Rebels Take Over Tripoli

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power dissolved with astonishing speed on Monday as rebels marched into the capital and arrested two of his sons, while residents raucously celebrated the prospective end of his four-decade-old rule. Colonel Qaddafi’s precise whereabouts remained unknown and news reports said loyalist forces still held pockets of the city, stubbornly resisting the rebel advance.

“We do not know if he is inside or outside Libya,” Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the rebel government, the National Transitional Council, told a news conference in Benghazi, up until now the de facto rebel capital, on Monday. He acknowledged, too, that the area of Tripoli around Colonel Qaddafi’s compound was not under rebel control. Overnight, in Tripoli’s central Green Square, the site of many manufactured rallies in support of Colonel Qaddafi, jubilant Libyans tore down posters of him and stomped on them. The rebel leadership announced that the elite presidential guard protecting the Libyan leader had surrendered and that their forces controlled many parts of the city, but not Colonel Qaddafi’s leadership compound.

On Sunday, NATO troops continued close air support of the rebels all day, with multiple strikes by alliance aircraft helping to clear the road from Zawiyah to Tripoli. Rebel leaders in the west credited NATO with thwarting an attempt by Qaddafi loyalists to reclaim Zawiyah on Sunday with a flank assault on the city.

In a report on Monday from Brussels, The Associated Press quoted a NATO official as saying the alliance would continue air patrols over Libya until all pro-Qaddafi forces surrender or return to barracks. But Mr. Nacua, the rebel envoy in London, seemed to suggest that the rebels felt NATO’s role was now over. “NATO has done a very good job. They neutralized Qaddafi’s war machine,” Mr. Nacua said. “But I think their role will be over, and the Libyan people will independently rebuild their country.”

Problems began to arise for the nation in February 2011 when, similarly to Egypt, citizens displeased with their governments began to protest, demanding the current dictator Colonel Qaddafi step down from his position. Unfortunately for Libyans Qaddafi was much more stubborn than leaders in Egypt and a war erupted, rebels versus pro-Qaddafi supporters. Now that the rebels have claimed the capital, it is seen as a major step for the protestors towards achieving what they believe will be true freedom.