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Qantas Airways planes returned to the skies Monday after an Australian court ruled on a bitter labor dispute that had prompted the world’s 10th-largest airline to ground its entire fleet.

A flight from Sydney to Jakarta, Indonesia, took off shortly after Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority gave the “Flying Kangaroo,” as the Australian flag carrier is known, the all-clear to resume flying.

Qantas said in a statement it still expected some delays as it worked to clear the backlog of customers affected by the nearly 48-hour grounding. The airline is adding extra flights and expects its schedule to return to normal within one or two days.

The grounding disrupted the travel plans of tens of thousands of people across the world, and Qantas passengers were gathering at airports in Australia, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the hopes of finally getting to their destinations.

The airline’s resumption of flights comes around 12 hours after an emergency ruling by an arbitration court ended weeks of strikes and canceled a staff lockout.

The court ruling was a major victory in the airline’s battle with unions representing pilots, aircraft mechanics, baggage handlers and caterers, whose rolling strikes have forced the cancellation of 600 flights in recent months, disrupted travel for 70,000 passengers and cost Qantas 70 million Australian dollars ($75 million).

But some aviation experts said the surprise grounding of all 108 planes on Saturday, at a cost of $20 million a day, has hurt the Australian flagship carrier’s reputation around the world. Moody’s Investors Service said it could downgrade the airline’s credit ratings as the weekend’s events could hurt bookings, profits and the value of the Qantas brand.

Still, the stock market welcomed the weekend developments as allowing the airline to focus on its long-term strategy. Qantas shares on Monday jumped 4.3 percent to AU$1.61 on the stock exchange in Sydney.

Henry Harteveldt, an airline industry analyst in San Francisco, predicts the shutdown will do long-term damage to the Qantas name by hurting its reputation for reliability.

“A lot of travelers won’t take a chance and will book away to Virgin Australia, Air New Zealand and other airlines,” Harteveldt said. “Brand loyalty in the airline business is very low, and there is so much competition.”

Before the court ruling, Virgin Australia said it was scheduling extra flights and offering 20 percent fare discounts to help stranded Qantas passengers through Thursday.

If Qantas loses customers, that could also hurt partners in its alliance of global airlines, including American Airlines. A rival alliance that includes Air New Zealand and is led by United Continental Holdings Inc. could benefit, as could a third group of airlines that includes several major Asian carriers and is led by Delta Air Lines Inc. and Air France-KLM.

CEO Alan Joyce praised the court ruling, which prevents unions from taking any further strike action over their demands for pay hikes and job security clauses under news contracts being negotiated. The strikes have been blamed for a sharp decline in the airline’s future bookings.

“The important thing is that all industrial action is now over and we have certainty,” Joyce told reporters in Sydney.

“We will be returning to business as usual over the next 24 hours,” he said.

Other industry veterans said the lockout was a daring move that will pay off for Qantas, which wants to expand the low-cost, low-fare model that it uses at its Jetstar Airways subsidiary business cards design.

Jetstar has extensive routes to Southeast Asia and Japan, and lower costs than Qantas. But Qantas unions fear that expansion of low-cost airlines will result in Australian jobs being sent overseas. Joyce hopes to bend the unions closer to the company’s vision for growth by tapping into Asian markets.

“It was a very shrewd move by their CEO to force the issue and stop the potential deterioration of the brand,” said Mo Garfinkle, an airline consultant who has worked for Qantas rival Virgin Australia. “In the end, it will benefit Qantas financially.”

Garfinkle said the short duration of the fleet grounding will help Qantas get back up to full speed quickly, cutting its losses.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Monday described the grounding as “extreme,” while Transport Minister Tony Albanese has sharply criticized Joyce for giving the government only three hours notice of his plans.

The Australian government, angered by a lack of warning of the grounding, had called an emergency court hearing on Saturday night to end the work bans for the sake of the national economy.

The three judges heard more than 14 hours of testimony from the airline, the government and unions. Workers have held rolling strikes and refused overtime work for weeks out of worry that some of Qantas’ 32,500 jobs would be moved overseas in a restructuring plan.

The unions wanted the court to temporarily suspend the employee lockout so that strike action could resume if negotiations in the labor dispute failed to progress. But the airline said the strikes had devastated the airline’s reputation for reliability and that the threat needed to be removed permanently before customers would return.

Tribunal President Geoffrey Giudice said the panel decided that a temporary suspension would still risk Qantas’ grounding its fleet in the future and would not protect the tourism and aviation industries from damage.

Qantas is the largest of Australia’s four national domestic airlines, and the grounding affected 108 planes in 22 countries.

About 70,000 passengers fly Qantas daily, and would-be fliers this weekend were stuck at home, hotels or airports, or even had to suddenly deplane when Qantas suspended operations. More than 60 flights were in the air at the time but continued to their destinations, and Qantas was paying for passengers to book other flights.

Qantas infuriated unions in August when it said it would improve its loss-making overseas business by creating an Asia-based airline with its own name and brand. The five-year restructure plan will cost 1,000 jobs.

The airline also said in August that it had more than doubled annual profit to AU$250 million but warned that the business environment was too challenging to forecast earnings for the current fiscal year.

Qantas is the 10th-largest airline in the world by passenger miles flown, according to the International Air Transport Association, an airline trade group.

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Associated Press writers David Koenig from Dallas, Texas, and Andrew Dalton from Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Stocks edged between small gains and losses Friday afternoon as traders scrutinized a plan to contain Europe’s debt crisis that sent the market soaring a day earlier.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended up nearly 23 points at 12,231. The Dow surged 339 points the day before, its biggest gain since Aug. 11. The Dow is headed for its biggest monthly gain since 1987.

“It’s a kind of sobering-up after a day of partying,” said Jerry Webman, chief economist with Oppenheimer Funds in New York.

European leaders unveiled a plan early Thursday to expand their regional bailout fund and force banks to keep bigger cash buffers. Banks agreed to forgive half of Greece’s debt. The Dow and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index both gained more than 3 percent.

Optimism ebbed on Friday as analysts raised questions about the plan, which lacks many key details. It is not yet clear how the rescue fund will work, for example. European markets mostly fell, and the euro declined against the dollar.

“We got back to what’s more of a square position, closer to where we want to be, and now we’re going to take a couple of deep breaths and reassess what this really means,” Webman said short term personal loan. He said there are still plenty of obstacles to overcome before the crisis is resolved.

One troubling sign: Borrowing costs for Italy and Spain increased, signaling that traders remain worried about their finances.

The S&P 500 index was up less than a point at 1,285. The Nasdaq composite index slipped a little over a point to 2,737.

The Dow is up 11.9 percent this month, the S&P 13.4 percent. Both indexes are on pace to have their best month since January 1987.

In less than four weeks, the Dow has risen 14.5 percent from its 2011 low, reached on Oct. 3. The S&P has gained 16.6 percent in that time. However, the Dow remains 4.8 percent below this year’s high, reached on April 29. The S&P is 6.1 percent below its high.

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Markets around the world gave the thumbs-up to a new bailout package to solve the European debt crisis Thursday, but there are still plenty of questions about just what it all means, where the money

Enterprise Holdings’ revenue rose to $14.1 billion for its 2011 fiscal year, a record for the privately-held company and a 12 percent increase from 2010.

Clayton-based Enterprise’s brands include Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent a Car. Its fiscal 2010 revenue was $12.6 billion.

For its 2011 fiscal year that ended July 31, Enterprise grew its daily rental fleet by nearly 10 percent, to more than one million vehicles, the company said in a statement payday loans guaranteed no fax. The company had more than $2 billion in corporate travel revenues for fiscal 2011.

Enterprise, which is owned by the family of founder Jack Taylor, does not disclose profit figures.

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Forget style, quality and customer service. This holiday season, all that matters is price.

A week before Halloween and two full months before Christmas, stores are desperately trying to outdo each other in hopes of drawing in customers worn down by the economy.

Wal-Mart, the biggest store in the nation, joined the price wars Monday by announcing that it would give gift cards to shoppers if they buy something there and find it somewhere else cheaper.

Staples and Bed Bath & Beyond have already said they will match the lowest prices of Amazon.com and other big Internet retailers. Sears is going a step further, offering to beat a competitor’s best price by 10 percent.

“The days of marketing the stuff in your store because it was a hot brand are over,” says Dave Ratner, owner of Dave’s Soda & Pet City, a Massachusetts pet food and supplies chain.

For the holidays, Ratner plans to offer 20 percent off pet accessories if customers buy a bag of dog food. Customers, he says, just want a deal.

Almost four years after the onset of the Great Recession, they’ve learned to expect one too. In better times, retailers could afford to keep prices higher and use promises of higher quality and better service to lure people into stores.

Those days are over. In a recent poll of 1,000 shoppers by America’s Research Group, 78 percent said they were more driven by sales than they were a year ago. During the financial meltdown in 2008, that figure was only 68 percent.

Wal-Mart last year went back to its “everyday low prices” roots, a bedrock philosophy of founder Sam Walton, rather than slashing prices only on certain items to draw in customers. Now everyday low prices might not be low enough.

So it’s trying something it is calling the Christmas Price Guarantee. It works this way: If you buy something at Wal-Mart from Nov. 1 to Dec. 25 and find the identical product elsewhere for less, you get a gift card in the amount of the difference.

The deal excludes online prices and some categories of merchandise _ groceries, live plants, tobacco, prescription drugs and wireless devices that require a service agreement. But it is good even if weeks pass between your purchase and spotting the better deal. And it applies even to big items like TVs, for which prices can drop steeply as Christmas approaches.

Duncan MacNaughton, chief merchandising officer for Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores, told reporters Monday that he has noticed “much more promotional intensity and gimmicks” among competitors.

“This gives customers peace of mind that we are an advocate for them,” he said.

Toys R Us’ big book of holiday offers will be packed this year with $8,000 of savings, compared with $5,600 last year, said Bob Friedland, a company spokesman. And it has added an incentive this year: If customers who sign up for its loyalty program spend $200 or more during the holiday season, they will get coupons on toys every month next year.

Retailers are responding to a customer base that is better informed, and more comfortable shopping online, than ever.

Jenna Wahl, a cardiac nurse from Bloomington, Ind., said she expects to spend about as much on holiday gifts this year as last _ roughly $500 _ but will try to get more for her money.

She’ll be asking stores to do more price-matching and plans to use her iPhone to check prices and download coupons.

“I will take things back in order to get the better deal,” she said.

Wal-Mart left online prices out of its Christmas offer, but other stores have decided they may not have that luxury. Staples, for example, is leaving it to the discretion of its store managers to decide whether to match online prices.

Sears’ offer of beating a competitor by 10 percent will not apply to retailers that only do business online, such as Amazon, but will apply to prices that its brick-and-mortar competitors offer on their websites.

The holiday price wars mark an acceleration of a trend that has already swept the retail industry. Lowe’s, the nation’s No. 2 home improvement store, said in August it was starting to focus on everyday low prices for items that customers can easily comparison-shop at rivals like Home Depot and Sears.

And J.C. Penney, the department store chain, said earlier this month that it plans to overhaul its pricing strategy starting in February. So far, it has kept the details a secret.

Wal-Mart stepped up its price matching in April by directing store employees to comb through competitors’ advertisements so price matches at the register would be easier. Wal-Mart’s price match has been around for several years, but it is using it more as a competitive weapon to compete with rivals. It’s launched ads playing up its price matching and has training sales associates to better police prices of local competitors. Customers will still have to ask for the price match.

“Customers have learned to wait on the next big deal because they know that if they wait long enough they can get a lower price than the everyday low price,” Bob Gfeller, Lowe’s executive vice president of merchandising, said to investors in August. “However, we must be vigilant to ensure that our customers perceive us to be priced competitively every day, even against online retailers and smaller category killers.”

Indeed, 64 percent of shoppers polled said that it would take discounts between 30 percent to 50 percent to get them to spend, up from 54 percent last year, according to a recent Citi Investment Research & Analysis survey of a little more than 1,000 customers. Customers looking for 60 percent off as a big motivator to spend increased to 10 percent from 8 percent last year, the survey showed.

Bill Martin, co-founder Shoppertrak, which monitors customer traffic at 25,000 stores nationwide, says retailers are seeing that customers appear in droves when they have big sales for holiday weekends like Black Friday, Memorial Day or Father’s Day. This creates peaks and valleys throughout the year, a trend that hasn’t abated since the recession began in late 2007.

“The reality is consumers are targeted. They’re well informed, and they’ve searched the Internet for price information,” said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, which expects foot traffic to drop 2.2 percent during the holiday season compared with a year ago.

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Folk music legend Pete Seeger and `60s folk singer Arlo Guthrie joined Occupy Wall Street demonstrators Friday in their campaign against corporate greed while residents near the protest park encampment pushed to regain some peace and quiet in their neighborhood.

Seeger joined in the Occupy Wall Street protest Friday night, replacing his banjo with two canes as he marched with throngs of people in New York City’s tony Upper West Side past banks and shiny department stores.

The 92-year-old Seeger, accompanied by musician-grandson Tao Rodriguez Seeger, composer David Amram, and bluesman Guy Davis, shouted out the verses of protest anthems as the crowd of about 1,000 people sang and chanted.

They marched peacefully over more than 30 blocks from Symphony Space, where the Seegers and other musicians performed, to Columbus Circle. Police watched from the sidelines.

Occupy Wall Street began a month ago in lower Manhattan among a few young people, and has grown to tens of thousands around the country and the world. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll says more than one-third of the country supports the Wall Street protesters, and even more _ 58 percent _ say they are furious about America’s politics.

But the encampment at Zuccotti Park has become more than a tolerable nuisance, some neighborhood residents say. At a meeting Thursday, they complained of protesters urinating in the streets and beating drums in the middle of the night. Some called for the protesters to vacate the park.

The area’s community board voted unanimously for a resolution that recognized the protesters’ First Amendment rights while calling for a crackdown on noise and public urination and defecation.

U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and state Sen. Daniel Squadron said in a statement that the resolution was “an attempt to establish a sensible framework that respects the protesters’ fundamental rights while addressing the very real quality of life concerns for residents and businesses around Zuccotti Park.”

Asked about Occupy Wall Street on WOR Radio on Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the protesters’ leaderless structure has made it difficult to negotiate with them.

Occupy Wall Street spokesman Han Shan, who has served as a liaison between protesters and local elected officials, agreed the protesters needed to be better neighbors. Shan, who attended the meeting, promised to limit the noise.

At Columbus Circle, Seeger and friends walked to the chant of “We are the 99 percent” and “We are unstoppable; another world is possible.” Seeger stopped to bang a metal statue of an elephant with his cane _ to cheers from the crowd.

At the center of the plaza, Seeger and Amram were joined by Guthrie in a round of “We Shall Overcome,” a protest anthem made popular by Seeger.

After more singing, Seeger asked for a mic check to tell the crowd: “The words are simple: I could be happy spending my days on the river that flows both way-ay-ays.”

During the march, the younger Seeger, in troubadour fashion like his grandfather, walked among the protesters playing songs. Amra took up a flute and others enlivened the night protest with the sounds of the accordion, banjos, and guitars.

At the front of the throng, marchers held American flags and a large blue flag that said: “Revolution Generation … Debt is Slavery.” Along the way, the crowd sang protest songs made popular or written by Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and others of the protest era.

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Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

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Enormous oil wealth lies thousands of feet below Libya, but whether it will be claimed, and by whom, now that Moammar Gadhafi is gone is very much an open question.

Drilling and shipping equipment has been damaged in the Libyan civil war, land mines must be cleared around oil fields, and a legal framework for how oil money is collected and distributed must still be worked out.

Whatever government is formed could open vast regions of Libya for drilling at reasonable terms _ or it could demand that foreign oil companies pay exorbitant royalties or require them to build infrastructure in exchange for access to oil.

Libya sits on the biggest reserves of oil in Africa. Those resources could help Libya recover from Gadhafi’s decades-long corruption and the civil war. Or the oil could be kept out of reach by political chaos, crumbling infrastructure or violence.

“It’s extraordinary how the Gadhafi regime squandered so much oil wealth and left it a deprived country in terms of infrastructure,” says Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS CERA, an energy research firm, and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry. “The country will need oil revenues to rebuild and recover.”

The oil industry had already begun to recover in recent months, especially in parts of the country where fighting had long since stopped. Libya is producing about a quarter of the 1.6 million barrels per day of oil it pumped out before the war.

Gadhafi’s death reduces the threat of further fighting in other parts of the country, especially the west and south, where the country’s most important oil fields are. In the best outcome, the national oil company and international companies will soon be able to return to those fields, repair equipment and get oil flowing again.

Analysts say it will take about a year for the country to return to full oil production, but many uncertainties remain.

The country has the potential to someday produce much more oil than it has in recent years, but the oil industry could languish if Libya’s dozens of tribes can’t form a representative government and the country falls into chaos.

The first and most important step is to establish security, experts say. International oil companies with a presence there won’t bring in engineers to assess damage to oil fields and pipelines until they are reasonably sure their workers will be safe.

Gadhafi loyalists are thought to have planted land mines around critical oil infrastructure. Thousands of shoulder-fired missile systems have disappeared from Libyan weapons depots and could be in the hands of Gadhafi loyalists or insurgents.

“If you want to cripple the state, you attack its biggest source of revenue,” says Helima Croft, an analyst for Barclays.

Next, the country must set up a system for oil companies to negotiate contracts for finding, retrieving and selling oil. At least in the interim, it appears that a government oil minister will set policy, such as how much oil companies must pay to extract Libyan oil, and the head of the national oil company will oversee operations.

But the details will probably remain in flux until an interim government can be established. Until then, oil companies can’t be sure that their existing contracts in Libya will remain in effect, although the head of the national oil company has said contracts will be honored at least for a while. It would be up to an elected government to determine whether the contracts would be revised.

What’s most important, analysts say, is that oil companies feel assured that whatever terms are set will not change in the future. Otherwise, they will never agree to spend tens of billions of dollars to repair fields and infrastructure and restore production. Some of the nation’s oil fields, pipelines, refineries and shipping terminals are in relatively good repair, but others are badly damaged.

In general, though, analysts say infrastructure in Libya is in better shape than once feared.

“What we haven’t seen is oil fields blazing,” says Jon Marks, an Africa and Middle East expert with London-based consulting firm Cross-border Information.

Major international oil companies that operated in the country before the civil war, such as Italy’s Eni and Spain’s Repsol, are beginning to assess the situation and restore production in the oil fields offshore and in Libya’s east, long held by anti-Gadhafi forces.

But international oil companies have yet to assess oil fields in the south and west, which produce most of the nation’s oil. U.S. companies that were active in Libya before the war, including Hess Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp. have not returned workers to the country.

Nuri Berruien, the head of the national oil company, told The Associated Press earlier this month that most of the damage appears to be from corrosion. Some older oil fields, such as those of the Sirte basin, require water or natural gas injection to maintain pressure in the reservoir, and that has not been done for more than six months.

Two important oil terminals, which are needed to export oil, are said to be severely damaged, but another is said to have suffered little damage. Also, looters have made off with essential oil field equipment such as power generators, pumps and trucks.

And there are other issues. Many of the country’s most experienced and senior oil engineers are seen by workers as Gadhafi loyalists. At one field, workers are refusing to work until these top engineers are removed.

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AP Business Writers Tarek El-Tablawy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Alan Clendenning in Madrid, and Adam Schreck in Dubai contributed to this story.

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Wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB on Thursday reported a 4 percent rise in third-quarter profit as strong mobile broadband sales and increased market share offset weaker margins.

Ericsson said third-quarter net profit rose to 3.8 billion kronor ($574 million) from 3.7 billion kronor in the same period a year ago. Sales for the July-September period were particularly buoyant, increasing 17 percent to 55.5 billion kronor.

Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg said sales were driven by a continued strong demand for mobile broadband as well as increased services revenues.

“Our performance year-to-date reaffirms our indications of a strengthened global market share,” he said.

However, the increased share of services business, as well as a higher proportion of coverage projects and accelerating network modernization projects in Europe had a negative impact on the company’s gross margin, which decreased to 35 percent from 39 percent a year ago.

Greger Johansson, an analyst with research firm Redeye, said the margin was weaker than expected, which could lead to a slightly negative reaction in the stock market Faxless payday loans.

“The positive thing is that both sales and profits were clearly better than expected,” Johansson said. “The negative is the gross margin and the fact the company indicates it will remain weak going forward.”

He said the low-margin modernization projects in Europe also weighed on the result of Ericsson’s “most important segment,” networks.

The company also said the effects on its supply chain from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March had run their course.

Looking ahead, the company said it “cannot exclude somewhat more cautious short-term operator spending,” considering the economic uncertainties in parts of the world.

Ericsson is the world leader in rolling out and upgrading mobile network infrastructure as the world’s wireless users grow in number, boosting demand for ever-faster network speeds. Its biggest competitors are China’s Huawei and Finnish-German joint venture Nokia Siemens.

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U.S. homebuilders are a less pessimistic about the struggling housing market, but not enough to signal a recovery any time soon.

The National Association of Home Builders said Tuesday that its index of builder sentiment this month rose from 14 to 18. The index has been below 20 for all but one month during the past two years.

Any reading below 50 indicates negative sentiment about the housing market. It hasn’t reached 50 since April 2006, the peak of the housing boom.

Last year, the number of people who bought new homes fell to its lowest level dating back nearly a half-century. Sales this year haven’t fared much better.

Builders are struggling to compete with foreclosures, which have made the price of previously occupied homes more competitive. Many buyers are having difficulty obtaining loans or meeting higher down payment requirements. Low appraisals are scuttling some deals after contracts have been signed. Some buyers want to upgrade to a new house but are holding off because they can’t sell their home.

David Crowe, the builders group’s chief economist, said some builders are shifting their assessment from “poor” to “fair,” but few are changing their views from “fair” to “good.”

While new homes make up a small portion of sales, they have an outsize impact on the economy. The builders’ trade group says each new home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes.

Separate gauges of current single-family home sales and foot traffic of prospective buyers increased four and three points each, to 18 and 14, respectively. A survey of sales expectations over the next six months rose seven points, to 24.

An index of builders’ outlook in the West rose nine points, to 21. The Midwest and South rose 4 points, to 15 and 19, respectively. The Northeast was unchanged at 15.

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Libyan revolutionary forces bulldozed the green walls surrounding Moammar Gadhafi’s main Tripoli compound on Sunday, saying it was time “to tear down this symbol of tyranny.”

The sprawling, fortress-like compound known as Bab al-Aziziya has long been hated by Libyans who feared to even walk nearby during Gadhafi’s more than four decades in power and its capture was seen as a turning point in the civil war as revolutionaries overran the capital in late August.

Ahmad Ghargory, commander of a revolutionary brigade, said the area will be turned into a public park accessible to all Libyans.

“It’s the revolutionary decision to tear down this symbol of tyranny,” Ghargory said. “We were busy with the war, but now we have the space to do this.”

Already, the courtyard in front of Gadhafi’s former house, which he used for many fiery speeches trying to rally supporters during the uprising, has been turned into a weekly pet market. Tripoli residents roam the premises as if at a museum, with vendors selling revolutionary flags and other souvenirs.

Libyans are eager to move on after decades of repression, even though fighting persists on two fronts and tensions between supporters of the former regime and revolutionary forces remain high _ even in Tripoli. The continued instability has delayed efforts by the transitional leadership to move forward with efforts to hold elections and establish democracy.

The Bab al-Aziziya compound, surrounded by high walls lined with barbed wire, had been a mystery to most Libyans though it is one of the city’s largest landmarks. Many Tripoli residents said they wouldn’t go near it, fearing security guards on the compound’s high green walls would get suspicious and arrest or shoot them.

“I cannot explain these feelings,” Farouk Alzeni, 25, said, standing against a backdrop of piles of rubble. “I have never touched this wall because of this place’s heavy security.”

The compound was a main target for NATO airstrikes during the months leading to Gadhafi’s ouster in late August.

Fighters forced their way into the area on Aug. 23 during the battle for the capital, jubilantly rampaging through the remnants of barracks, personal living quarters and offices seen as the most defining symbol of Gadhafi’s nearly 42-year rule.

Gadhafi’s residence, now gutted and covered with graffiti, was also targeted in a U.S. bombing raid in April 1986, after Washington held Libya responsible for a blast at a Berlin disco that killed two U.S. servicemen. A sculpture of a clenched fist crushing a U.S. fighter jet that had been erected after the strike has been removed.

Gadhafi entertained guests in a Bedouin-style tent pitched near two tennis courts about 200 yards (meters) from the family home.

“All the bad things that happened, happened inside these walls credit reports free. And he kept his mercenaries and tortured people inside these walls,” said Tarek Saleh, a 25-year-old revolutionary. “Before we were never able to enter this site, and we’re tearing these walls down so we don’t have to remember those dark days.”

Revolutionary forces have squeezed Gadhafi loyalists into one main district in his hometown of Sirte after weeks of fighting, but some said fears of friendly fire as well as a lack of coordination and communications were slowing their advance. Fighters from the eastern city of Benghazi and Misrata to the west were trying to reorganize themselves to solve that problem.

“We have them cornered in a 900 by 700 meter area, but the fighting is difficult because we are worried about firing on our own forces, they are mixed together,” Benghazi field commander Khaled al-Magrabi said Sunday.

Commanders said they have agreed to divide the remaining loyalist area between them to prevent confusion.

Libyan fighters also faced discord over the looting of buildings, including the airport and houses in Sirte, on the coast 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli. Trucks were seen carting off tractors, industrial generators and heavy machinery on the road from Sirte to nearby Misrata, which was under siege by Gadhafi forces for months and saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Associated Press reporters also saw trucks carrying equipment from Sirte’s airport, including red-carpeted mobile staircases, baggage carts, airplane towing vehicles and security screening equipment, all apparently meant for Misrata’s badly damaged airport.

Smaller pickups were loaded with rugs, freezers, refrigerators, furniture and other household goods, apparently taken by civilians and fighters to be used in their homes or resold.

The looting was an indication that reconciliation and unity may be difficult to achieve in post-Gadhafi Libya.

Commanders tried to rein in looting by ordering fighters to refrain from entering private homes and to detain anybody not authorized to be in the area. Benghazi fighters arrested three men for looting on Saturday.

Revolutionary forces also distributed fliers at checkpoints leading into the city that read, “Dear Muslims, avoid God’s wrath. Do not steal from people’s homes, their cars, or take their personal possessions.”

Fighting also raged in the desert enclave of Bani Walid, 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli.

An official with revolutionary forces there, Abdullah Kenshil, said they captured the airport in Bani Walid on Sunday, but further advance was stalled by heavy shelling from Gadhafi’s forces elsewhere.

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