Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was born in Sirte, and when he became the ruler of all Libya, he transformed it from an insignificant fishing village into the country's sprawling second city. On Thursday, after a brutal – and ultimately hopeless – last stand, it was the place where he died.
For the past three weeks, with Gaddafi's whereabouts still unknown, government fighters had been puzzled by the bitter and determined resistance from loyalist fighters. Trapped in a tiny coastal strip just a few hundred metres wide, they had refused to give up, even when a victory by the forces of Libya's National Transitional Council seemed inevitable.
Here at last was the answer: they had been fighting to the death with their once-great leader in their midst.
The emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, Peter Bouckaert, was one of those in Sirte during the final battle. "A very heavy bombardment started at midnight with shelling of the remaining strongholds with Grad rockets that went on until 6am," he told the Guardian. "I went down to the city centre at 9am and went in with the fighters from Benghazi who said the whole city was free.
"I went to the hospital and a fighter arrived with a gold pistol he said he had taken from Gaddafi. He said there had been a fight with a convoy of people trying to flee. Mansour Dhou [Sirte's pro-Gaddafi military commander] was also in the clinic, shot in the stomach. He said they had been trying to flee and were caught in gunfire, which is when he lost consciousness. He confirmed Gaddafi was with him."
While details of the precise circumstances of Gaddafi's death remained confused and contradictory last night, it appears he was trying to flee the city in a convoy of cars when they came under attack from Nato jets. Last night the French claimed responsibility for the airstrike.
The convoy was then apparently caught in a gun battle with fighters loyal to the National Transitional Council, Libya's interim government. Possibly wounded in the shootout, Libya's former ruler crawled into a drain; later he was set upon by revolutionary fighters, one of whom beat him with a shoe.
Witnesses said he perished pleading for mercy after being dragged out of a hiding place inside a concrete drain. According to one fighter, the dying Gaddafi demanded: "What have I done to you?"
Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a doctor who accompanied Gaddafi's body in an ambulance as it was taken from Sirte, said he died from two shots, to the head and chest. "I can't describe my happiness," he told the Associated Press. "The tyranny is gone. Now the Libyan people can rest.
Amid the swirl of contradictory reports, one thing was clear: Gaddafi's death was a humiliating end for a man once used to surrounding himself with cheering crowds of supporters. Video images that emerged showed him being bundled bloodied on to the back of a pick-up truck, surrounded by fighters waving guns and shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great).....read on
Libya government officials have confirmed the death of Colonel Gaddafi. The news comes from the city of Sirte, which has reportedly been overrun by government forces. Officials say Gaddafi had serious injuries to both his legs. But the latest we've heard from the National Transitional Council is that the Colonel has died from his wounds. One of Gaddafi's sons has also reportedly been killed in Sirte. But the influential Saif Al-Islam, his eldest son, has reportedly been captured alive.
and lastly why Gaddafi had to be killed
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