TRIPOLI — Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been captured and wounded in both legs, National Transitional Council (NTC) official Abdel Majid said on Thursday.
“He’s captured. He’s wounded in both legs … He’s been taken away by ambulance,” the senior NTC military official told Reuters by telephone.
The U.S. State Department says it cannot confirm the capture, though a Libyan government fighter in Sirte tells Reuters he was an eyewitness. The fighter says Gaddafi was hiding in a hole shouting “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot.”
Libyan interim government fighters captured Muammar Gaddafi’s home town on Thursday, extinguishing the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the deposed leader and ending a two-month siege.
The capture of Sirte means Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) should now begin the task of forging a new democratic system which it had said it would start after the city, built as a showpiece for Gaddafi’s rule, had fallen.
Gaddafi was toppled by rebel forces on August 23 after 42 years of one-man rule over the oil-producing North African state.
“Sirte has been liberated. There are no Gaddafi forces any more,” said Colonel Yunus Al Abdali, head of operations in the eastern half of the city. “We are now chasing his fighters who are trying to run away.”
Government fighters hoisted the red, black and green national flag above a large utilities building in the center of a newly-captured Sirte neighbourhood and celebratory gunfire broke out among their ecstatic and relieved comrades.
“Libya is free from east to west,” cried a young fighter Malik Al Gantri, a young fighter from Tripoli who had been in the battle for Sirte for two weeks. “I hope to go home now,” he said. “I want to see my mother.”
Hundreds of NTC fighters gathered in the center of Sirte shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”), firing guns into the air and dancing in the streets. One of them, a man aged 65 and blind in one eye, rode around on a mountain bike and carrying an AK47 assault rifle and a Libyan flag.
“This is the best day of my life,” said Al Sharash Thawban. “The whole city of Sirte is freed from that criminal Gaddafi.”
But a group of about 40 vehicles carrying around 100 Gaddafi loyalists broke out of the siege early on Thursday morning and had headed west, NTC fighters said.
“They broke out just as we were waking up to pray,” said Dr Abdul Rauf Mohammad, who was among the NTC troops. “The Gaddafi people broke out west, but the revolutionaries have them surrounded and are dealing with them,” said one of the fighters, Abdul Salam Mohammad.
Dozens of NTC pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns raced toward the west in pursuit and the sound of shooting could be heard coming from that direction.
Inside what had been the last redoubt of Gaddafi’s men, an area of low-rise apartment blocks known as Neighborhood Two, was a scene of destruction: gaping holes in buildings, trees stripped of their branches, lamp-posts felled by artillery and traffic lights dangling by their cables.
Reuters saw five dejected-looking Gaddafi prisoners marched down a street, guarded by NTC fighters.
Hundreds of NTC troops have surrounded the Mediterranean coastal town for weeks in a chaotic struggle that has 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, but it was not immediately possible to verify the claim.
Thousands of civilians have fled Sirte which had a peacetime population of 75,000 and now lies largely in ruins from the rocket, artillery and tank fire which rained down on the town for weeks.
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Conflicting reports surfaced Thursday that deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is dead or has been captured. Deafening celebrations erupted in Tripoli, but none of the reports could be independently verified.
Gadhafi's death was reported by National Transitional Council television station Al-Ahrar. It did not cite a source.
Gadhafi's capture was also reported by Libyan television, citing the Misrata Military Council.
A National Transitional Council military spokesman told CNN that reports of Gadhafi's capture are only rumors.
A "big fish" has been captured in Libya, but Libyan Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam couldn't say with certainty whether it was Gadhafi.
Abdurahman Bousin, the NTC spokesman, added that it's doubtful that Gadhafi was even in or around his hometown of Sirte.
In another major development, revolutionary fighters said they wrested control of the coastal city Thursday.
Without photographic proof of Gadhafi's capture, it was unclear whether Thursday would turn out to be the biggest day in recent Libyan history. Statements made by representatives of Libya's new leadership in the past have not always turned out to be true.
Still, Libyans erupted in joy. Horns blared and celebratory gunfire burst into the air in Tripoli.
Gadhafi ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years. The mercurial leader came to power in a bloodless coup against King Idris in 1969, when he was just an army captain.
By the end of his rule, he claimed to be "King of Kings," a title he had a gathering of tribal leaders grant him in 2008.
But a February uprising evolved into civil war that resulted in ousting the strongman from power.
Many were waiting for photographs as proof of Gadhafi's capture.
Earlier, anti-Gadhafi fighters said they had taken control of the last holdout of loyalists in Sirte. They said they were still battling pockets of resistance, but they were in control of District 2.
Sirte has been the big prize for Libya's NTC, waiting for the city to fall to officially declare liberation.
Most residents abandoned Sirte in the many weeks of bloody battles that raged there. Revolutionary forces have fought Gadhafi's men street by street, cornering the last vestiges of the old regime to that last district.
Gadhafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, for alleged crimes against humanity has not been seen in public in months. Many believed he was hiding out in Sirte after rebel forces marched into Tripoli in August.
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