Deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi,a maverick who had ruled Libya with an iron hand for 42 years,was today shot and killed by the rebels in his hometown of Sirte after the revolutionary forces overran his last bastion. 69-year-old Gaddafi died of his wounds after being captured from a hole where he had been hiding in Sirte,a rebel commander said,adding there was a lot of firing and he was also hit in his head. "Muammar Gaddafi has been killed," Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril told reporters at a hurriedly called press conference in the capital Tripoli. "We have been waiting for this moment for a long time," he said,as the Libyan national TV and Al Jazeera TV showed footage of a man resembling Gaddafi lying dead or severely wounded,bleeding from the head and stripped to the waist as fighters rolled him over on the pavement. Gaddafi's son Mutassim and Defence Minister Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr were also found dead in Sirte,the last major bastion of resistance two months after the regime fell in August,a National Transitional Council commander said. The BBC reported that a rebel fighter claimed that Gaddafi was hiding in a hole in the centre of the city and saying "don't shoot". "It is a historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Gaddafi has met his fate," Abdel Hafez Ghoga,a spokesman for the National Transitional Council (NTC),said. Celebratory gunfire and cries of "Allahu Akbar" rang out across Tripoli as the news of Gaddafi's death spread. Gun-totting rebel fighters went around the streets firing into the sky. Cars out on the roads honked horns and people hugged and kissed each other and sang national anthem. Gaddafi's body was taken to a mosque in Misrata,a report said quoting an NTC official. NATO and the US State Department said they cannot confirm the reports of Gaddafi's death. "We've seen the media reports but can't confirm them," US State Department spokeswoman Beth Gosselin said. Reacting to the development,Libyan Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said,"It's a great victory for the Libyan people." Gaddafi came to power in a bloodless coup against King Idris in 1969,when he was just an army captain. He claimed to be "King of Kings," a title he had a gathering of tribal leaders grant him in 2008. But the revolt against his rule that began in February evolved into civil war,leading to his ouster from power. Earlier in the day,anti-Gaddafi forces said they had wrested control of the last holdout of loyalists in Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte,located 400 kilometers east of Tripoli. "Thank God they have caught this person. In one hour,Sirte was liberated," a fighter in the town said. NTC had been waiting for weeks for the coastal city of Sirte to fall to officially declare liberation. Gaddafi,wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the Netherlands for alleged crimes against humanity,had not been seen in public in months. Anti-Gaddafi fighters in Sirte celebrated by firing in the air. In Benghazi and Mistra,crowds gathered in the streets to start celebrating the death of Gaddafi. Interim government forces had been facing heavy resistance from snipers in the city,and used heavy artillery during the offensive. Thousands of civilians had fled Sirte. The NTC has also suffered heavy casualties in the town of Bani Walid,south-east of Tripoli,in recent weeks.
