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Libyans rejoice after Moammar Khadafy confirmed dead by shot to the head

SIRTE, Libya — Joyous Libyans took to the streets to celebrate as officials confirmed that deposed despot Moammar Khadafy was killed Thursday by a shot to the head, after being found hiding in a sewage pipe.

Khadafy, who ruled Libya with an iron hand for 42 years as he evolved from young revolutionary to homicidal dictator, died during a final assault by the new regime’s forces on his hometown of Sirte.

There have been varying reports of the exact circumstances of his death but interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril told a press conference in Tripoli that Khadafy was shot dead after being caught in a crossfire between his own supporters and rebel fighters.

“When he was found, he was in good health, carrying a gun,” Jibril said. A young rebel fighter was later pictured armed with a golden gun that he claimed came from Khadafy.

Jibril said Khadafy was captured on the outskirts of Sirte and transferred to a pickup truck, at which point he was shot in the right hand.

“When the vehicle started moving, it was caught in crossfire between Khadafy fighters and the revolutionaries, and he was shot in the head,” according to Jibril.

“He was alive up to last moment, until he arrived at hospital” in the town of Misrata, he said, according to AFP.

Photos purportedly showing Khadafy’s blood-soaked body quickly circulated on the internet, along with video that seemed to show him captured and alive but dazed and bloody.

In contrast to Jibril’s claim that Khadafy was alive until he reached Misrata, the footage later shows the 69-year-old’s apparently dead body covered in blood and surrounded by fighters on a vehicle in Sirte.

This video has led to questions over whether Khadafy actually died at the hands of the mob.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague acknowledged Thursday night that the footage appeared to show that Khadafy was captured alive and then assassinated.

“Until we’re sure I don’t want to add to speculation about that. I agree that the footage does suggest that. We would have preferred him to be able to face justice at the International Criminal Court or in a Libyan court for his crimes. We don’t approve of extra-judicial killings,” he told Britain’s Channel 4 news.

The Transitional National Council (TNC) has insisted there was no order to kill the ousted leader.

Further clouding the situation, CBS News reported a different account suggesting it may have been Khadafy’s own bodyguards that shot him, presumably to spare him from being captured.

In an odd sidelight to the story of Khadafy’s death, the Washington Post reported that when Libyan officials ran a series of DNA, hair and saliva tests at the hospital to prove his identity, the hair turned out to be a wig.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said NATO warplanes had “stopped” a convoy of vehicles trying to flee Sirte early Thursday and that Libyan fighters then intervened and “took out Col. Khadafy,” AFP reported.

It was thought Khadafy escaped the air strike on his convoy and fled on foot to a sewage pipe under a highway on the outskirts of Sirte. It was here he was confronted and captured by revolutionary fighters.

Crude graffiti already marks the spot where Khadafy was captured. “This is the place of Khadafy the rat,” it reads, according to The (London) Times.

TNC media spokesman Abdullah Berrassali told Sky News, “Khadafy is dead. He is absolutely dead … he was shot in both legs and in the head.”

The fate of two Khadafy sons remains unclear. There were several reports that one, Mutassim, had also died in Sirte, while his older brother, Saif al Islam, was variously said to have escaped, wounded and hospitalized or killed in a firefight on the outskirts of the town.

The news of Khadafy’s death prompted wild joy among the ranks of rebel fighters who waved flags, flashed V-for-victory signs and fell to their knees and kissed the ground.

“We did it! We did it!” fighters in Sirte chanted, exchanging hugs and handshakes against a backdrop of intense celebratory gunfire.

“Hold your head high … We are Libyans,” they yelled, waving the red, black and green flag adopted in February as symbol of the revolution against Khadafy.

“We finished Khadafy and his people,” fighter Ali Urfulli told AFP. “We have taken revenge. Let him go to hell.”

Across the globe, Libyan ex-pats in cities as far afield as London and New York celebrated wildly as the news of their tormentor’s death spread rapidly.

World leaders were also quick to welcome the news.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said it marked the end of a “long and painful chapter” for the Libyan people and that the US and its allies “stopped Khadafy’s forces in their tracks.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron said it was “a day to remember all of Colonel Khadafy’s victims,” including those who died in the 1988 Lockerbie Bombing.

And French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the “disappearance” of Khadafy was a “major step forward” in his people’s battle to “liberate themselves from the dictatorial and violent regime imposed on them.”

French and British forces spearheaded NATO’s air campaign against Khadafy’s troops.

The White House later released a statement saying Obama held a videoconference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron to discuss developments in Libya and the European financial crisis.

Later Thursday afternoon, Obama told reporters he was “proud” of the international military operation in Libya, adding, “We did exactly what we said we were going to do.”

Khadafy’s death even brought praise for Obama from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. When asked during a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa, if Obama deserved some credit for the outcome in Libya, Romney replied, “Yes, yes absolutely,” Politico reported.

What appeared to be the only note of regret sounded by a foreign leader came from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who called Khadafy’s death an “outrage” and described him as a “martyr,” AFP reported.

The death means the transitional government in Libya can avoid a long trial and proceed with plans to set up a new administration without threat of a Khadafy-led insurgency.

While it was not independently confirmed, the TNC said Thursday it had “freed” all of Libya following a bloody two-month campaign. Field commander Khaled Ballam said, “Sirte is free. The whole of Libya is free. The country is now under the control of [TNC leader] Mustafa Abdel Jalil … The game is over.”

A quick, secret burial is planned for the former dictator, officials said.

Khadafy, one of the three longest-serving rulers in the world and the only leader most of his countrymen ever knew, died close to where he was born in the desert in a Bedouin tent 69 years ago.

Once described by former US President Ronald Reagan as “the mad dog of the Middle East,” he remained belligerent and unpredictable until the very end, despite rebel forces seizing his stronghold of Tripoli and the NATO-led coalition bombing what was left of his forces.

He regularly appeared — or at least his voice did — in defiant taped audio messages on Syrian-based Arrai television, condemning NATO and the rebels as “rats, mercenaries, a pack of dogs” while vowing to fight on and predicting he and his supporters would triumph in the end.

During his more than four decades in power, Khadafy sponsored revolutionary efforts in other countries, reportedly provided money to the Palestinian terrorist group responsible for the killings of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and tried to prop up Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

But perhaps the best known Libyan act of terrorism was the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.

Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, whose father was killed in the bombing, broke down in tears after switching on the news of Khadafy’s death in her New York living room.

“This 23-year ordeal might finally be over,” Lipkin told The Wall Street Journal. “I know the world is a better place without that man in it.”

In late February, former Libyan justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, now the head of the interim government, told the Swedish newspaper Expressen that Khadafy had personally issued orders to carry out the December 1988 attack.