Muammar Gaddafi was a hunted man on Monday as loyal remnants of his forces made last-ditch stands in the capital and world leaders rushed to embrace the fractious Libyan rebels as new masters of the oil-rich state.
Two days after their irregular armies launched pincer thrusts into Tripoli in tandem with an uprising in the city, Gaddafi’s tanks and sharpshooters appeared to hold only small areas, including his Bab al-Aziziya headquarters compound. Civilians, who mobbed the streets late on Sunday to cheer the end of dictatorship, stayed indoors as gunfire crackled.
Reuters correspondents witnessed firefights and a clash with heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, as rebels tried to flush out the regime’s snipers, who they said were the “main problem”. Hundreds appear to have been killed or wounded since Saturday.
Gaddafi’s whereabouts were not known after rebels said they held three of his sons. In a last, defiant, audio broadcast on Sunday before state television went off the air, he said he was still in Tripoli, and would stay “until the end”. There has been speculation he might be in his home region around Sirte.
A US official said there was no evidence he had fled the country. He has few friends left after his prime minister turned up in Tunisia, more Libyan embassies hoisted the rebel flag, and foreign governments – among them Gaddafi’s Arab neighbours, Russia and China – which had hesitated to take sides made clear they now felt his 42 years of absolute power were over.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebel opposition National Transitional Council, however called on all Libyans to exercise self-restraint and to respect the property and lives of others “and not to resort to taking the law into their own hands”.
US President Barack Obama said: “Muammar Gaddafi and his regime need to recognise that their rule has come to an end.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who took an early gamble on the Libyan rebels, called on Gaddafi loyalists “to turn their back on the criminal and cynical blindness of their leader by immediately ceasing fire, giving up their arms and turning themselves in to the legitimate Libyan authorities”. Egypt, whose Arab Spring revolt inspired its neighbours, abandoned its caution and recognised the rebel government. Other beleaguered Arab revolutionaries, notably in Syria, may take heart from a hard-fought triumph in the sands of Libya.
SONS DETAINED: Among those detained were three of Gaddafi’s sons, one of them – Saif al-Islam – now indicted with his father for crimes against humanity. The International Criminal Court said it hoped to question him at The Hague, though a rebel official said Libya might try him. Meanwhile, young men burned the green flags of the government and raised the rebel tricolour used by the post-colonial monarchy which Gaddafi overthrew in a military coup in 1969.
