DISTURBING images of a bloodstained and shaken Muammar Gaddafi being dragged around by angry fighters quickly circulated around the world after the Libyan dictator’s death near his hometown of Sirte.

Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years, was killed today as rebel troops overran the last pockets of loyalist resistance in his home-town Sirte.

LIBYAN transitional government forces said yesterday they had captured the university and a conference center in Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, but were holding off an assault on the main square to let civilians escape.