Reports: Libyan rebels take fight to Tripoli

Updated at 6:00 p.m. EST

Taking advantage of punishing NATO airstrikes and recent ground gains, Libya's rebels have made a push to the country's capital for the first time in the six-month-old uprising seeking to unseat longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

Col. Fadlallah Haroun, a rebel military commander in their stronghold of Benghazi said this marks the beginning of Operation Mermaid - a nickname for the capital city - an assault on Tripoli coordinated with NATO.

Haroun told The Associated Press that weapons were assembled and sent by tugboats to Tripoli on Friday night.

"The fighters in Tripoli are rising up in two places at the moment - some are in the Tajoura neighborhood and the other is near the Matiga (international) airport," he told the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

State TV has called the fighting the result of "small groups of a few dozen" rebels sneaking into the capital, Reuters reports.

There was heavy two-way gunfire and mortar shelling in Tripoli, and rounds were fired close to a hotel where foreign journalists have been staying in the capital, the AP reports.