The leaders instructed fighters from the provinces to go home as they prepared to transfer to the capital from their wartime base in Benghazi.
Libya's new leaders moved to restore order to Tripoli on Saturday, instructing fighters from the provinces to go home as they prepared to transfer to the capital from their wartime base in Benghazi.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the world body stood ready to assist in re-establishing security after the nearly seven-month uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi as Western governments that backed the rebels faced embarrassing questions about their previous complicity with his regime.
There was still no firm word on the whereabouts of the toppled strongman after he defiantly threatened to lead a protracted insurgency in audio tapes aired by Arab media on Thursday.
The victorious rebels extended until next weekend an ultimatum for the surrender of his remaining loyalists.
"Starting Saturday, there will be a large number of security personnel and policemen who will go back to work," interim interior and security minister Ahmed Darrad said.
"Now the revolutionaries of Tripoli are able to protect their own city."
Darrad said rebel fighters from the provinces who were instrumental in ousting Gaddafi from the capital had orders to return home in a move aimed at defusing potential tensions with Tripoli residents who endured the ravages of the regime in its dying days.
The head of the rebels' provisional government, the National Transitional Council, told dignitaries in Libya's second city of Benghazi, where the uprising, began that it would transfer its headquarters to the capital in the coming days as it moved to return the North African nation to normality.
"We will go to Tripoli next week. Tripoli is our capital," NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil said.
Bolstered by promises made at an international conference in Paris on Thursday of billions of dollars in cash from unfrozen assets of the Gaddafi regime, the NTC prepared to implement a roadmap for establishing democracy.
A body tasked with drafting a constitution should be elected within eight months and a government within 20 months, NTC representative in Britain Guma al-Gamaty told the BBC on Friday.
For the first eight months the NTC would lead Libya, during which a council of about 200 people would be directly elected, Gamaty said, referring to plans drawn up in March and refined last month.
"This council... will take over and oversee the drafting of a democratic constitution, that should be debated and then brought to a referendum," he added.
Within a year of the council being installed, parliamentary and presidential elections would be held.
The UN chief said that the world body would do all it could to assist Libya's new rulers in restoring order and establishing democracy.
"We are working to make sure that the United Nations can respond quickly to requests by the Libyan authorities," Ban said in Australia Saturday.
"This includes restoring public security and order and promoting rule of law, promoting inclusive political dialogue... and protecting human rights, particularly for vulnerable groups."
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