Libya’s new masters offered a million-dollar bounty for the fugitive Col. Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday, after he urged his men to carry on a battle that kept the capital in a state of fear.
A day after rebel forces overran his Tripoli headquarters and trashed the symbols of his 42-year dictatorship, rocket and machinegun fire from pockets of loyalists kept the irregular fighters at bay as they tried to hunt down Col. Gaddafi and his sons.
Western leaders who backed the revolt with Nato air power remained wary of declaring outright victory while the 69-year-old Col. Gaddafi is at large. He issued a rambling but defiant audio message overnight to remaining bastions of his supporters, some of whom may be tempted to mount an Iraq-style insurgency.
But the international powers and the rebel government-in-waiting in the eastern city of Benghazi lost no time in making arrangements for a handover of Libya’s substantial foreign assets.
Funds will be required to bring relief to war-battered towns and to develop oil reserves that can make Libya rich.
— Reuters