Compiled from news reports
Toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed Thursday in a final assault by new regime forces on the last pocket of resistance in his hometown Sirte, sparking wild joy and celebratory gunfire across Libya.
"We announce to the world that Gadhafi has died in the custody of the revolution," National Transitional Council spokesman Abdel Hafez Ghoga said in the eastern city of Benghazi.
"It is an historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Gadhafi has met his fate," he added.
He said that the fugitive despot's death been "confirmed by our commanders on the ground in Sirte, those who captured him after he had been wounded in the battle for Sirte."
Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril confirmed Gadhafi had been killed. ``We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Moammar Gadhafi has been killed,'' Jibril told a news conference in the capital Tripoli.
Initial reports from fighters said Gadhafi had been holed up with the last of his fighters in the furious battle with revolutionary fighters assaulting the last few buildings they held in his Mediterranean coastal hometown of Sirte. At one point, a convoy tried to flee the area and was blasted by NATO airstrikes, though it was not clear if Gadhafi was in the vehicle.
As Libyans on the streets of Tripoli and Sirte fired automatic weapons into the air and danced for joy, world leaders welcomed Gadhafi's demise as the end of despotism, tyranny, dictatorship and ultimately war in the north African country.
NTC fighters who had fought in the bloody seven-month conflict that toppled the veteran despot at a cost of more than 25,000 lives, erupted in jubilation at the news, which followed earlier reports that Gadhafi had been captured alive.
A photograph taken on a mobile phone appeared to show the 69-year-old Gadhafi, toppled by NTC fighters in August, heavily bloodied.
In the blurry image, Gadhafi is seen with blood-soaked clothing and blood daubed across his face.
A video circulating among NTC fighters in Sirte showed mobile phone footage of what appeared to be Gadhafi's bloodied corpse.
In the grainy images, a large number of NTC fighters are seen yelling in chaotic scenes around a khaki-clad body which has blood oozing from the face and neck.
The body is then dragged off by the fighters and loaded in the back of a pick-up truck.
Another NTC commander, said one of Gadhafi's sons, Mutassim, was also killed in Sirte.
"We found him dead. We put his body and that of (former defence minister) Abu Bakr Yunis Jabar in an ambulance to take them to Misrata," said Mohamed Leith.
News of Gadhafi's death came as new regime troops overran the last redoubt of his loyalists in Sirte, bringing to an end a two-month siege.