French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said France will persevere with military operations in Libya until Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's army is no longer a threat to the Libyan population.
Speaking tonight, he invited world leaders to meet in Paris on 1 September to discuss Libya's reconstruction.
‘We are ready to continue military operations under the UN Resolution 1973 for as long as our Libyan friends need,’ Mr Sarkozy told reporters in front of the presidential palace, standing beside Libyan rebel leader Mahmoud Jibril of the National Transitional Council.
The United States has asked the UN Security Council to unfreeze $1.5bn in Libyan assets, a proposal South African has blocked for weeks because it objects to funding the rebel government.
The US delegation submitted a draft resolution to the 15-nation body asking it to make the money available for civilian and humanitarian purposes ‘as soon as possible.’
No vote was held on the draft today, but diplomats said a vote could come on Thursday or Friday.
The request for the urgent unfreezing of $1.5bn of sanctioned Libyan assets is separate from the longer-term discussions that will be taking place in Paris, Doha and New York about post-war planning for Libya, including the release of tens of billions of dollars of frozen Libyan funds.
Battles continue in Tripoli
Libyan rebels have been fighting a fierce battle with Gaddafi's top military commander at his farm in Tripoli.
Heavy fighting was said to be under way in a farm belonging to the chief of staff of the Libyan armed forces, Abdul Rahman Al Sayd.
Bursts of gunfire were heard near the Corinthia Hotel in central Tripoli tonight.
Earlier, a group of heavily armed rebels arrived at the hotel, saying they had heard Gaddafi's son Saadi was inside and that they would search every room for him.
A Reuters reporter saw about half a dozen rebels arrive in the hotel forecourt in a truck mounted with an anti-aircraft gun. The men ran into the hotel and blocked off access to the elevators as they prepared to search the building room by room.
In a separate incident, rebels have also found Gaddafi's office director, Bashir Saleh, and his four children, at a family farm in Tripoli where he was disguised in Sudanese garb.
Rebels sacked Gaddafi's headquarters at Bab al-Aziziya in Tripoli yesterday, a day after they first entered the Libyan capital following a six-month insurgency.
The National Transitional Council in Libya has offered an amnesty to any of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's entourage who kill or capture him.
At a news conference in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil also said a Benghazi businessman had offered a reward of around €1m for the capture of Colonel Gaddafi.
Italian journalists abducted
Four Italian journalists have been abducted in Libya. The Italian foreign ministry said the journalists were abducted near Zawiya.
They are in the country on assignment from three separate Italian newspapers.
The news came just hours after around 35 Western journalists were freed from the Hotel Rixos in Tripoli, where they had been trapped for several days by Gaddafi forces.
The journalists said that representatives of the International Red Cross came to the hotel and arranged for them to leave and provided transport away from the hotel.
