Libyan revolutionaries step up Sirte bombing

First, they targeted his regime. Now, it's his home.

On Sunday in Libya, bulldozers began tearing down Muammar Qaddafi's sprawling, fortress-like compound called Bab al-Aziziya. Opposition forces say it's the symbolic heart of Qaddafi's regime.

CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports they plan to replace it with a park.

Elsewhere, the battle for Sirte has moved to a new phase. Unable to storm the last bastion of Qadaffi's loyalists, ex-rebel forces are trying to blast the area into submission.

To avoid shooting at each other, brigades from east and west take their turns firing, using different weapons from different positions on a random schedule.

This ebb and flow follows no discernible pattern or logic, which means that any civilians trapped in Sirte - and there are believed to be several thousand - must run desperate risks if they wish to escape.

Massoud Atiga, 97, is blind and deaf. His son Mufta could have escaped from Sirte.

"My father needs care," Mufta says, "and there was nowhere to take him."

So in an act that gives new meaning to family ties, the son stayed on in the middle of a war to be with his father to the end.

In the midst of total deprivation, it's possible to find the most elemental bond. Nasreen, three weeks old, was born under bombardment. She and her mother, Easa, reached safety as rebels overran their neighborhood, only to find themselves looked on as the enemy.

Try to imagine how it feels when all that's left of your life is in a cheap bag, pawed through by strange men looking for weapons.

Whatever they left behind probably looks ruined, homes blasted to bits by shells and incessant gunfire, then trashed and even looted.

The escapees from Sirte have been in a time warp; No electricity meant no news beyond the madness that rained down on them.

But what they did know is too terrible for us to imagine.