As a (little) earthquake rattled Washington today, it appears that the rebels have taken Gadhafi's compound in the Libyan capitol of Tripoli. After seven months of fighting, the Libyan civil war might just be over. Now what?
From the NYT:
TRIPOLI, Libya — Rebel fighters flooded into Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sprawling compound on Tuesday, overwhelming what remained of its defenses, running pell-mell through the grounds and ransacking caches of weapons, as the crackle of gunfire and rumble of explosions spread across a confused and wary Libyan capital in spasms of renewed fighting.
Hundreds of rebel fighters on foot and in pickup trucks moved quickly into the Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli, where smoky fires shrouded the palm trees and bullet-scarred multistory buildings of what the rebels have called Colonel Qaddafi’s last hideout. Many of the rebels searched the buildings room by room, but there was no immediate sign that Colonel Qaddafi or any member of his family was there.Many of the buildings were looted, and rebel fighters could be seen walking around with high-quality advanced machine guns and, in one case, a gold-plated rifle. Some of the looted weapons were still wrapped in plastic.
CNN showed images of fighters emerging from one building carrying what its reporter was told were medical files of the Qaddafi family. Other footage showed rebels commandeering a Qaddafi golf cart, which they hitched to a truck and paraded down a street.
