people who will put pressure. and then it will open up places for other people. and there will be a new wave of leadership. i don't believe that this is it. i don't believe that the new libya will be led by these people. i think this is an older, maybe experienced, maybe people that have done this more or less have done a good job in this moment, that i really believe the legitimacy will come from people that will appear in the next month, month and a half, two months or so. >> michele, can i edward? >> absolutely. >> there's been a lot of journalistic commentaries of the transitional national conference is a hodgepodge. is a hodgepodge and has to become more of a hodgepodge as karim suggests. , a lot of different perspectives. when you're writing the rules, which a constitution is, distributes power among the institutions, that's what you need, is broad intent as you can possibly have. i might be afraid of islam

stopped for a while in miz ral ta a misratah and moved on. >> just building on that, what do you make? there are all these rival groups that have been able to come together in some way to achieve what looks like this incredible breakthrough victory. but it sounds like this may just be the end of the beginning. how do you see the tribal conflict, the power struggle now shaping up? >> i think when we look back at the fall of gadhafi, we will actually begin to think that that was the easy part. because we're looking at a very long struggle to replace the gadhafi loviathin. it has collapsed. the question is what will replace it? will something replace it? we have all sorts of disparate elements that have bounded together to oust gadhafi. that was a common goal shared by each one of them. now that's all but accomplished. the question is, will they come to an agreement on a power sharing formula? we've seen in other countries like somalia and afghanistan where long-time -- dictators or a power vacuum as was the case in afghanistan in the '90s, that those who fought against the regime, the i

we've seen gradually that various parts of libya under rebel control, the western mountains, misratah it's a slow process where they learned to cooperate. each town would rise up against moammar gadhafi and do what they could to expel his forces from the towns, from the regions, but there was very little in the way of communications and cooperation between the different areas. we've seen that they have developed a mode of communications. the question is can they form a national government, transitional government that will represent as many libyans as possible because there will be those libyans who remain loyal to moammar gadhafi in much the same way, for instance, some iraqis remained loyal to saddam hussein. >> let me ask you quickly about syria. the president of syria gave a "interview" to two journalists on syrian television today saying he's not going anywhere saying nothing western powers can ask him to do will have any impact promising reforms and committees and reworking of legislation. this all plays into the arab uprising story. one can imagine the syrian president probably