Pictures across the world’s news channels currently show hundreds of Libyan rebels standing in the first perimeter of Gaddafi’s compound at Bab al Aziziya. A statute of the colonel has been pulled down, its head decapitated, and rebels are taking pot-shots at the other icons of his tyranny, including a clenched bronze fist clutching a US fighter jet.
Gaddafi himself remains hidden from view, lurking perhaps in the tunnels beneath his compound or in another part of the city. He may, of course, be dead or fled, but the CIA says they suspect he is still pinned down in the country. US surveillance has been close in recent days, ensuring that Libya’s stockpiles of chemical and conventional weapons do not fall into the hands of its Islamist enemies.
The rebels appear to have taken the compound against minimal resistance, aided, it is alleged, by NATO.
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