TRIPOLI: Tripoli residents spent Monday jubilant yet fearful, asking for weapons to join rebels in their cat-and-mouse war with loyalists who have besieged the city with snipers and drive-by shootings.

Tripoli’s battle-scarred streets were all but empty the day after rebels made a lightning advance on the capital to drive out defiant leader Moammar Gadhafi.

But rebel checkpoints were sparse, indicating they had not yet taken full control of the city, as they awaited the arrival of thousands more fighters from already captured parts of the country.

The drab city’s concrete walls have been daubed with anti-Gadhafi and pro-revolutionary graffiti, demanding freedom for Libya and an end to the leader many people in Libya consider insane.

There was confusion over whether to travel quickly on the main thoroughfares, exposed to snipers in tall buildings, or slowly through the warren of tiny streets, without knowing what awaits around the next corner.

Traveling across the city was extremely difficult, with snipers, mortars and heavy machine guns echoing down sunlit streets.

Among the high-rise buildings along the corniche, a lone cyclist braved the sniper fire, possibly acting as a scout, as the whistle of bullets cut through the silent city.

Civilians were exhausted after staying up most of Sunday night, enjoying the food, drink and cigarettes that they must resist during daylight hours of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, despite the burning heat.

People in the southwestern Gorji neighborhood, near where Gadhafi’s son Mohammad lives, said they welcomed the rebel fighters when they entered the city Sunday.

“The rebels from the mountains and from Zawiyah are now in Martyrs’ Square [formerly Green Square] and the surrounding streets,” said Gorji resident Saad Zaidi, who just returned from celebrations in the center of town.

“But there are African snipers from Chad in the Old City, and sometimes you can hear mortars falling. But we don’t know where they’re being fired from,” he added.

At the Rixos hotel in central Tripoli used by foreign media, power and water supplies were cut Monday afternoon. Hotel staff had abandoned their posts but gunmen going in and out said they were providing security.

Gorji residents like Abdel Rahman Bin Jama, whose neighborhood sheltered and treated a team of AFP journalists that came under sniper attack, just wanted to join the fight.

“I don’t have a weapon but we protect the neighborhood because it’s ours. We don’t have enough weapons, but we all want weapons to get rid of the dictator. Everyone here is a fighter,” said Bin Jama.

“Even the women give us emotional support and they are so happy about what is going on now. You won’t find anyone here who supports Gadhafi.”

Residents, both armed and unarmed, were tense and jumpy about the uncertain situation yet happy about what they saw as Gadhafi’s inevitable exit.

“Gorji was the first neighborhood that made anti-Gadhafi demonstrations, we’ve had 100 people arrested since the start of the revolution, but we haven’t had any news from them yet,” said Gorji resident Abubakr Wnees.

Residents say that they know who supports Gadhafi, but do not want retribution. “We know exactly who is with us and who is with Gadhafi … We’ve just told them to stay at home.”