Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered this morning as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya’s interim rulers said.
His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.
“He (Gaddafi) was also hit in his head,” National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters. “There was a lot of firing against his group and he died.”
Mlegta told Reuters earlier that Gaddafi, who was in his late 60s, was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked. He said he had been taken away by an ambulance.
There was no independent confirmation of his remarks.
An anti-Gaddafi fighter said Gaddafi had been found hiding in a hole in the ground and had said “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot” to the men who grabbed him.
His capture followed within minutes of the fall of Sirte, a development that extinguished the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the deposed leader.
The capture of Sirte and the death of Gaddafi means Libya’s ruling NTC should now begin the task of forging a new democratic system which it had said it would get under way after the city, built as a showpiece for Gaddafi’s rule, had fallen.
Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, was toppled by rebel forces on Aug. 23 after 42 years of one-man rule over the oil-producing North African state.
NTC fighters hoisted the red, black and green national flag above a large utilities building in the centre of a newly-captured Sirte neighbourhood and celebratory gunfire broke out among their ecstatic and relieved comrades.
Hundreds of NTC troops had surrounded the Mediterranean coastal town for weeks in a chaotic struggle that killed and wounded scores of the besieging forces and an unknown number of defenders.
NTC fighters said there were a large number of corpses inside the last redoubts of the Gaddafi troops. It was not immediately possible to verify that information.
Despite the reports, the U.S. State Department said it could not confirm that deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been captured.
“We’ve seen the media reports but can’t confirm them,” State Department spokeswoman Beth Gosselin told Reuters.
White House officials were not immediately available to comment. The Pentagon also said it could not confirm the reports.
A senior official with Libya’s National Transitional Council told Reuters that Gaddafi was captured near his hometown of Sirte at dawn as he tried to flee in a convory that came under attack from NATO warplanes.
The official also said the head of Gaddafi’s armed forces, Abu Bakr Younus Jabr, was killed during the capture of the former Libyan leader.
NATO also said it was checking reports of the capture of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and said they could take some time to confirm.
“We are checking and assessing the situation,” a NATO official said. “Clearly these are very significant developments, which will take time to confirm. If it is true, then this is truly a historic day for the people of Libya.”
The NATO bombing campaign helped Libya’s rebels take power.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday became the most senior U.S. official to visit Tripoli since Gaddafi’s four-decade rule ended in August.
Clinton hailed “Libya’s victory.” But her visit was marked by tight security in a sign of worries that the country’s new rulers have yet to establish full control over the country.
He was believed to be hiding deep in Libya’s Sahara desert. His wife, two sons and a daughter fled to neighboring Algeria shortly after Tripoli fell to rebel forces in August.
