Former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was killed yesterday by new regime forces in their final assault on the last pocket of resistance in his hometown Sirte, a National Transitional Council (NTC) spokesman said.
“We announce to the world that Qaddafi has been killed at the hands of the revolution,” Abdel Hafez Ghoga said in the eastern city of Benghazi.
“It is an historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Qaddafi has met his fate,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
Another NTC commander, said one of Qaddafi’s sons, Mutassim, was also killed in Sirte.
“We found him dead. We put his body and that of [former Libyan defense minister] Abu Bakr Yunis Jabar in an ambulance to take them to Misrata,” Mohammed Leith said.
NTC fighters who had fought in the bloody seven-month conflict that toppled the veteran despot at a cost of more than 25,000 lives, erupted in jubilation at the news, which followed earlier reports that Qaddafi had been captured.
Photo: Reuters
A photograph taken on a -mobile phone appeared to show the 69-year-old Qaddafi, toppled by NTC fighters in August, heavily bloodied. In the poor-quality image, Qaddafi is seen with bloodsoaked clothing and blood daubed across his face.
A video circulating among NTC fighters in Sirte showed mobile phone footage of what appeared to be Qaddafi’s bloodied corpse.
In the grainy images seen by an Agence France-Presse correspondent, a large number of NTC fighters are seen yelling in chaotic scenes around a khaki-clad body which has blood oozing from the face and neck. The body is then loaded in the back of a truck.
News of his death came as new regime troops overran the last redoubt of his loyalists in Sirte, bringing to an end a two-month siege.
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