Updated | Rebels seize Brega, Zawiyah and Zlitan

13:26: In a drive to finally topple Col Muammar Gaddafi and hopefully end a six-month-old war, rebels are fighting battles on both sides of the besieged Libyan capital Tripoli.

Gaddafi’s hold on his Tripoli stronghold shows signs of slipping. Tripoli residents are reported as saying that they believe the Colonel’s flight or ouster could be imminent, adding that the feeling of fear was ebbing in the streets.

“It is much quieter today than yesterday and the day before,” a resident who didn’t want to be identified said. “The situation is getting really tough now.”

Earlier: A rebel military spokesman said former prim minister Abdel Salam Jalloud had arrived with his family in Zintan in the Western Mountains after fleeing Tripoli. “He has left Tripoli. He has joined the rebels,” Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani is reported as saying.

Jalloud is Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s former right-hand man and is said to have defected to the rebel fighters’ side.

Meanwhile, Libyan rebels have reportedly taken control of the oil-rich town of Brega, 50km east of Tripoli.

Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports from Benghazi: "According to sources we have spoken to, both on the front line in Brega and medical sources in the main town of Ajdabiya, that in the last hour, rebel forces have been able to enter and move throughout the town and managed to take control of the important oil and gas facility."

She added: "By all accounts, and from the people we have been speaking to, it would appear that Gaddafi forces have actually pulled back from the city centre and the oil and gas facility. It would appear that the rebels simply walked in to the town and found it abandoned," she said.