Muammar Gaddafi is dead,'fighters drag body'

Muammar Gaddafi is dead

Muammar Gaddafi was killed on Thursday as Libya's new leaders declared they had overrun the last bastion of his long rule, sparking wild celebrations that eight months of war may finally be over.

Details of the death near Sirte of the fallen strongman were hazy but it was announced by several officials of the National Transitional Council (NTC) and backed up by a photograph of a bloodied face ringed by familiar, Gaddafi-style curly hair.

"He was killed in an attack by the fighters. There is footage of that," the NTC's information minister, Mahmoud Shammam, told Reuters.

Western powers, who have backed the rebellion which took the capital Tripoli two months ago, said they were still checking. NATO said its aircraft fired on a convoy near Sirte earlier, but would not confirm reports that Gaddafi had been a passenger.

Several NTC fighters in Sirte said they had seen Gaddafi shot dead, though their accounts varied.

With a final declaration of the country's "liberation" from 42 years of one-man rule apparently imminent, and crowds firing in the air and dancing in the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi, Libyan television said NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil was about to address the nation.

The toppled despot is thought to have fled his car after his speeding convoy fleeing his Sirte stronghold was attacked in a NATO airstrike at 6am UK time.

Two fighter jets attacked the vehicles as they fled the Sirte assault, although neither of the planes that struck the convoy was flown by the RAF.

Another two-plane formation of British Tornado ground attack aircraft were on surveillance and reconnaissance missions over Libya at the time.

As the NATO strike on Gaddafi’s convoy hit the lead vehicles his aides started trying to exit from cars and escape on foot, realising the game was up.

Then as Gaddafi and several aides tried to run into the safety of a drainage ditch they were shot dead by rebel fighters pursuing them on foot.

Libya’s national Transitional Council vice-chairman Abdul Hafiz Ghoga told a news conference in Benghaz: “We announce to the world that Muammar Gaddafi has been killed at the hands of the revolutionaries.

“We will announce the liberation of Libya within hours, maybe sooner.”

It was initially reported that Gaddafi had been wounded and taken into custody by ambulance but witnesses said he was found cowering in a concrete pipe, pleading for his life.
The toppled despot is thought to have fled his car after his speeding convoy fleeing his Sirte stronghold was attacked in a NATO airstrike at 6am UK time.

Two fighter jets attacked the vehicles as they fled the Sirte assault, although neither of the planes that struck the convoy was flown by the RAF.

Another two-plane formation of British Tornado ground attack aircraft were on surveillance and reconnaissance missions over Libya at the time.

As the NATO strike on Gaddafi’s convoy hit the lead vehicles his aides started trying to exit from cars and escape on foot, realising the game was up.

Then as Gaddafi and several aides tried to run into the safety of a drainage ditch they were shot dead by rebel fighters pursuing them on foot.

Libya’s national Transitional Council vice-chairman Abdul Hafiz Ghoga told a news conference in Benghaz: “We announce to the world that Muammar Gaddafi has been killed at the hands of the revolutionaries.

“We will announce the liberation of Libya within hours, maybe sooner.”

It was initially reported that Gaddafi had been wounded and taken into custody by ambulance but witnesses said he was found cowering in a concrete pipe, pleading for his life.