BENGHAZI/Sirte: Libyan strongman Moamar Qaddafi has been killed by new regime forces in their final assault on the last pocket of resistance in his hometown Sirte, a National Transitional Council spokesman said.
"We announce to the world that Qaddafi has been killed at the hands of the revolution," Abdel Hafez Ghoga said.
"It is an historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Qaddafi has met his fate," he added.
Qaddafi’s hometown, Sirte, had earlier fallen to the rebels.
"The city has been liberated," says Hassan Draoua, a member of Libya’s interim government. The Libyan fighters were seen beating captured Qaddafi men in the back of trucks, with officers trying to stop them.
The final bastion of resistance by forces loyal to Qaddafi “has been liberated, and with the confirmation that Qaddafi is dead," Libya has been completely liberated, leading military official Khalifa Haftar told AFP.
"Those who were fighting with Qaddafi have either been killed or captured," he added.
"He [Qaddafi] was also hit in his head," NTC official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters. "There was a lot of firing against his group and he died."
Mlegta told Reuters earlier that Qaddafi, who was in his late 60s, was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked. He said he had been taken away by an ambulance.
An NTC fighter in Sirte said he had seen Gaddafi shot after he was cornered and captured in a tunnel near a roadway.
Officials said some of Qaddafi’s entourage had been killed in the same incident, while his son Mo’tassim and other aides were taken prisoner. Another son, Seif — long the heir-apparent — was believed by the NTC to be still at large, possibly in the immense southern deserts of the Libyan Sahara.
NATO aircraft on Thursday morning struck two pro-Qaddafi military vehicles in the vicinity of the Libyan city of Sirte, a spokesman for the alliance said.
"At approximately 0830 local time (GMT+2) today, NATO aircraft struck two pro-Qaddafi forces military vehicles which were part of a larger group maneuvering in the vicinity of Sirte," NATO spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie said in a statement.
As news and an AFP picture emerged showing what appeared to be a blood-stained Qaddafi slumped after being hit, an alliance diplomat said NATO was informed by Libyan NTC forces of Moamar Qaddafi’s capture.
The source said checks were underway to verify reports by the National Transitional Council that the convoy in which Qaddafi was travelling was stopped by NATO strikes, and that the former Libyan leader was injured and captured at that time.
At NATO’s Brussels headquarters, the alliance said it had "nothing to say" formally.
But the NATO diplomat said the alliance was "informed of [Qaddafi’s[ capture by sources from the NTC," the National Transitional Council running the country while troops loyal to the ousted leader pursued the last pockets of the old regime’s resistance.
The NTC’s information minister however said Qaddafi was killed by Libyan forces.
"He was killed in an attack by the fighters. There is footage of that," Minister Mahmoud Shammam, told Reuters.
"Qaddafi’s body is with our unit in a car and we are taking the body to a secret place for security reasons," Mohamed Abdel Kafi, an NTC official in the city of Misrata, told Reuters.
Qaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, was toppled by rebel forces on Aug. 23, a week short of the 42nd anniversary of the military coup which brought him to power in 1969.
The head of Libya’s National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, will address the nation later on Thursday, Libyan channel Free Libya reported.
The capture of Sirte means Libya’s ruling NTC should now begin the task of forging a new democratic system which it had said it would get underway after the city, Qaddafi’s hometown rebuilt as a showpiece for his rule, had fallen.
As potentially vast revenues from oil and gas begin to roll in again, Libya’s six million people, scattered in towns spread across wide deserts, face a major task in organizing a new system of government that can allocate resources across long-competing tribal, ethnic and regional divisions.
A Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) fighter looks through a large concrete pipe where ousted Libyan leader Moamer Qaddafi was allegedly captured, with a dead loyalist gunmen in the foreground, in the coastal Libyan city of Sirte on October 20, 2011. A Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) commander said that Qaddafi was killed. Arabic graffiti in blue reads: "This is the place of Qaddafi, the rat.. God is the greatest." (AFP PHOTO/PHILIPPE DESMAZES)
Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters hold what they claim to be the gold-plated gun of ousted Libyan leader Moamer Qaddafi at the site where the latter was captured in the coastal Libyan city of Sirte on October 20, 2011. A Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) commander said that Qaddafi was killed (AFP PHOTO/PHILIPPE DESMAZES).
