TRIPOLI Libya's new masters offered a million-dollar bounty for the fugitive Muammar Gaddafi, after he urged his men to fight on in battles across parts of the capital. 
 
 A day after rebel forces overran his Tripoli headquarters and trashed symbols of his 42-year rule, scattered pockets of loyalist diehards kept the irregular fighters at bay as they hunted Gaddafi and his sons. Rebels also reported fighting deep in the desert and a standoff round Gaddafi's tribal home town. 
 
 In Tripoli, rockets and shooting kept two million civilians indoors and gunfire rang out in the center just before midnight on Wednesday. Most were anxious but hopeful the war would soon end, and with it worsening shortages of food, water and medical supplies -- both for hundreds of wounded and for the sick. 
 
 "Gaddafi's forces and his accomplices will not stop resisting until Gaddafi is caught or killed," said Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebels' National Council, who offered amnesty to any of his entourage who killed the fallen strongman and announced a reward worth over $1 million for his capture. 
 
 "The end will only come when he's captured, dead or alive," Abdel Jalil said in the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi. 
 
 Until then, he said, Gaddafi would not give up easily and could still unleash a "catastrophic event." In a poor-quality audio tape broadcast by satellite overnight, Gaddafi, 69, urged Libya's tribes to "exterminate traitors, infidels and rats." 
 
 There was no clear indication of where Gaddafi is, though his opponents surmised he was still in or around Tripoli after what Gaddafi himself described as a "tactical" withdrawal from his Bab al-Aziziya compound before it was captured on Tuesday. 
 
 But Western leaders and the rebel government-in-waiting lost no time readying a handover of Libya's substantial foreign assets. Funds will be required to bring relief to war-battered towns and to develop oil reserves that can make Libya rich. 
 
 Washington was to submit a U.N. resolution to release an immediate $1.5 billion for humanitarian aid. More will follow. While Libya is rich in oil, four decades of rule by personality cult has left it with few institutions of normal governance. 
 
 "DELUSIONAL" 
 
 Abdel Salam Jalloud, a close ally who switched sides last week, said Gaddafi planned to drop out of sight and then launch a guerrilla war: 
 
 "He is sick with power," he said. "He believes he can gather his supporters and carry out attacks ... He is delusional. He thinks he can return to power." 
 
 But there were signs other Gaddafi supporters are giving up on him, following a stream of defections during the six months of the uprising. At Tripoli's Rixos hotel where loyalist gunmen had been preventing nearly 40 foreigners, mostly journalists, from leaving, gunmen relented on Wednesday and let them go. 
 
 After by far the bloodiest of the Arab Spring revolts that are transforming the Middle East and North Africa, there were clear indications, too, of new threats of disorder. Four Italian journalists had been kidnapped near Zawiya, between Tripoli and the Tunisian border. 
 
 Western officials also fear weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles and nuclear material capable of making a "dirty bomb," could be taken from Gaddafi's stocks and reach hostile groups. 
 
 Imposing order and preventing rivalries breaking out across tribal, ethnic and ideological lines among the disparate rebel factions are major concerns of both the new leaders and of their Western backers, who are working to avoid the anarchy and bloodshed that followed the overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. 
 
 Meeting rebel government chief Mahmoud Jibril in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was the first Western leader to bask in the gratitude of Gaddafi's opponents, who noted how Sarkozy took a lead in pushing for NATO military intervention. 
 
 Paris, Sarkozy said, will host a "Friends of Libya" summit next Thursday, September 1. It would include Russia and China, both critics of the Western bombing campaign which have been concerned at now losing out on business deals with the rebels. 
 
 France, Britain and the United States were working on a new United Nations resolution to ease sanctions and asset freezes imposed on Libya when Gaddafi was in charge. Rebels also spoke of bringing back workers to restart oil export facilities soon. 
 
 GUNFIRE AND SHORTAGES 
 
 Fighters who swept in to Tripoli at the weekend, uniting several fronts and a variety of opposition groups, were trying to establish order in the city, but faced pockets of resistance and there were signs of looting. Snipers kept up fire from high buildings, including around Gaddafi's compound. Rebels blasted back with anti-aircraft guns mounted on pickup trucks. 
 
 "There are still many snipers in eastern Tripoli," said one rebel fighter. "We'll finish them off but it'll take time." 
 
 Government buildings were being stripped of anything of value. At the Bab al-Aziziyah complex, fighters were still going through buildings and coming out with sniper rifles and ammunition, which they distributed among their ranks. 
 
 Medical supplies, never especially plentiful, were reaching critical levels in many places where some of the hundreds of casualties from the recent fighting were being treated. Shooting in the street also kept doctors away from work. 
 
 "There is a real catastrophe here," said a rebel spokesman. Appeals were made in the streets and mosques for urgent help. There is also a dangerous shortage of blood at hospitals." 
 
 The rebels, many of whom were once supporters of Gaddafi, stressed the wish to work with former loyalists and officials and to avoid the purges of the ousted ruling elite which marked Iraq's descent into sectarian anarchy after 2003. 
 
 Gaddafi's tribal home town of Sirte, on the coast between Tripoli and Benghazi, was still not in the hands of the new leadership who have despatched forces there. Nor was the southern city of Sabha, where the rebels reported fighting. 
 
 But Gaddafi was already history in the eyes of the rebels and their political leaders held high-level talks in Qatar on Wednesday with envoys of the United States, Britain, France, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on the way ahead. 
 
 Another meeting was scheduled for Thursday in Istanbul. 
 
 The fall of Gaddafi, with the arresting images on Arab satellite TV of rebels stomping through his sanctum and laying waste to the props of his power, could invigorate other revolts in the Arab world, such as in Syria where President Bashar al-Assad has launched bloody military crackdowns on protesters. 
 
 (Reporting by Peter Graff, Ulf Laessing, Missy Ryan, Zohra Bensemra and Leon Malherbe in Tripoli, Robert Birsel in Benghazi, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Souhail Karam in Rabat, Richard Valdmanis, Christian Lowe and Giles Elgood in Tunis, Sami Aboudi, Dina Zayed and Tom Pfeiffer in Cairo, writing by Alastair Macdonald, editing by Peter Millership) ||||| The Foreign Secretary said he could not rule out final desperate acts from a regime in its “death throes”. 
 
 The Pentagon also said that US armed forces are monitoring Col Muammar Gaddafi’s chemical weapons sites. 
 
 “You can’t anticipate everything the Gaddafi regime will do. They are a vicious regime,” Mr Hague told the BBC. 
 
 “They are in their death throes. There are people still out there. That’s why we can’t rule out any of those things.” 
 
 He added: “These are still difficult and dangerous times in Libya. There are many weapons out there.” 
 
 Nato chiefs are also braced for Col Gaddafi’s allies firing Scud missiles as a final throw of the dice against towns held by opposition forces. 
 
 Intelligence sources have disclosed that he has up to 240 Scud B missiles that could be fired on civilians in a last ditch act of vengeance. 
 
 At least one Scud missile has already been launched from the Gaddafi stronghold in Sirte on the opposition held town of Misurata but fell off target, possibly into the sea, Nato officials said. 
 
 “The use of such Scud-type missiles presents a threat to civilians,” a Nato spokesman said. “They are a weapon of terror, it is utterly irresponsible.” 
 
 Despite giving up most of his chemical and biological weapons programmes after 2003, Muammar Gaddafi retained stocks of the chemicals required to make mustard gas. 
 
 The components were understood to be at desert sites closely monitored by Western spy satellites. 
 
 It would also be relatively straight-forward to fix chemicals onto the missiles but Gaddafi’s stockpile of mustard gas components is said to very small and likely to be out of date. 
 
 Defence intelligence sources have also disclosed that his chemical warfare stockpile has been kept under very close surveillance since the bombing campaign began and no attempt has been made to move it. 
 
 There is always the possibility that Libyan sleeper cells might have already been inserted into Europe to carry out revenge acts of terrorism using arms taken from Gaddafi’s stores, defence sources said. 
 
 Libya has an estimated 240 of the ballistic missiles in its arsenal, and its “Scud B” model has a range of about 180 miles and carries a warhead that could devastate a city street. 
 
 The Ministry of Defence has had concerns since the bombing campaign began that Gaddafi might use Scuds. 
 
 A significant RAF raid was launched two months ago against a facility that had Scud launchers and rocket fuelling canisters. 
 
 “We have known where mustard gas stockpiles are secured and they are not being accessed,” a MoD source said. “We have kept a very close on them and we would know if they were being opened up.” 
 
 It is understood that out of the 240 rockets only a “few dozen” might be viable to be fired according to defence sources. 
 
 RAF Tornado and Typhoon jets are patrolling the skies ready to respond instantly if Gaddafi attempts to fire Scuds or send armoured vehicles or artillery from outlying garrisons into Tripoli. 
 
 Missile launches are being monitored both from the air and by destroyers patrolling off the coast. 
 
 While Gaddafi did have a number of surface-to-air missile batteries a significant majority have been destroyed. The shoulder launched SAM-7 Grail missiles are in his stockpile but none are thought to have been effective and could also be out-of-date.
– As the battle for Libya nears its endgame, Western nations allied with the rebels fear a desperate Moammar Gadhafi could unleash chemical weapons as his final brutal act. US armed forces are monitoring suspected chemical weapons sites. "They are a vicious regime,” British Foreign Minister William Hague told the BBC. "They are in their death throes. There are people still out there. That’s why we can’t rule out any of those things. There are many weapons out there.” Gadhafi vowed in an audio address today that he will fight on to victory or "martyrdom," and insisted that the loss of his compound to rebels was a "tactical decision," reports Reuters. He called on Libyans to "cleanse" the capital of rebel "devils." Gadhafi gave up most of his chemical and biological weapon stockpiles after 2003, but kept ingredients needed to make mustard gas at desert sites, reports the Telegraph. NATO officials also fear Gadhafi or his supporters could still launch the regime's arsenal of Scud missiles—some 240 of them—on Libya's civilian population or Europe, which Gadhafi threatened last week to strike out against in retaliation for NATO's involvement in the overthrow of his regime. One Scud was fired just days ago from Misrata, but apparently missed its target and fell into the sea.