Bounty offered for Gadhafi as rebels vow to hold polls

As the search for Gadhafi goes on, the NTC promised to hold elections in eight months.

Tripoli celebrated into the early hours of Wednesday after rebels overran Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound on Tuesday, despite finding no sign of the Libyan strongman or his sons.

Abdel-Jalil told France-24 television that some 600 pro-Gadhafi fighters had been captured but the battle would not be over until the Libyan leader himself was a prisoner.

Celebratory gunfire rocked the city when news spread that the insurgents had breached the walls of the Bab al-Aziziya compound in the center of the capital. But Gadhafi loyalists still held out in parts of the city.

They had been in control of the Rixos hotel, headquarters of the foreign journalists accredited to the regime. The journalists were allowed to leave the hotel on Wednesday, after days of being held captive by forces loyal to Gadhafi.

On the run and his whereabouts unknown, Gadhafi delivered two messages on Wednesday.

In a speech carried by the website of a television station headed by his son Saif al-Islam, he said he had abandoned his Tripoli compound in a "tactical withdrawal" after it had been wrecked by NATO warplanes.

In a later audio message on the Syrian-based Arrai Oruba television station, Gadhafi urged residents to "cleanse Tripoli of rats".

He also said he had taken to the streets of Tripoli without being recognized.

"I walked incognito, without anyone seeing me, and I saw youths ready to defend their city," the strongman said, without specifying when he did his walkabout. The attack on Gadhafi's headquarters followed three days of fighting in the capital which Abdel-Jalil said had left more than 400 killed and 2,000 wounded.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said on Wednesday that China hopes Libya can achieve a smooth transition of power; Kazinform cites China Daily.

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