Gadhafi captured

Revolutionary fighters have captured deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Libyan television said Thursday, citing the Misrata Military Council.

That report, however, could not be independently confirmed.

Horns blared and celebratory gunfire burst into the air in Tripoli.

"It's a great victory for the Libyan people," said Libyan Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam.

Gadhafi ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years. The mercurial leader came to power in a bloodless coup against King Idris in 1969, when he was just an army captain.

By the end of his rule, he claimed to be "King of Kings," a title he had a gathering of tribal leaders grant him in 2008.

But a February uprising evolved into civil war that resulted in ousting the strongman from power.

But whether Thursday turns out to be the biggest day in recent Libyan history was still uncertain. Statements made by representatives of Libya's new leadership in the past have not always turned out to be true.

Many were waiting for photographs as proof of Gadhafi's capture.

Earlier, anti-Gadhafi fighters said they had wrested control of the last holdout of loyalists in Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte. They said they were still battling pockets of resistance, but they were in control of the district.

Sirte has been the big prize for Libya's National Transitional Council, waiting for the coastal city to fall to officially declare liberation.

Most residents abandoned Sirte in the many weeks of fierce battles that raged there. Revolutionary forces have fought Gadhafi's men street by street, cornering the last vestiges of the old regime to that last district.

Gadhafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, for alleged crimes against humanity has not been seen in public in months. Many believed he was hiding out in Sirte after rebel forces marched into Tripoli in August.