The man was a monster, and it appears that he went out in a monstrous way. This very disturbing video appears to depict a bloodied and battered Qaddafi on the hood of a yellow pickup truck, surrounded by bloodthirsty rebels shouting "Allahu Akbar!" It is believed that the former Libyan dictator was killed within minutes of this video being captured. *Extreme content warning:*
The Washington Post confirms the deaths of a number of Qaddafi loyalists, as well. A grim chapter in Libya's history is now over. The salient question now is, what's next? The answer may very disconcerting, indeed.
UPDATE - An interesting historical footnote, via Twitter: The Lockerbie bomber actually outlived Qaddafi. What a disgrace.
UPDATE II - Reuters has a riveting and blood-curdling account of how Qaddafi met his demise:
Shortly before dawn prayers on Thursday, Gaddafi surrounded by a few dozen loyal bodyguards and accompanied by the head of his now non-existent army Abu Bakr Younis Jabr broke out of the two-month siege of Sirte and made a break for the west. But they did not get far. NATO said its aircraft struck military vehicles belonging to pro-Gaddafi forces near Sirte at about 8:30 a.m. (7:30 a.m. British time) on Thursday, but the alliance said it was unsure whether the strikes had killed Gaddafi.
Fifteen pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns lay burnt out, smashed and smouldering next to an electricity sub station some 20 metres from the main road, about two miles west of Sirte. They had clearly been hit by a force far beyond anything the motley army the former rebels have assembled during eight months of revolt to overthrow the once feared leader. But there was no bomb crater, indicating the strike may have been carried out by a helicopter gunship, or had been strafed by a fighter jet.
Inside the trucks still in their seats sat the charred skeletal remains of drivers and passengers killed instantly by the strike. Other bodies lay mutilated and contorted strewn in the grass. Some 50 bodies in all. Gaddafi himself and a handful of his men escaped death and appeared to have ran through a stand of trees towards the main road and hid in the two drainage pipes. But a group of government fighters were on their tail.
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