TRIPOLI, Libya \u2014 Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi remained at large Monday morning, and loyalist forces still held pockets of the city, stubbornly resisting the rebels\u2019 efforts to establish full control after their astonishingly speedy advance into the capital appeared to signal the end of the Libyan leader\u2019s four-decade grip on power.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not know if he is inside or outside Libya,\u201d Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the rebel government, the National Transitional Council, said of Colonel Qaddafi at a news conference in Benghazi, up until now the de facto rebel capital. He acknowledged, too, that the area of Tripoli around Colonel Qaddafi\u2019s compound, Bab al-Aziziya, was not under rebel control.<\/p>\n
Explosions and the sound of mortars could still be heard Monday morning, and a rebel fighter told Al Jazeera television that pro-Qaddafi forces still controlled 15 to 20 percent of the capital. An elite rebel brigade that was supposed to establish a police presence throughout the city instead found itself involved in a firefight with pro-Qaddafi forces.<\/p>\n
News reports quoting rebel officials said tanks had emerged from Colonel Qaddafi\u2019s compound and opened fire. \u201cThere haven\u2019t been many silent minutes,\u201d Karen Graham, a British nurse in Tripoli told the BBC.<\/p>\n
But as rebel leaders said they had arrested three sons of Colonel Qaddafi, the European Union said on Monday that it had begun planning for a post-Qaddafi era. Financial markets rose smartly in Europe and the United States, and oil prices declined early on the expectation of increased Libyan production, but firmed later in the day. <\/p>\n