Muammar Gaddafi is dead

Muammar Gaddafi is dead, Libya's new leaders said, killed by fighters who overran his home town and final bastion on Thursday. His bloodied body was stripped and displayed around the world from cell phone video.

Senior officials in the interim government, which ended his 42-year rule two months ago but had laboured to subdue thousands of diehard loyalists, said his death would allow a declaration of "liberation" after eight months of bloodshed.

Born 7 June 1942, commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi; was the autocratic ruler of Libya from 1969 to 2011 after seizing power in a military coup.

As a result of the 2011 Libyan civil war and the creation of the National Transitional Council, Gaddafi has lost almost all domestic and international recognition, and has lost control of the majority of Libya.

He abolished the Libyan Constitution of 1951, and adopted laws based on his political ideology. His 41 years in power prior to the Civil War made him the fourth longest-ruling non-royal leader since 1900, as well as the longest-ruling Arab leader. He variously styled himself as ‘the Brother Leader’, ‘Guide of the Revolution’ and ‘King of Kings’.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who with French President Nicolas Sarkozy was an early sponsor of February's revolt in Benghazi, said: "People in Libya today have an even greater chance after this news of building themselves a strong and democratic future."

The new national flag, resurrected by rebels who forced Gaddafi from his capital Tripoli in August, filled streets and squares as jubilant crowds whooped for joy and fired in the air.

In Sirte, a one-time fishing village and Gaddafi's home town that grandiose schemes had styled a new "capital of Africa," fighters danced, brandishing a golden pistol they said they had taken from Gaddafi.

Accounts were hazy of his final hours, which also appeared to have cost the lives of senior aides. But top officials of the National Transitional Council, including Abdel Majid Mlegta, said he had died of wounds sustained in clashes.