A beleaguered Muammar Gaddafi vowed on Wednesday to fight on to death or victory after jubilant rebels forced him to abandon his Tripoli stronghold and put a price on his head in an apparently decisive blow against the Libyan leader’s 42-year rule.
Rebels ransacked Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya bastion, seizing arms and smashing symbols of a ruler whose fall will transform Libya and rattle other Arab autocrats facing popular uprisings. Gaddafi said the withdrawal from his headquarters in the heart of the capital was a tactical move after it had been hit by 64 NATO air strikes and he vowed “martyrdom” or victory in his six-month war against the Western alliance and Libyan foes.
Urging Libyans to cleanse the streets of traitors, he said he had secretly toured Tripoli. “I have been out a bit in Tripoli discreetly, without being seen by people, and… I did not feel that Tripoli was in danger,” Gaddafi told loyalist media outlets. His whereabouts after leaving the compound, perhaps via a tunnel network to adjoining districts, remain unknown, although he appears to have been in Tripoli, at least until recently.
BOUNTY: The rebels also placed a $1.3 million price on Gaddafi’s head and also offered amnesty to whoever handed over Gaddafi, alive or dead. “The National Transitional Council (NTC) announces that any of his (Gaddafi’s) inner circle who kills Gaddafi or captures him, society will give amnesty or pardon for any crimes,” NTC head Mustafa Abdel Jalil said at a news conference.
He added that a businessman in Benghazi, the eastern cradle of the Libyan uprising, had also offered a reward of 2 million dinars ($1.3 million) for Gaddafi’s capture. Rebels said fighting was still going on near the Rixos hotel, where armed Gaddafi loyalists have prevented foreign journalists from leaving, and in eastern areas of the city. “There are some fights going but hopefully today everything will be over,” one rebel fighter said.
LAST REDOUBT: Fighting was reported on Tuesday night in a southern desert city, Sabha, that rebels forecast would be Gaddafi loyalists’ last redoubt. Pro-Gaddafi forces were shelling the towns of Zuara and Ajelat, west of Tripoli, Al-Arabiya TV said. Rebels and their political leaders also planned high-level talks in Qatar on Wednesday with envoys of the United States, Britain, France, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on the way ahead. Another meeting was scheduled for Thursday in Istanbul.
$1.5 MILLION: Meanwhile, the US called an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday to press for an easing of Libya sanctions so that it can send $1.5 billion of humanitarian aid, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced he had invited the countries he regards as “the friends of Libya” to talks in Paris on September 1 on the future of the country without Gaddafi.