Battle for Tripoli

The 42-year rule of Moammar Gadhafi appeared on the verge of collapse Monday, with rebel supporters making it to the same Tripoli square where regime loyalists had congregated for month.

But in a possible indication that the fight is not over, celebrations in Tripoli's Green Square gave way to tension Monday morning after rebels told CNN that they'd heard Gadhafi army forces were heading their way. CNN could not confirm any movement of Gadhafi forces.

Here are some of the latest developments of the fighting in Tripoli, the latest installment of battles in a months-long uprising in Libya.
A senior State Department official tells CNN that, up until the last minutes before the rebel offensive on Tripoli began, senior Libyan officials close to Moammar Gadhafi were trying to reach out to the U.S. in a desperate attempt to stop the “inevitable.”

In a telephone interview from Cairo Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said that, until Saturday night, six officials with whom the U.S. had previous contact were still trying to reach out to the Obama administration but were taking a “defiant” approach, saying they were ready to negotiate but it would not be about Gadhafi leaving.

“It hinted to us that there’s a sense of desperation,” Feltman, who leads State Department efforts on Libya and who was in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi over the weekend, said, “that they’re trying all channels to reach us, that the balance was tipping on behalf of the rebels or why would these people be so desperate to find us?”

“I think they were looking for a way to find a lifeline, buy time, to prevent what was then becoming inevitable, which was the uprising in Tripoli,” he said.
CNN's Sara Sidner described the scene just outside the capital as rebels regroup before heading back into Tripoli: Rebels are on the outskirts of the capital and there are a lot of men walking around with guns and ammunition. There are pickup trucks with guns welded into them that continue to pour into the area.

"They’re all gathering to do something … we don’t know when its going to happen," Sidner said. "We expect they are going to try to go into the city and do a street-by-street sweep."

Sidner said there is a continuous stream of rebels continuing to come in from the west of the city. She added that rebels know coordination is key during this stage of the battle for Libya.

"A lot of these people don’t know each other," she said, noting many are just regular people. " They want to fight against the regime but they have to do it in a coordinated way."

She added it was unclear where the coordination was coming from but there was clearly some kind of instructions being handed down.

As the battle rages on CNN's Nic Robertson and Paul Armstrong take a look at whether it is too early to celebrate a rebel triumph.