SAS troops are on the ground in Libya helping rebels to scour buildings and entrances to tunnels in the hunt for runaway leader Colonel Gaddafi.
The crack squad of elite soldiers are dressed in Arab clothes and carrying the same AK47s and Kalashnikovs that the rebels have used in the conflict.
The SAS will be searching Gaddafi’s wrecked apartments and trying to gain entrance to the network of underground tunnels where he is believed to be hiding.
Soldier from 22 SAS Regiment were first sent into the north African country several weeks ago by David Cameron and they have remained there to find Gaddafi, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Nato has carried out a string of airstrikes on key targets in Libya since the conflict began on February 17 but up until now the use of ground troops has been ruled out.
The latest is that Gaddafi could have been at his compound in Tripoli was on Sunday evening.
He may be staying at a safehouse in Tripoli, but if he has fled the capital, the dictator would find security in Sirte 280 miles away to the east. Sirte is Gaddafi’s home town and tribes there are fiercely loyal to him.
He has secured backing in the region through patronage and he once wanted to make Sirte the capital of Africa. Some 200 scud missiles are also stored there, giving him a strong military presence.
Gaddafi could also have fled south across the Sahara desert towards his ancestral home of Sabha where the Gadadfa clan originate from. Supporters from Sabha’s mountain towns and dunes would provide shelter.
From Sabha the dictator could flee to Algeria to the west, or Chad, Niger or Mali to the south where he has support. Gaddafi, his family, aides and generals could also be living in an underground bunker filled with supplies and military controls.
There are still questions as to how Gaddafi could have fled his compound. The dictator claimed in a broadcast on Monday evening that he had ‘discreetly toured’ Tripoli earlier in the day.
Gaddafi’s former aide has said that he used a disguise as a woman do this, but with an entourage of guards at his side, the hunted leader will have been unable to pass rebel checkpoints on the roads out of Tripoli.
Gaddafi’s escape from his compound is more likely to have been through a network of tunnels 2,000 miles long that were built in the 1980s. Heavily-fortified entrances to the nuclear-proof vaults are concealed and along the route there are further barriers and booby traps.
One of the tunnels surfaces at the Rixos Hotel a mile away. Gaddafi mysteriously appeared there on a number of occasions during fighting and his son, Saif al-Islam, made an unexpected appearance at the hotel on Sunday evening.
Two more tunnels are believed to come up at the Mitiga Airport four miles away and at ports on the Tripoli coast. From there Gaddafi could reach safe-havens, however, all known transport routes are being guarded by rebels.
It has also been suggested that the tunnels could surface in the sea, from where the Gaddafi family could use a submarine to travel around the Africa.
The tunnels are believed to be so long that they could com up directly at Sirte or Sabha. Alternatively they may surface in the desert, from where Gaddai could travel incognito by jeep, jet, helicopter or even camel to a region where he has support.
Defence Secretary Liam Fox said that Nato was providing ‘intelligence and assets’ in the hunt for Gaddafi.
‘I can confirm that Nato is providing intelligence and reconnaissance assets to the NTC (National Transitional Council) to help them track down Col Gaddafi and other remnants of the regime,’ the Defence Secretary said today.
‘There are areas of resistance by the regime which has had considerable levels of military expertise, still has stockpiles of weapons and still has the ability for command and control.
‘They may take some time to completely eliminate and it is likely there will be some frustrating days ahead before the Libyan people are completely free of the Gaddafi legacy.’
The military leaders are believed to be trying to find the blueprints for the underground tunnels that Gaddafi used to escape from his Tripoli mansion.
One suggestion is that Nato are searching for the architect who designed the Rixos Hotel which is connected by a secret vault to Gaddafi’s compound a couple of miles away.
Dr Fox refused to comment on a report that the SAS is leading the hunt for the dictator and his sons.
Reports that Britain’s special forces have entered Libya comes as the hunt for the dictator intensified with a £1m reward being offered yesterday for anybody who catches him.
Fighting continued around Tripoli today with rockets fired in the Abu Salem district of Tripoli.
With still no sign of where the ousted tyrant is hiding, an unnamed businessman posted the reward to anyone handing him over ‘dead or alive’.
It was supported by rebel chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the National Transitional Council (NTC), in a clear indication that the insurgents have no idea where the 69-year-old dictator is.
Meanwhile, Libya’s former central bank governor Farhat Bengdara said that Gaddafi will try to sell part of the country’s gold reserves to pay for his protection and sow chaos among tribes in the north African country.
Bengdara, who has allied himself with the Libyan rebels saidthat an ally of Gaddafi had offered 25 tonnes of gold to his friend ‘a little time ago’.
‘My friend referred it to me and I suggested that he refuse and my friend immediately rejected the approach. But it is a clear indication(of Gaddafi’s intentions),’ Bengdara told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
There are gold reserves worth $10 billion in Tripoli and Gaddafi could have taken some of that amount, he said. Bengdara said he believed that Gaddafi had fled Tripoli and could be heading towards the Algerian border.
‘Now he is looking to pay and corrupt some tribes and some militia to have protection and to create further chaos,’ he said.
Another senior figure in the rebel council, Mahmoud Jibril, will travel to Italy today for a meeting with Silvio Berlusconi on a European diplomatic tour aimed at security the release of billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets.
Jibril meets Berlusconi in Milan a day after laying out plans for governing Libya after the fall of Gaddafi’s 42-year autocratic regime.
Italy is Libya’s largest economic partner, with trade worth (euro) 11 billion ($16 billion) in 2010, before civil war halted business in February. Italy’s Eni has dispatched technicians to Benghazi to prepare to restart oil and natural gas production. Eni says it can take up to a year for oil production to begin.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy has also called a conference in Paris next Thursday to discuss plans to rebuild Libya.
The ‘friends of Libya’ meeting will include representatives from the nations which took part in the offensive against Gaddafi’s regime, as well as China, Russia, India and Brazil.
In a statement, Downing Street said the conference was a joint Franco-British initiative.
A No 10 spokesman said: ‘We have stood firmly by the Libyan people since their uprisings began six months ago and we will continue to lead international efforts to help them achieve their aspirations in the weeks and months ahead.’
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said his country would consider establishing relations with rebels if they ‘have the power and spirit and opportunity to unite the country on a new democratic basis.’
The U.S. is expected to call for a vote by the U.N. Security Council today on unfreezing assets.
South Africa, a known supporter of Gaddafi, will oppose the move.
The need to find Gaddafi was given added urgency yesterday by suggestions that the regime could still have a stockpile of chemical weapons – thought to be mustard gas – hidden in the desert.
Fierce fighting continued in Tripoli yesterday with the death toll since Sunday passing 450 with another 2,250 wounded.
One British doctor in Tripoli said he spent Tuesday at the field hospital in the compound. He told the BBC there were ‘lots of wounded and many dead. They couldn’t get them out so there were literally bodies piled up in the corner’.
The rebel fighters are now using Bab al-Aziziya as a staging area for their operations despite coming under fire from rifles and rocket propelled grenades.
Rebels claimed to be in control of 95 per cent of Libya and 90 per cent of Tripoli and declared Gaddafi’s rule effectively over.
Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, Gaddafi’s former foreign minister, said the regime had come to an end and rebels were now responsible for restoring law and order to Libya.
There were calls for oil workers to return to work at two key refineries under rebel control so production can being again ‘within days’.
David Cameron will travel to Paris next week to meet rebel leaders. The Prime Minister and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a joint invitation to Mr Jalil.
MI6 is said to be using its contacts and agents on the ground to try to find Gaddafi while the eavesdropping centre at GCHQ will be trying to intercept any communications, with technology matching his voice to any calls made from satellite telephones.
Nato, which is employing its surveillance planes to spot any signs of escape across the desert and has Special Forces on the ground, is desperate to prevent a repeat of Iraq after the fall of Baghdad, when Saddam Hussein was on the run for eight months.
Foreign Secretary William Hague, who chaired a meeting of the National Security Council in London, admitted there was no news where Gaddafi was hiding and called on the Libyan dictator to recognise his rule was over and stand down his forces.
‘There is a clear, fundamental decisive rejection of the regime by the people of Libya,’ he said. ‘It is time now for Colonel Gaddafi to stop issuing delusional statements and recognise that control of the country is not going to return.’
The renewed fighting erupted hours after Gaddafi, who has ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years, vowed to fight on ‘until victory or martyrdom’ and called on Tripoli’s residents to free the city from the ‘devils and traitors’ who have overrun it.
In a broadcast given from an unknown location, the ousted despot asked: ‘Why are you letting them wreak havoc?’
Sounding subdued and without his usually fiery rhetoric, he said he would fight ‘the aggression with all strength until either victory or death’. Much of the latest fighting was centred in the neighbourhood of Abu Salim, adjacent to the Gaddafi compound and home to a notorious prison.
The district is one of the last remaining regime strongholds within the capital and rebels were again assisted by Nato airstrikes blitzing the area, huge explosions sending plumes of black smoke spiralling above the city.
Fierce fighting also raged in the area of the Rixos Hotel, close to the seized compound, where 35 journalists effectively held hostage by the regime since rebels stormed the city were finally released.
However four Italian journalists were captured by pro-Gaddafi forces while driving towards Tripoli yesterday. They were reportedly being held in a flat in Tripoli last night, where they were given food and water. Despite the apparent confidence of the rebels, Tripoli’s battered streets were largely deserted yesterday, scattered with debris and broken glass.
Rebels manned checkpoints every few hundred yards looking for Gaddafi supporters. At one checkpoint a picture of Gaddafi had been laid on the ground so cars had to drive over it.
Rubbish, already a problem in the waning months of Gaddafi’s rule, covers the empty streets, piled in corners and all over the pavements. There are ripped up remnants of Gaddafi’s green flags, which once flew everywhere around the city.
At the Libyan Embassy in London, officials rolled out a new doormat bearing Gaddafi’s image so that visitors could wipe their feet on his face.
