Bloody Libyaration

The TV station also broadcast a separate clip of his half-naked corpse,with lifeless open eyes and an apparent gunshot wound to the side of the head,as jubilant fighters fired automatic weapons in the air.

The images punctuated an emphatic and violent ending to Gaddafi’s four decades as a ruthless and bombastic autocrat who had basked in his reputation as the self-styled king of kings of Africa.

“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Muammar Gaddafi has been killed,” Mahmoud Jibril,the prime minister of the Transitional National Council,the interim government,told a news conference in Tripoli.

Mahmoud Shammam,the council’s chief spokesman,called it “the day of real liberation. We were serious about giving him a fair trial. It seems God has some other wish.”

Libyans rejoiced as news of his death spread. Car horns blared and residents poured into the streets in Tripoli and in the eastern city of Benghazi,where the rebellion against Gaddafi began in February and escalated into the most violent of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Fighters from Misrata,the port city that suffered enormously at the hands of Gaddafi’s forces during the uprising,were in possession of the colonel’s body and had taken it to a morgue,foreign press photographers in Sirte said. There were unconfirmed reports that they intended to display it in Misrata’s central square.

Within an hour of the news of Gaddafi’s death,the Arab twittersphere lit up with gleeful comments,many of them hinting at a similar fate awaiting other Arab dictators — most notably President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

One of them read: “Ben Ali escaped,Mubarak is in jail,Gaddafi was killed. Which fate do you prefer,Ali Abdullah Saleh? You can consult with Bashar.”

Another was more direct: “Bashar al-Assad,how do you feel today?”

A popular link showed a cartoon with portraits of the five dictators — the first three with big red X’s painted over them — while below them walks an angry-looking man toting a large brush covered with red paint. Written on the man’s clothing is “the people”,in Arabic.

Mahmoud Jibril said he had no details on how Gaddafi had been killed,but added that he was confident that the death had not been caused by NATO warplanes — one of several rumours that flew as the news broke.

In a statement from NATO’s Libya operations headquarters in Naples,spokesman Col Roland Lavoie confirmed that its aircraft had struck two armed Libyan military vehicles near Sirte but that NATO officers had no idea who may have been in them. “It is not NATO policy to target specific individuals,” he said.

Mohamed Benrasali,a member of the national council’s Tripoli Stabilization Committee,said fighters from Misrata who were deployed in Sirte had told him that Gaddafi was captured alive in a car leaving Sirte. He was badly injured,with wounds in his head and both legs,and died soon after,Benrasali said.

Al Jazeera quoted an unidentified official of the Transitional National Council as saying Moussa Ibrahim,a former spokesman of Gaddafi,had been captured near Sirte.

There were unconfirmed reports that one of Gaddafi’s feared sons,Muatassim,had been captured or killed with his father. The whereabouts of another son,Seif al-Islam,who has been on the run since the fall of Tripoli,remained unclear.

The Obama administration,a major supporter of the anti-Gaddafi rebels,was initially cautious in its reaction,apparently awaiting irrefutable proof of his death. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,asked about it during a trip to Pakistan,said: “If the reports are true,I think it offers a new opportunity for Libya to move forward to the future.”

At the European Union headquarters in Brussels,President Herman Van Rompuy said Gaddafi’s death “marks the end of an era of despotism,” AFP reported.

Officials of the post-Gaddafi government had said that Gaddafi’s death or capture would allow them to declare the country liberated and in control of its borders,and to start a process that would lead to an election for a national council within eight months.

Earlier on Thursday,Libyan fighters had announced the fall of Sirte,Gaddafi’s last remaining bastion. A military spokesman for the interim government,Abdel Rahman Busin,said,“Surt is fully liberated.” KAREEM FAHIM & RICK GLADSTONE