Gaddafi Killed as Libya's Revolt Claims Hometown

From the archive: first published October 20, 2011.

Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's ruler for 42 years, was captured and killed on Thursday near his hometown of Sirte, as fighters of the National Transitional Council overran the last pocket of resistance in the eight-month uprising against his rule.

Gaddafi, 69, was seized at dawn as he tried to flee in a convoy that had been struck by NATO warplanes — a US Predator drone and French fighter jets took part in the operation, according to NATO accounts. NTC officials said he was wounded in the legs during the capture and died of his wounds shortly afterward; one fighter reported that the deposed leader had been found hiding in a drainage culvert.

His capture came within minutes of the fall of Sirte itself, the coastal city Gaddafi had built into a showpiece of his rule. NTC fighters hoisted the red, black and green national flag over a utilities building in the captured neighborhood as celebratory gunfire broke out among the besieging troops, who had surrounded the town for weeks.

The killing was the most dramatic single development of the Arab Spring, which had already unseated the rulers of Egypt and Tunisia and was threatening the leaders of Syria and Yemen. Gaddafi — wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, and driven from Tripoli on August 23 — was the first of the region's strongmen to die at the hands of his own people.

With Sirte's fall, the NTC said it would begin the task it had promised: building a new democratic system for Libya.

Editor's note: this article was rewritten during our editorial review. The original 2011 version reproduced a Reuters report verbatim (with broken links); the text above is an original summary of the reported facts.