Post-Gaddafi Libya awakes to new dawn, NTC expected to declare ‘full liberation’

Col Gaddafi was killed yesterday after being captured by the Libyan fighters he once scorned as "rats", reportedly cornered and shot in the head after they overran his last bastion of resistance in his hometown of Sirte.

His bloodied, half-naked body was delivered to Misurata, the city west of Sirte whose siege and months of suffering at the hands of Gaddafi's artillery and snipers made it a symbol of the rebel cause.

"It's time to start a new Libya, a united Libya," Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril declared. "One people, one future."

A formal announcement of Libya's liberation, which will set the clock ticking on a timeline to elections, will be made tomorrow, officials said.

Meanwhile, there is confusion over exactly how Gaddafi died.

One description suggests Gaddafi tried to break out of his final redoubt at dawn in a convoy of vehicles after weeks of resistance.
However, he was stopped by a French air strike and captured after gun battles with NTC fighters who found him hiding in a drainage ditch.

Prime Minister Jibril, reading what he said was a post-mortem report, said Gaddafi was hauled unresisting from a "sewage pipe". He was then shot in the arm and put in a truck which was "caught in crossfire" as it ferried the 69-year-old to hospital.
"He was hit by a bullet in the head," Jibril said, adding it was unclear which side had fired the fatal shot.

However, jerky video showed a man with Gaddafi's distinctive long, curly hair, bloodied and staggering under blows from armed men, apparently National Transitional Council fighters.

The brief footage showed him being hauled by his hair from the bonnet of a car.

 To the shouts of someone saying "Keep him alive", he disappears from view and gunshots ring out.

As news of Gaddafi's demise spread, people poured into the streets in jubilation. Joyous fighters fired their weapons in the air, shouting ‘Allah u Akbar.’

In Benghazi, where in February Gaddafi said he would hunt down the "rats" who rose up against him, thousands took to the streets, loosing off weapons and dancing under the old tricolour flag revived by Gaddafi's opponents.

Nato, keen to portray the victory as that of the Libyans themselves, said it would wind down its military mission.

Officials said Gaddafi's son Mutassim had also died.

Another son, heir-apparent Saif al-Islam, was variously reported to be surrounded, captured or killed in conflicting accounts.