TRIPOLI (AFP) -- Libyan leader Moamer Gadhafi and his family are still in Tripoli, where his troops were engaged in fierce fighting with rebels outside his compound on Tuesday, his son Seif al-Islam said.

"Gadhafi and the entire family are in Tripoli," Seif told reporters at the Rixos hotel in the capital where many foreign journalists are housed.

He declined to give the precise location of the embattled strongman but his comments mark the first indication by the family of his whereabouts since rebel forces surged into the capital on Sunday.

Seif also said that the regime's forces had deliberately not tried to prevent the rebels from entering the capital.

"Allowing the rebels to enter Tripoli was a trick," he said, without elaborating.

NATO, meanwhile, said Gadhafi was "not a target" for the military alliance.

"NATO does not target individuals," said Operation Unified Protector spokesman, Colonel Roland Lavoie.

"Gadhafi does not constitute a target," he told reporters in Brussels via video-conference from the mission's Naples headquarters.