Qaddafi killed as Sirte falls to NTC: Libya

SIRTE, Libya // The Prime Minister of Libya's interim government, Mahmoud Jibril, has confirmed that former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi has been killed.

Libya's National Transitional Council leader said Qaddafi died of his wounds as fighters battling to complete an eight-month uprising against his rule overran his home town Sirte today.

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"We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Muammar Qaddafi has been killed," Jibril told a news conference in the capital Tripoli.

A NTC official said his body was now being taken to a secret location.

"Qaddafi's body is with our unit in a car and we are taking the body to a secret place for security reasons," Mohamed Abdel Kafi, an NTC official in the city of Misrata told Reuters.

Nato said they couldn't yet confirm reports from revolutionary fighters that Qaddafi was captured or killed in the fall of his hometown. In Washington, US officials were also still working to confirm the reports, a senior Obama administration official said.

However, television networks around the world are broadcasting an apparent photograph of the former leader's body released by the NTC.

The photo, apparently taken on a mobile phone, showed a pale, bloodied and dead-eyed man closely resembling the deposed Libyan ruler, with dark frizzy hair and similar facial features.

It was not clear if the man was dead or wounded. He appeared to be bandaged and had a blank expression. He had a stream of blood from the side of his mouth and was wearing a bloodstained, dark-coloured shirt.

It is common for anti-Qaddafi fighters to photograph and record scenes from the battlefield.

The Misrata Military Council, one of multiple command groups for revolutionary forces, earlier released a statement that said Qaddafi was dead. Another commander, Abdel-Basit Haroun, said Qaddafi was killed when an airstrike hit a convoy trying to flee.

Previous reports of Qaddafi family deaths or captures have later proved incorrect.