Loyalist snipers attack Libyan forces in Sirte

One of the biggest attacks yet on Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte took place on Saturday but loyalist snipers fired back leaving Libya's troops scrambling for refuge, the Washington Post reports.

Forces of Libya’s transitional government pushed into southern Sirte on Saturday in  about 100 pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons to try and take one of the last bastion's of support, it reports.

Troops fought street-by-street for a second day – as civilians were trapped inside the town – as they tried to take Gaddafi's birthplace and symbolic capital.

But they had to contend with heavy fire from pro-Gaddafi fighters in an apartment complex, Washington Post reports.

“There is a very vicious battle now in Sirte,” Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the council, told reporters in the capital, Tripoli.

Jalil had met with defense ministers from Britain and Italy, two months into the fierce fighting that toppled the Muammar al-Gaddafi regime after 42 years.

(Read more at Global.post: Is this the beginning of the End of Libya?)

“Today our fighters are dealing with the snipers that are taking positions and hiding in the city of Sirte," he said.

A prolonged struggle to capture the remaining bastions of pro-

Along with the interior desert towns of Bani Walid and Sabha, Sirte is one of the last redoubts of Gaddafi loyalists.