Seventeen fighters of Libya's new regime were killed and 50 wounded in clashes with Moammar Gadhafi loyalists in the desert town of Bani Walid, a military official in Tripoli said on Monday.

"We lost 17 fighters in fierce clashes on Sunday and our forces have withdrawn from the airport where they had taken control," said Salem Gheith, head of the National Transitional Council (NTC) military command center.

Forces of Libya's new rulers said they took control on Sunday of the airport in Bani Walid, one of the last two bastions of fighters loyal to deposed despot Moammar Gadhafi.

"Our forces have taken control of the airport of Bani Walid," located in the desert town's southwest, Yunes Mussa, commander of the National Transitional Council forces in the region, told Agence France Presse.

Forces of Libya's new regime on Sunday tightened their stranglehold on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown Sirte, seizing its university and edging closer to his diehards holed up in a conference center.

Fighting has been raging around Sirte's university and the nearby Ouagadougou conference center since the National Transitional Council forces launched on Friday what they are calling their final assault on the coastal city.

Tunisia has arrested a colonel in the former Libyan intelligence service, hiding out in a rented house in a remote town after Moammar Gadhafi's fall, the official TAP news agency said Saturday.

The officer had crossed the border using false identity papers more than a month ago, according to a security source cited by the agency, who did not name the colonel.

Forces from Libya's interim regime scored a strategic goal Saturday in their push to capture Sirte, seizing a highway that opens the way to a final assault on a key base of troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.

But with thousands of civilians still trapped in the ex-leader's hometown, NTC commanders said they were pacing their advance to evacuate some of those who had not fled and to avoid losses from friendly fire.

Deposed strongman Moammar Gadhafi called on Libyans to turn out in their millions to demonstrate against the country's new rulers, in an audio message broadcast Thursday on Syria-based Arrai television.

"I call on the Libyan people, men and women, to go out into the squares and the streets and in all the cities in their millions" to reject the National Transitional Council, he said in the poor quality broadcast.

NATO allies debated on Thursday how quickly to end the bombing campaign in Libya as they reviewed progress in their plans to withdraw combat troops from the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan.

With Moammar Gadhafi diehards surrounded by the new leadership's forces in Sirte and Bani Walid, and the fallen Libyan leader in hiding, the number of NATO air strikes has drastically declined in recent weeks.

Crude oil prices dropped below $100 a barrel in London and hit a one-year low in New York on Tuesday over heightened Eurozone crisis concerns that sent European stocks plunging.

Brent North Sea crude for delivery in November stood at $99.95 in late London deals, down $1.76 compared with Monday's close.

Moammar Gadhafi's birthplace Qasr Abu Hadi has been overrun by fighters loyal to Libya's new rulers, according to medics who visited the village Monday on the edge of the Mediterranean city of Sirte.

"Abu Hadi is completely free (of Gadhafi fighters)," said Dr. Taha Sultan at a field hospital on the eastern outskirts of Sirte.

Libya's post-Gadhafi leaders have named a new Cabinet and vow to step down after the country is fully secured.

Monday's announcement comes after weeks of political infighting stalled efforts to form a new government.