TRIPOLI, Libya — Former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi was killed Thursday when revolutionary fighters overran his last loyalist stronghold, setting off raucous celebrations of victory in an eight-month war backed by NATO.
Gaddafi, 69, a long-entrenched autocrat who was driven from power in Tripoli two months ago, died as the revolutionaries ended loyalist resistance in Sirte, his home town and tribal power base, the new government announced.
WARNING: graphic video. Al-Jazeera TV showed footage of a man resembling Moammar Gaddafi lying dead or severely wounded. The video comes as Libyan leaders have informed the U.S. that Gaddafi is dead. (Oct. 20)
Follow how events are unfolding in Libya.
“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril told a news conference here. “Moammar Gaddafi has been killed.”
In Washington, President Obama said Gaddafi’s death “marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya, who now have the opportunity to determine their own destiny in a new and democratic Libya.” He told the Libyan people: “You have won your revolution.”
The confirmation came after hours of conflicting reports following the final assault on Sirte, Gaddafi’s last refuge about 280 miles east of Tripoli. It was not immediately clear whether he was killed by a NATO airstrike or by Libyan revolutionaries who intercepted his attempt to flee the city.
Abdulrahman Busin, the military liaison to Libya’s transitional government, said Gaddafi and a number of his allies were trying to leave Sirte when revolutionaries fired on them.
“There was an exchange of fire in which he was injured,” said Busin. The revolutionary forces then captured the former leader, he said.
He said Gaddafi was found with a 9mm pistol and a semiautomatic rifle.
Busin said Gaddafi may have been in a part of the convoy hit by a NATO airstrike. But he added: “Our forces went in and did the rest. He wasn’t killed by NATO.”
He predicted that the interim leadership would declare the “full liberation” of Libya within 48 hours, which would trigger the naming of a new temporary government and the preparation of elections.
The government had received intelligence that Gaddafi was “constantly on the move,” Busin said. “He could have possibly gone to Sirte in the last week or so.”
Initial reports said Gaddafi had been captured or wounded.
Video footage broadcast by CNN showed Gaddafi bloodied but upright and apparently alive when he was initially caught by revolutionaries. Later images showed his body inert and stripped of his shirt as he lay on the ground.
After about 90 minutes of fighting early Thursday, revolutionaries overran the last pro-Gaddafi holdouts in Sirte, a coastal city on the Gulf of Sidra, and effectively ended the war in which NATO intervened militarily to protect a pro-democracy uprising. Gaddafi, who had ruled Libya for 42 years since coming to power in a military coup, vanished as the revolutionaries seized Tripoli in late August, and his whereabouts remained a mystery until Thursday’s fall of Sirte.
In a statement to reporters in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said: “Today we can definitively say that that the Gaddafi regime has come to an end. The last major regime strongholds have fallen. The new government is consolidating control over the country.” He added: “This is a momentous day in the history of Libya. The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted.”
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