Transitional Council spokesman says Gaddafi is dead

A spokesman for Libya's National Transitional Council has told Sky News that deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been killed, and that his body is currently being transported from Sirte.

Mystery surrounds his fate today after conflicting reports that he had been captured or killed in the fall of his home town Sirte.

Libyan officials and Nato say they cannot confirm the reports from revolutionary fighters.

The Misrata Military Council, one of multiple command groups for revolutionary forces, says its fighters captured Gaddafi in Sirte.

Another commander, Abdel-Basit Haroun, says Gaddafi was killed when an air strike hit a convoy trying to flee.

The spokesman for Libya’s transitional government, Jalal al-Gallal, and its military spokesman Abdul-Rahman Busin say the reports have not been confirmed.

Earlier revolutionary fighters overcame the last resistance by Gaddafi loyalists holding out in Sirte.

The final push to capture the remaining pro-Gaddafi positions lasted about 90 minutes.

US officials say they are monitoring the reports which follow Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Libya on Tuesday. She said in Tripoli that she hoped Gaddafi would be captured or killed.

The capture of Sirte came two months after the fall of Tripoli.

“Our forces control the last neighbourhood in Sirte,” said Hassan Draoua, a member of Libya’s interim National Transitional Council. “The city has been liberated.”

After the battle, revolutionaries began searching homes and buildings looking for Gaddafi fighters.

At least 16 pro-Gaddafi fighters were captured, with multiple cases of ammunition and trucks loaded with weapons.

Reporters saw revolutionaries beating captured Gaddafi men in the back of trucks and officers intervening to stop them.

Celebratory gunfire echoed through the city.

Despite the fall of Tripoli on August 21, Gaddafi loyalists mounted fierce resistance in several areas, including Sirte, preventing Libya’s new leaders from declaring full victory in the eight-month civil war.

Earlier this week, revolutionary fighters gained control of one stronghold, Bani Walid, and by Tuesday said they had squeezed Gaddafi’s forces in Sirte into a residential area of about 700 square metres but were still coming under heavy fire.

Deputy defence minister Fawzi Abu Katif said on Wednesday that authorities still believe Gaddafi’s son Muatassim is among the ex-regime figures holed up in the diminishing area in Sirte.

Gaddafi had issued several audio recordings trying to rally supporters.

Libyan officials had said they believed he was hiding somewhere in the vast south-western desert near the borders with Niger and Algeria.

Colonel Roland Lavoie, spokesman for Nato's operational headquarters in Naples, said its aircraft today struck two vehicles of pro-Gaddafi forces "which were part of a larger group manoeuvring in the vicinity of Sirte".

The ecstatic former rebels celebrated the fall of Sirte after weeks of bloody siege by firing endless rounds into the sky, pumping their guns, knives and even a meat cleaver in the air and singing the national anthem.

In the central quarter where the final battle took place, the fighters looking like the same ragtag force that started the uprising eight months ago, jumped up and down with joy and flashed V-for-victory signs.

Some burned the green Gaddafi flag, then stepped on it with their boots.

They chanted “Allah akbar” or “God is great”, while one fighter climbed a traffic light pole to unfurl the revolution’s flag, which he first kissed.

Discarded military uniforms of Gaddafi’s fighters littered the streets. One revolutionary fighter waved a silver trophy in the air while another held up a box of firecrackers, then set them off.