Pro-Gadhafi forces repel rebels in 2 towns

TRIPOLI, Libya, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Forces loyal to deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi repelled takeover attacks by reformist rebels in two towns and vowed to fight for months.

The National Transitional Council, the interim government, had said plans were to have secured Bani Walid and Sirte by the weekend, but its troops were turned back from the towns by heavy machine gun fire, mortars and missile attacks, the BBC reported Saturday.

A spokesman for Gadhafi told reporters the loyalists would fight for "months and months" if necessary.

The whereabouts of Gadhafi, who led the oil-rich North African country under a dictatorship for 42 years, wasn't known. There is an international arrest warrant out for him on human rights abuse charges.

Meanwhile, The New York Times said there were huge disparities in fatality and missing person numbers since the armed rebellion began in February.

Rebels claim as many as 30,000 people were missing and killed by Gadhafi forces, although the newspaper said there is no reliable way to substantiate the number.

The International Committee of the Red Cross lists about 1,000 people missing, but rebels have said it's too early to tally the real number.

Mohammed al-Ghazwi leads the council's new Committee on the Dead and told the Times it would take time to collate numbers.

"Every day we find another grave, so I can't give you a specific number," Ghazwi said.

The Red Cross has corroborated the discovery of 13 multiple grave sites in Libya, the largest containing 34 bodies, the report said.