Gunfights broke out in the Libyan capital Tripoli today between dozens of supporters of deposed leader Muammar Gadafy and forces of the new government.
It was the first sign of armed resistance to the NTC in the city since its rebel brigades seized the capital and ended 42 years of one-man rule in August.
Though the battles were small and casualties seemed light, it raised concerns the interim government could face an insurgency by Gadafy loyalists.
Hundreds of National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters in pick-up trucks shouting "Allahu Akbar" careered towards the Abu Salim neighbourhood, a centre of support for Col Gadafy and the two sides exchanged automatic and heavy machinegun fire.
Local people told a Reuters correspondent at the scene that a group of up to 50 armed men had appeared in Abu Salim earlier in the day and had chanted pro-Gadafy slogans.
NTC men said fighting also broke out in three other nearby neighbourhoods.
"Gadafy told them in a message last night to rise up after Friday prayers," said one NTC fighter, Abdullah. "That's why these few people have come out and are causing this problem."
The former leader has released a number of audio recordings calling on loyalists to fight back: "I urge all Libyan people to go out and march in their millions in all the squares, in all the cities and villages and oases," he said earlier this month.
"Go peacefully ... be courageous, rise up, go to the streets, raise our green flags to the skies."
NTC fighters dragged one man out of an apartment block in Abu Salim, a traditional bastion of support for Col Gadafy. As he was kicked and punched, one of the NTC men plunged a knife into the prisoner's back.
It was unclear if it was a fatal blow.
The captured man had been armed with a rocket-propelled grenade, said NTC fighters, whose forces have been criticised by human rights groups for their treatment of prisoners.
Three other pro-Gadafy gunmen were also captured in the Abu Salim neighbourhood, NTC commanders said. Dominated by apartment blocks, it was one of the places last to fall to the new government when it took the city after six months of civil war.
The NTC fighters were met by volleys of machinegun fire as they went from house to house searching for remaining Gadafy gunmen. Shooting died down later in the afternoon.
There are still two towns where Gadafy supporters are holding out; Sirte, on the coast in the centre of the country, where a small pocket is battling on after weeks of fighting, and Bani Walid, a small town inland from Tripoli.
Government forces pushed tanks deep into Sirte on Friday to try to smash the last pocket of resistance by Gadafy loyalists in his home town.
The mostly untrained NTC militia army has gradually tightened its strangle-hold around Sirte in a chaotic struggle that has cost scores of lives and left thousands homeless.
It has also held up the attempt by Libya's new leaders to try to build a democratic government, as they say the process will begin only after the city is captured.
NTC commanders say Col Gadafy's die-hard loyalists now only control an area measuring about 700 metres (yards) north to south, and around 1.5 km (a mile) east to west in a residential neighbourhood mostly of apartment blocks.
"We are going to engage them with tanks and heavy artillery first. After that we will send in the pick-up trucks with anti-aircraft guns, then the infantry," said Abdul Hadi Doghman, commander of the Dat al-Ramal brigade, one of the many loosely
organised militias besieging the trapped Gadafy forces.
The biggest obstacle to taking the town has been Col Gadafy's snipers hiding in the buildings. Tanks are used to hit the buildings from close range and dislodge the sharpshooters.
Green flags, the banner of Col Gadafy's rule, flew above many of the buildings in the loyalist enclave. An occasional sniper shot zipped past as the government forces cleaned their weapons and prepared to do battle another day.
But there was no extra build-up of troops today and the NTC forces did not appear to be preparing for a final push.
Col Gadafy himself is believed to be hiding somewhere in the vast Libyan desert.
His encircled forces in Sirte can have no hope of victory, but still fight on, inflicting dozens of casualties with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms.
One field hospital received two dead NTC fighters and 23 wounded yesterday. One of those killed had been hit while taking food up to the fighters on the front line, doctors said.
Reuters