Libyan rebels take Gaddafi compound

The other day I posted on the splendid TanglerLive that Gaddafi was about to flee to Tunisia. Well .... that hasn't happened but clearly much else has.

This from the equally splendid Guardian Newspaper today:

Muammar Gaddafi's seat of power in Tripoli has fallen as rebel fighters swarmed into his fortified compound, stamping on a gilded bronze head of the deposed despot and setting fire to his famous tent in a cathartic end to his 42-year dictatorship.
The Libyan leader and his family, however, were nowhere to be found. If they had indeed spent the last days of their rule inside their walled citadel, Bab al-Aziziya, they had since melted away, possibly through the labyrinth of tunnels that lie beneath the compound, an insurance policy against such a day.
With Gaddafi's fate unknown, nobody could say for sure whether the bloodshed was over for good. In the streets beyond the compound, gunfire continued to ring out, although it was unclear whether it was a result of continued skirmishes or celebrations. There were also reports of sporadic looting as darkness fell.

 

A rebel fighter arrives in Gaddafi's Tripoli compound, Bab al-Aziziya, with a looted golden gun as the dictator's tent burns. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

Fight is far from over, but the fact that the rebels managed to get the compound that fast is really surprising.

The 'battle' may be nearly over but the 'war' is far from won. Libya needs to establish a new constitution, bring countless disparate tribes together (really tough call) and find some decent leadership.

Interesting article from the former editor of The Times Simon Jenkins:

"We may all applaud Gaddafi's downfall, but it remains the case that Britain's intervention in Libya was wrong."

... including this recollection of Britain's WW11 PM:

"At the moment Libya is fit only for Churchill's cautious remark about the same place in 1942, that the defeat of Rommel's army was not the beginning of the end but "perhaps the end of the beginning".