Qaddafi is killed, with bullet wound to the head

(People's Daily Online)

08:15, October 21, 2011 Opinions

1. Hidden motives lie behind US mission to Uganda
2. Japan PM: Japan's security environment 'murky'
3. US, not China manipulates exchange rate
4. What is wrong with US?
5. Chinese culture of peace promotes development

1. 110-carat diamond up for auction
2. Michael Jackson's final hours shared
3. Football: Lions stand tall
4. US stocks sink despite jobs data
5. Smartphone launches halt amid Jobs' death
6. US tells Assad: Step down now
7. Najib offers handouts in pre-election Budget
   1. Moscow, Beijing vow to strengthen mutual trust
   2. China's provinces allowed to issue debts
   3. Mainland, Taiwan sign nuclear safety deal
   4. Red Cross China denies fund allegations
   5. Time right to develop S China Sea resources
   6. Urban-rural income gap narrowing in China
   7. China stocks fall to 31-month low

   What's happening in China

   Themed restaurants attract many curious customers

   1. Groundwater gets worse, land agency says
   2. Beijing heating goes solar
   3. Migrants eligible for capital's govt housing
   4. Thousands of dreams to fly
   5. Coins issued to honor rescuers raise doubts
   6. School in NW China halts use of green kerchiefs
   

   China Features

   1. Secret shame now in the public eye
   2. Help to be made compulsary?
   3. 'I stabbed my mom'
   4. US' best partner
   5. State Secrets

Still image from TV shows Libya's fallen leader Muammar Gaddafi in Sirte, Libya, Oct. 20, 2011. Muammar Gaddafi died of his wounds on Thursday, a National Transitional Council (NTC) field commander told Xinhua. The allegation on Gaddafi's death has not yet been officially confirmed by the NTC. (Xinhua)
Muammar Qaddafi, the ruler of Libya for more than 40 years, was killed yesterday after hiding in a filthy drainage in his hometown city of Sirte. However, the disturbing images of a blood-stained and shaken leader draged around by angry fighters prior his death led the world to wonder who pulled the trigger. 

The Mideast television Al Jazeera showed footage of Qaddafi, bloodied but alive, as he was dragged around by armed men on the streets in Sirte. 

Later, the TV network broadcast a separate clip of his upper body, partly stripped, with eyes staring vacantly and an apparent gunshot wound to the head, as jubilant fighters fired automatic weapons in the air. 

A third video, posted on Youtube, showed excited fighters hovering around his bloody but motionless body, posing for photographs, and some fighters yanked his limp head up and down by the hair.

The exact circumstances of his demise are still unclear with conflicting accounts of his death emerging. But the footage, possibly of the last chaotic moments of Gaddafi's life, offered some clues into what happened.

Gaddafi was still alive when he was captured. In the video, filmed by a bystander in the crowd and later aired on television, Gaddafi is shown being dragged off a vehicle's bonnet and pulled to the ground by his hair.

"Keep him alive, keep him alive!" someone shouts. Gunshots then ring out. The camera veers off.Qaddafi’s body was ultimately seized by a brigade of Misurata-based fighters who had been fighting in Surt. A reporter accompanying Ali Tarhouni, a deputy chairman of the Transitional National Council who went to view the body, saw Qaddafi splayed out on a mattress in a reception room, shirtless, with bullet wounds in the chest and temple and with blood on the arms and hair. 

“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Muammar Qaddafi has been killed,” Mahmoud Jibril, prime minister of the Transitional National Council, the interim government, told a news conference in Tripoli. 

Libyan television also reported that one of Colonel Qaddafi’s feared sons, Muatassim, was killed in Sirte on Thursday, and broadcast images of what it said was Muatassim’s bloodstained corpse. 

Officials of the Transitional National Council told reporters late Thursday that Qaddafi had been killed in a crossfire, when a gunfight erupted between his captors and his supporters — making the argument that he was not killed intentionally. Forensics experts outside Libya who viewed photographs of the body said the wounds appeared to have been caused by handgun fire at close range.

In Washington, US President Barack Obama said in a televised address that the death of Qaddafi signaled the start of a new chapter for Libya. “We can definitely say that the Qaddafi regime has come to an end,” he said. “The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted and with this enormous promise the Libyan people now have a great responsibility to build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic Libya that stands as the ultimate rebuke to Qaddafi’s dictatorship.” 

In a statement from NATO’s Libya operations headquarters in Naples, Italy, Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, confirmed that the alliance’s aircraft struck two armed Libyan military vehicles near Sirte, but the he said that NATO officers did not know who was in them. “It is not NATO policy to target specific individuals,” he said. 



 【1】 【2】 

Email|Print|Comments（Editor：梁军）

Increases the bookmark

• twitter
• facebook
• Sina Microblog
• digg
• Google
• Delicious
• buzz
• friendfeed
• Linkedin
• diigo
• reddit
• stumbleupon
• Qzone
• QQ Microblog

Related Reading

1. Gadhafi dead：Libya's revolt claims
2. Gadhafi dies of severe wounds after capture
3. Clinton, NTC leaders discuss assistance, rebuilding in Libyan capital
4. Celebration begins as Libya's NTC to fully control Bani Walid
5. NTC forces, Gaddafi supporters clash in Libyan capital
6. China understands Libya's call to further release frozen assets for post-war reconstruction
7. Battles in Gaddafi strongholds likely to end within week: Libyan NTC head
8. Libyan NTC fighters take control of Sirte university

Leave your comment0 comments

1. Name
2. 
   

Weekly review

1. China's JAC Motors to invest 500 mln USD in Brazil plant
2. Int'l firms trying hard to build image in China
3. US reporter talks West's anti-China campaign
4. U.S. official hails Chinese project in Texas
5. US Senate apologizes for laws against Chinese immigrants
6. Alibaba declares interest in purchasing Yahoo
7. China to cut fuel, diesel prices
8. The week in pictures Most Popular
   • China is wealthier, but inner gap becom…
   • Time right to develop S China Sea resou…
   • Hidden motives lie behind US mission to…
   • Girl hit by 2 vans worsens; hero flees
   • Gadhafi dies of severe wounds after cap…
   • Three Gorges Dam water level reaches 17…
   • Nuclear security on the table for cross…
   • China warns of 'grim situation' in fore…
   • Themed restaurants attract many curious…
   • Help to be made compulsary?
   

   Opinions

   1. Hidden motives lie behind US mission to Uganda
   2. Japan PM: Japan's security environment 'murky'
   3. US, not China manipulates exchange rate
   4. What is wrong with US?
   5. Chinese culture of peace promotes development
   6. Red flags raised as Japan mulls repeal of arms ban
   7. Job death shows Americans' love of big business
   8. Wall Street leads the West to a world of chaos
   9. Are China's forex reserves too big?
   10. Signs of higher mortgage rates
   

   

   

   What's happening in China

   Themed restaurants attract many curious customers

   1. School in NW China halts use of green kerchiefs
   2. Farmer sold as slave to factory 'over complaint'
   3. Girl hit by 2 vans worsens; hero flees
   4. Supor: National standard to blame for test failure
   5. Overuse of antibiotics concerns officials
   

   PD Online Data

   1. Flying a paper crane
   2. Eating Double Ninth Cake
   3. Climbing Mountains
   4. Wearing Dogwood
   5. Drinking Chrysanthemum Flower Wine