Lebyan Colonel Gaddafi captured.

Tassawur · #1 Thursday, October 20, 2011

Colonel Gaddafi captured', Libya transitional council official claims.

Ousted Libya leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has been captured, a National Transitional Council official has claimed.

Abdel Majid told Reuters news agency the deposed dictator was wounded.

The senior NTC military official said: "He's captured. He's wounded in both legs ... He's been taken away by ambulance."
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However, with previous claims the leader and members of his family had been arrested or killed later proven false, the news was greeted with some scepticism.

Libyan fighters had earlier overrun the last positions of Gaddafi loyalists holding out in his hometown Sirte.

The final push to capture the remaining pro-Gaddafi positions began around 8 am and was over after about 90 minutes.

Just before the assault, about five carloads of loyalists tried to flee the enclave down the coastal highway but were killed by revolutionaries.

Revolutionaries began searching homes and buildings looking for any Gaddafi fighters who may be hiding there.

"Our forces control the last neighbourhood in Sirte," said Hassan Draoua, a member of Libya's interim National Transitional Council.

"The city has been liberated."

After the battle, revolutionaries began searching homes and buildings looking for any Gaddafi fighters who may be hiding there. At least 16 pro-Gaddafi fighters were captured, with multiple cases of ammunition and trucks loaded with weapons.

Reporters saw revolutionaries beating captured Gaddafi men in the back of trucks and officers intervening to stop them.

Celebratory gunfire echoed through Sirte, which fell into the hands of revolutionaries almost two full months after they overrun Tripoli and many other parts of the country.

Despite the fall of Tripoli on August 21, Gaddafi loyalists mounted fierce resistance in several areas, including Sirte, preventing Libya's new leaders from declaring full victory in the eight-month civil war.

Earlier this week, revolutionary fighters gained control of one stronghold, Bani Walid, and by Tuesday said they had squeezed Gaddafi 's forces in Sirte into a residential area of about 700 square metres but were still coming under heavy fire from surrounding buildings.

Deputy defence minister Fawzi Abu Katif said on Wednesday that authorities still believe Gaddafi's son Muatassim is among the ex-regime figures holed up in the diminishing area in Sirte. He was not seen on the ground after the final battle today.

In an illustration of how difficult and slow the fighting for Sirte was, it took the anti-Gaddafi fighters two days to capture a single residential building.

It is unclear whether Gaddafi loyalists who have escaped might continue the fight and attempt to organise an insurgency using the vast amount of weapons Gaddafi was believed to have stored in hideouts in the remote southern desert.

Unlike Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi had no well-organised political party that could form the basis of an insurgent leadership. However, regional and ethnic differences have already appeared among the ranks of the revolutionaries, possibly laying the foundation for civil strife.

Gaddafi issued several audio recordings trying to rally supporters. Libyan officials have previously said they believe he is hiding somewhere in the vast south-western desert near the borders with Niger and Algeria.

'Colonel Gaddafi captured', Libya transitional council official claims - mirror.co.uk

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