Libyan rebels say they now control nearly all of the country but long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi remains elusive and defiant - claiming in an audio message that he had felt completely safe during an early morning walkabout in Tripoli.
Colonel Abdullah Abu Afara, a rebel military coordinator, said the fall of Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound on Tuesday "signalled the end of the Gaddafi regime".
However, the compound once again came under fire from Gaddafi supporters, who shelled it from the neighbouring district of Bu Salim, as fighting continued in the south of the capital, broadcaster al-Jazeera reported.
"Remnants of the Gaddafi Battalions are firing shells indiscriminately," rebel spokesman Abu Bakr al-Musrati told al-Jazeera.
"They constantly change their places so that the revolutionaries will not keep track of them."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Wednesday that an international conference on the future of Libya would take place on September 1 in Paris, following a visit from the second-in-command of Libyan's Transitional National Council, Mahmoud Jibril.
There were reports early on Thursday of heavy fighting around the Tripoli airport, including the use of truck-mounted rocket arrays.
One aircraft on the ground was struck and in flames, broadcaster CNN reported.
Witnesses reported hearing machine gun fire on Wednesday near Tripoli's Rixos Hotel, where foreign reporters were eventually allowed to walk free after being trapped inside for five days.
Pro-Gaddafi fighters attacked the town of Ajelat, west of Tripoli, with missiles and tanks, al-Arabiya reported.
Forces loyal to Gaddafi were still holed up in some areas of Tripoli.
The rebels were reportedly negotiating with tribal chiefs in Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown, to enter the city without fighting.
Four Italian journalists covering the Libyan conflict have been kidnapped, the Italian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday in Rome.
According to Italian media reports, the four were travelling between Zawiya and Tripoli when they were attacked by Gaddafi forces. Their driver was killed, Bruno Tucci of the Italian journalist guild was quoted as saying.
One of the journalists, Claudio Monici of Avvenire, was allowed to make a phone call in which he said the four were all "fine".
The other three journalists were reporting for Milan daily Corriere della Sera and Turin's La Stampa.
Earlier on Wednesday, two French journalists were wounded while covering the fighting around Gaddafi's compound.
Both men were hospitalised in Tripoli with non-life-threatening gunshots, al-Arabiya satellite channel said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Gaddafi exhorted his supporters and claimed to have been moving around Tripoli in disguise after rebels seized the city. "I walked a little in Tripoli without anybody seeing me.
And I did not feel I was in danger," Gaddafi said in his second audio message of the day, broadcast on television station al-Rai. "All Libyans - men and women - should now be in Tripoli to cleanse it of traitors."
In an earlier message, Gaddafi pledged "martyrdom or victory" after rebels captured his compound.
A Tripoli radio station quoted Gaddafi as saying he had abandoned his Bab al-Aziziya compound as a "tactical move after the compound was levelled by 64 NATO airstrikes".
Libyan rebels had captured Gaddafi's home after three days of fighting.
Footage showed the rebels standing where the leader once used to position himself while giving his speeches.
They were seen destroying a statue of Gaddafi and kicking its head. While there were claims that Gaddafi may be hiding in southern Tripoli, his whereabouts remained unknown, prompting the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) to offer $US1.7 million ($A1.63 million) bounty for his capture.
The opposition council promised to pardon anyone who killed the embattled leader. Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said loyalists were ready to resist for months and even years. In a telephone interview with al-Orouba and al-Rai television stations, he said Gaddafi was ready to turn the North African country into "volcanoes, lava and fire".
Sarkozy said that the Paris conference would be more inclusive than the Libya Contact Group - a group of countries involved in the military campaign against Gaddafi - and would include UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon as well as the leadership of the rebel council.
China, Brazil, India and Russia are among the additional powers invited to the Paris conference.
Jibril appealed for France's help in securing the release of frozen Libyan assets held overseas.
France and Britain said on Wednesday they were working with the United Nations to secure the release of billions of dollars in assets, frozen in line with a UN sanctions resolution in March.
"The money in Mr Gaddafi's coffers must serve the Libyan people," Sarkozy said. In Washington, the US State Department said that it was working to legally provide an "initial tranche" of more than $US1 billion ($A956.85 million) - out of $US30 billion ($A28.71 billion) in frozen regime assets - to the rebel council as it seeks to begin governing all of Libya, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
"Our preference is to get this done in the (UN) Sanctions Committee.
Under the Sanctions Committee's own charter, there are ways to get money released for urgent humanitarian needs.
That's been the focus of our effort over the last weeks and days," she said. "If that is not possible ... we will seek other means to get this money released. ... It's been in planning a long time.
We still think it's important to get it to the TNC for the use of the Libyan people in the next couple of days."
