How a NATO air strike finished off Gaddafi
By David Williams
21st October 2011
The most momentous day in the entire Arab Spring revolution had begun with them not even aware that the tyrant was hiding in his home city.
It ended in scenes of wild celebration as rebels fired guns into the air while Gaddafi’s force of bodyguards lay dead on the ground.
The countdown to the dictator’s downfall began at the start of the week when revolutionary fighters gained control of the stronghold of Bani Walid, where Gaddafi had first fled after the fall of Tripoli. This opened the road to Sirte, his beloved home town.
By Tuesday they had squeezed his forces into a residential area of about 700 square yards in Sirte known as Neighbourhood Two, but were still coming under heavy fire from surrounding buildings.
Foreign snipers said to have been earning up to £500 a day, hiding in the blitzed shells of buildings, had picked off National Transitional Council troops on a daily basis.
THE LAST STAND
The final assault on Neighbourhood Two began yesterday at 8am local time, 6am GMT with two rebel tanks, artillery and a dozen anti-aircraft guns bombarding the small areas of concrete office blocks and residential housing which had been still holding out against overwhelming odds.
Hundreds of National Transitional Council fighters roared in on flatback trucks under cover of the barrage. The resistance of mainly North African mercenary snipers and Gaddafi loyalist troops was broken as position by position was over run, some surrendering, some choosing to fight to the death.
The presence of Gaddafi, who many believed to have been hiding in the southern desert near the border with Niger, explains the dogged, almost fanatical, resistance of the defenders of Sirte. For weeks they had resisted knowing they were entirely cut off, even launching a counter attack late last week which killed and wounded more than a dozen NTC fighters.
FLEEING THE BUNKER
In the makeshift command bunker where Gaddafi and his closest aides had been sheltering for the past ten days, the final high-risk escape plan was activated and up to 100 vehicles prepared to leave – at their heart five cars containing the ousted dictator and key loyalists.
Local commanders say the plan appeared to be for the snipers and the few remaining heavy weapons held by pro-Gaddafi troops to ‘open up’, providing some cover for fellow fighters and the five key cars to flee. The convoys are said to have taken two routes, with some 75 of the main body of escaping fighters going on the main road out and the other going on side roads before making a break for the desert roads heading south.
