Hundreds dead in Tripoli battle, rebels say

24 Aug 2011, 10:02 am   -   Source: AAP/AFP

Rebels have taken over Muammar Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli, and are claiming 400 people have been killed and 2,000 wounded in three days of fighting in the capital.

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Rebels have taken over Muammar Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli, and are claiming 400 people have been killed and 2,000 wounded in three days of fighting in the capital.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, told France-24 television that some 600 pro-Gaddafi fighters had been captured but the battle would not be over until the Libyan leader himself was a prisoner.
  
"According to our information, the number of those killed during the operation which has lasted three days is just over 400, with 2,000 wounded," he said, without specifying if he was talking of both sides.
  
"We captured up to 600 Gaddafi soldiers," he added.
  
Jalil said he thought that Gaddafi himself had fled Tripoli, saying he was not brave enough to stay and fight, but "God alone" knew where he was..
  
"I hope that he will be captured alive and tried so the world can know about his crimes," he added.
  
Jalil said the rebels were in full control of Gaddafi's Bab al-Azizya compound, but there were still loyalists holding out in three areas of the capital, including Abu Slim.
  
He appealed for humanitarian aid, saying that the city's hospital lacked medical supplies and some of the wounded needed to be evacuated.
  
Jalil said that despite the violence the council would begin moving from its base in Benghazi to the capital with effect from Thursday.
  
Saying the country must not fall into chaos, he added, "I call on all rebels and citizens to show patience, forgiveness and tolerance and not give in to vengeance."

CELEBRATIONS IN TRIPOLI'S STREETS

The streets of Tripoli erupted into celebratory gunfire when news spread that the insurgents had breached the walls of Bab al-Azizya compound in the centre of the capital and had sent Gaddafi's forces fleeing.
  
As rebel leaders proclaimed they had "won the battle," fighters inside the compound celebrated by firing automatic weapons into the air, chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), and raiding the armoury for ammunition, pistols and rifles.
  
In the rebels' eastern bastion of Benghazi, where residents too poured onto the streets in celebration, commander Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani said there had been no trace of Kadhafi or his family.
  
"Bab al-Azizya is fully under our control now. Colonel Kadhafi and his sons were not there; there is nobody," Bani said. "No one knows where they are."
  
"We have won the battle," Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the insurgents' Tripoli commander told Al-Jazeera television from inside the complex at the end of the massive assault that began in the morning.
  
"The military battle is over now," he said.
  
An AFP correspondent said rebels first breached the surrounding cement walls before entering inside.
  
"They have taken Bab al-Azizya. Completely. It is finished. It is an incredible sight," he said, adding that the bodies of a number of apparent Kadhafi fighters were lying inside, as were wounded people.
  
Footage from satellite channels showed rebel fighters ripping the head off a statue of the dictator, stepping on it and kicking it.

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