TRIPOLI: Algeria on Tuesday defended its decision to give shelter to Moammar Gadhafi's wife and three children, as angry Libyan rebels who toppled the longtime strongman demanded they be returned for trial.

On the battlefield, the rebels, who are moving in for the kill against pockets of resistance in Tripoli and other Gadhafi strongholds, including his hometown Sirte, offered a respite until Saturday to mark the Muslim Eid al-Fitr feast.

If pro-Gadhafi forces did not surrender by then they would face a military onslaught, National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil told reporters in rebel stronghold Benghazi

Algerian foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani told AFP the decision to allow Gadhafi's wife Safiya, daughter Aisha and sons Mohammed and Hannibal to cross into the country on Monday was based solely on humanitarian concerns.

"These people have been admitted to Algeria for strictly humanitarian reasons," Belani said, adding that U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council and number two leader of the rebels' NTC, Mahmud Jibril, had been informed.

Just hours after crossing over, daughter Aisha gave birth to a girl, Algerian authorities announced Tuesday.

The NTC, already at odds with Algiers for its refusal to recognize it as the legitimate authority in Libya, had reacted angrily when news broke Monday that some of their quarry had fled.

"We'd like those persons to come back," NTC spokesman Mahmud Shammam said in Tripoli, adding that Algeria had given the family members "a pass" to enter a third country.

"Saving Gadhafi's family is not an act we welcome and understand," Shammam told a press conference in Tripoli.

"We can assure our neighbors that we want better relations with them ... but we are determined to arrest and try the Gadhafi family and Gadhafi himself," Shammam went on, saying the rebels guaranteed a "fair trial."

So far Algeria has not recognized the NTC and has adopted a stance of strict neutrality on the Libyan conflict, leading some among the rebels to accuse it of supporting the Gadhafi regime.

There has been no word on the whereabouts of Gadhafi himself, who went into hiding when rebel forces overran his Tripoli headquarters a week ago.

Italian news agency ANSA, citing "authoritative Libyan diplomatic sources," said he and his sons Saadi and Seif al-Islam were holed-up in the town of Bani Walid, south of the capital Tripoli.

Rebel Libyan justice minister Mohammed al-Allagy told AFP that Gadhafi's youngest son Khamis, whose death has been announced several times since Libya's conflict erupted but never confirmed, may have been killed south of Tripoli and buried on Monday.

Khamis, 28, commanded a brigade seen as the most effective and loyal force of the Libyan leader.

The rebels, meanwhile, on Tuesday issued a Saturday deadline for cities still held by forces loyal to Gadhafi to throw in the towel or face a military onslaught.

Abdel Jalil told a Benghazi press conference that talks were under way with officials in towns including Sirte to arrange their peaceful surrender.

"This window of opportunity will be closed at the end of Eid al-Fitr (Friday in Libya)," Abdel Jalil said, referring to the three-day feast marking the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.

"From Saturday, if no peaceful solution is in sight on the ground, we will resort to military force," Abdel Jalil said.

NATO said on Tuesday its warplanes have fired a new barrage of bombs against Gadhafi forces holed up in Sirte, 360 kilometers (225 miles) east of Tripoli.

The Western alliance said it destroyed 22 vehicles mounted with weapons, four radars, three command and control nodes, one anti-aircraft missile system and one surface-to-air missile system in the town's vicinity on Monday.

NATO also struck two military supply vehicles, one command post and one military facility.

Rebel reinforcements were arriving on Tuesday at Bin Jawad, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Sirte, an AFP reporter said.

Occasional explosions could be heard from near Nofilia, a desert hamlet just inland from Bin Jawad, while rebel T-55 tanks and armored vehicles rumbled towards the front line, taking up positions in the sand dunes.

Nofilia was seized by the rebels on Monday, sparking celebrations among the rebels.

"Tomorrow (Tuesday), God willing, we will continue our advance. Their morale is rock bottom," a rebel commander said of Gadhafi loyalists.

Other rebel fighters had moved to within 30 kilometers of Sirte from the west and were awaiting the reinforcements, rebel commander Mohammed al-Fortiya, told AFP on Sunday.

In Geneva, the UN rights chief expressed alarm Tuesday at reports of "mass summary executions" in Libya mostly carried out by Gadhafi's forces in the dying days of his rule.

A rebel military chief had said that pro-Gadhafi forces killed more than 150 prisoners as they fled the rebel takeover of Tripoli.

Charred skeletons of some 50 people were seen by an AFP reporter in a makeshift prison next to a Libyan military base abandoned by Gadhafi's elite troops.

"We are extremely alarmed by the emerging reports of atrocious violations in Libya, including what appear to be mass summary executions, mostly apparently carried out by the forces of the Gadhafi government during the last few days before they lost Tripoli," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.