Gaddafi dies of wounds after capture

Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered in his capture near his hometown of Sirte on Thursday, a senior National Transitional Council military official said.

The NTC official, Abdel Majid Mlegta, had told Reuters earlier that Gaddafi was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes had attacked.

"He was also hit in his head," said Mlegta. "There was a lot of firing against his group and he died."

Asked if there was photographic evidence to prove that Gaddafi was dead, Mlegta said: "We have the footage but it is not available now."

There was no independent confirmation of his remarks.

Mlegta reported Gaddafi's death after Libyan interim government fighters took Sirte on Thursday, extinguishing the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the former leader and ending a two-month siege.

NATO warplanes struck the convoy and hit four cars as it headed west, Mlegta said, adding that the head of Gaddafi's armed forces Abu Bakr Younus Jabr had been killed during the attack.

Ahmed Ibrahim, a cousin and adviser of Gaddafi, was captured along with former government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, he added.

An anti-Gaddafi fighter said Gaddafi had been found hiding in a hole in the ground and had said "Don't shoot, don't shoot" to the men who grabbed him.

His capture followed within minutes of the fall of Sirte, a development that extinguished the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the deposed leader.

The capture of Sirte and the death of Gaddafi means Libya's ruling NTC should now begin the task of forging a new democratic system which it had said it would get under way after the city, built as a showpiece for Gaddafi's rule, had fallen.

Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, was toppled by rebel forces on Aug. 23 after 42 years of one-man rule over the oil-producing North African state.

NTC fighters hoisted the red, black and green national flag above a large utilities building in the centre of a newly-captured Sirte neighbourhood and celebratory gunfire broke out among their ecstatic and relieved comrades.

Hundreds of NTC troops had surrounded the Mediterranean coastal town for weeks in a chaotic struggle that killed and wounded scores of the besieging forces and an unknown number of defenders.

NTC fighters said there were a large number of corpses inside the last redoubts of the Gaddafi troops. It was not immediately possible to verify that information.

-Reuters