NORTH OF BANI WALID, Libya (Reuters) - Fighters representing Libya's new rulers encircled and entered Bani Walid, one of the last towns loyal to ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi Friday, and fought with gunmen in street-to-street battles. Libya's interim rulers had set a Saturday deadline for several holdout towns to surrender, but fighters surrounding Bani Walid, 150 km southeast of Tripoli, decided to go in early saying they wanted to protect civilians. "They (anti-Gaddafi fighters) are in the north of the city fighting snipers, we have also entered from the east," senior National Transitional Council official Abdallah Kanshil said, adding that they had also made their way in from the south. He estimated loyalist forces at around 600 men, saying pro-Gaddafi reinforcements must have been recently sent to the town. "People are very afraid, that is why we have to go in," he said, adding they were not aiming for a "full-scale war" and had not received orders from central NTC command to enter the town. There was heavy fighting outside Bani Walid earlier on Friday and Kanshil said Gaddafi forces had been firing rockets and cluster bombs there. Meanwhile, de facto Libyan premier Mahmud Jibril has warned the hardest battles still lie ahead as his fighters came under counter-attack Friday in their offensive on Moamer Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte. And while world police body Interpol called for the fugitive Gaddafi's arrest for crimes against humanity, following a request by the International Criminal Court, there were reports a number of his generals had fled Libya. Meanwhile, a source from Niger's ethnic Tuareg community said Friday that a number of Libyan generals loyal to Gaddafi are now in Burkina Faso having passed through Niger.