Gaddafi’s son captured, rebels say
The rebels’ speedy leap forward, after six months of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few dramatic hours.
By nightfall, they had advanced more than 32km to the edge of Gaddafi’s last major bastion of support.
Along the way, they freed several hundred prisoners from a regime lock-up. The fighters and the prisoners – many looking weak and dazed and showing scars and bruises from beatings — embraced and wept with joy.
Thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pick up trucks packed with rebel fighters shooting in the air.
In villages along the way that fell to the rebels one after another, mosque loudspeakers blared “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is greatest”.
“We are going to sacrifice our lives for freedom,” said Nabil al-Ghowail, a 30-year-old dentist holding a rifle in the streets of Janzour, a suburb 9km west of Tripoli.
As town after town fell and Gaddafi forces melted away, the mood turned euphoric.
Inside Tripoli, widespread clashes erupted for a second day between rebel “sleeper cells” and Gaddafi loyalists. Rebels fighter who spoke to relatives in Tripoli by phone said hundreds rushed into the streets in anti-regime protests in several neighbourhoods.
Before the breakthrough, Libyan state television aired an angry audio message from Gaddafi last night, urging families in Tripoli to arm themselves and fight for the capital.
“The time is now to fight for your politics, your oil, your land,” he said. “I am with you in Tripoli — together until the ends of the earth,” Gaddafi shouted.
Yesterday’s first breakthrough came when hundreds of rebels fought their way into a major symbol of the Gaddafi regime — the base of the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Gaddafi’s son, Khamis. Fighters said they met with little resistance.
Hundreds of rebels cheered wildly and danced as they took over the compound, raising their tricolour from the front gate and tearing down a large billboard of Gaddafi.
Inside, they cracked open wooden crates labelled “Libyan Armed Forces” and loaded trucks with huge quantities of munitions.
“This is the wealth of the Libyan people that Gaddafi was using against us,” said Ahmed al-Ajdal, 27, pointing to his haul. “Now we will use it against him and any other dictator who goes against the Libyan people.”
From the military base, about 25km west of Tripoli, the convoy pushed on toward the capital.
Mahmoud al-Ghwei, 20, said: “It’s a great feeling. For all these years, we wanted freedom and Gaddafi kept it from us. Now we’re going to get rid of Gaddafi and get our freedom.”
The uprising against Gaddafi broke out in mid-February, and anti-regime protests quickly spread across the vast desert nation with only six million people. A brutal regime crackdown quickly transformed the protests into an armed rebellion. Rebels seized Libya’s east, setting up an internationally recognised transitional government there, and two pockets in the west, the port city of Misrata and the Nafusa mountain range.
Gaddafi clung to the remaining territory. Since the start of August, thousands of rebels, including many who fled Gaddafi-held cities, joined the offensive launched from the mountains toward the coast.
Rebels said they had launched their first attack on Tripoli in co-ordination with Nato and gunbattles and mortar rounds rocked the city. Nato aircraft also made heavier-than-usual bombing runs after nightfall, with loud explosions booming across the city.
Today, more heavy machine gun fire and explosions rang out across the capital with more clashes and protests.
Significant events since the approval of United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.
* March 17: The United Nations Security Council approves resolution 1973 authorising a no-fly zone and “all necessary measures” to enforce it.
* March 18: British fighter planes are deployed to the Mediterranean in preparation for expected military action.
* March 19: British Prime Minister David Cameron reveals that British forces are in action over Libya.
A British submarine has fired a number of Tomahawk missiles at Libyan air defence targets. Stormshadow missiles are launched from Tornado GR4 jets.
* March 27: Nato ambassadors meeting in Brussels agree the alliance will take command of all international military operations in relation to Libya.
* March 30: Gaddafi’s foreign minister Musa Kusa flees to Britain.
* April 14: David Cameron, Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy signal their determination to fight on and say Gaddafi must “go and go for good”.
* April 19: British Army officers are being sent to Libya to advise rebels fighting Gaddafi’s forces, it is announced.
* May 1: An airstrike hits a building where Gaddafi is staying, killing his youngest son.
* May 2: Britain expels Libya’s ambassador after the British embassy in Tripoli is attacked.
* May 12: Mr Cameron invites Libyan rebel leaders to establish a formal office in London.
* May 18: A British journalist held by the Libyan government for six weeks is freed. Nigel Chandler was detained on April 5 with American journalists Clare Morgana Gillis and James Foley and Spanish photographer Manuel Varela.
* June 27: International arrest warrant for Gaddafi issued, saying it shows he has “lost all legitimacy”.
* July 27: Britain formally recognises the opposition National Transitional Council as the “sole governmental authority” in Libya.
* July 28: Rebel army commander General Abdel Fattah Younes has been shot dead.
* August 15: The rebels make key advances as fierce fighting is reported in Zawiya, just 30 miles west of Tripoli, and Gharyan, 50 miles to the south.
* August 20: A rebel spokesman says they have launched their first attacks in Tripoli, amid reports of explosions and heavy gunfire in the capital.
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