Gadhafi Gives Rebels the Slip, Goes Walkabout

Libyan rebels Wednesday hunted for Moammar Gadhafi and battled remnants of his forces, as the defiant strongman boasted he went walkabout and urged residents to cleanse Tripoli of "rats."

Two powerful blasts thought to be caused by an air attack rocked the capital early in the morning as a NATO warplane flew overhead, hours after rebel fighters overran Gadhafi's Bab al-Azizya compound in the center of Tripoli.

The explosions came during a night of shooting as fighting continued following the storming of the compound, the symbolic seat of Gadhafi's power.

The leader of a rebel group told an Agence France Presse correspondent that pro-Gadhafi fighters were hidden on the road to Tripoli airport.

The whereabouts of the strongman himself and his family, however, remained a mystery on Wednesday.

Rebel fighters said they had found no trace of Gadhafi when they swarmed through his compound on Tuesday, raiding his armory, raising their flag and ripping the head off a statue of the strongman.

"Bab al-Azizya is fully under our control now. Colonel Gadhafi and his sons were not there; there is nobody," said military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Bani "No one knows where they are."

Wherever he may indeed be, the strongman is still managing to get his messages out.

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

"Bab al-Azizya was nothing but a heap of rubble after it was the target of 64 NATO missiles and we withdrew from it for tactical reasons," he said.

The speech gave no indication of where he had gone.

In a later audio message on Syria-based Arrai Oruba television station, Gadhafi boasted that 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.

He also urged "the residents, the tribes, the elderly to go into the streets... and cleanse Tripoli of rats" -- referring to the rebels.

Gadhafi spokesman Mussa Ibrahim claimed to the Arrai Oruba channel that more than 6,500 "volunteers" had arrived in Tripoli to fight for the regime, and called for more.

Insurgents, jumpy but jubilant and armed with assault rifles, combed the streets of the capital Wednesday for remnants of the regime.

"We are the champions. We've been dying for 42 years and now we are going to live," said Sharif Sohail, a 34-year-old dentist who took up arms to patrol the city center.

Other rebel fighters, some wrapped in Free Libya flags, some wearing flack jackets, manned checkpoints through the night, scrutinizing traffic by flashlight in neighborhoods without electricity.

"We are checking every car that passes," Brahim Mukhtar, 27, told AFP at a main intersection near Souk al-Fatah. "We are guarding the streets."

Opposition leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil pledged in comments published Wednesday that Libya will hold elections in eight months and was adamant that Gadhafi will be tried in the country.

"In eight months we will hold legislative and presidential elections. We want a democratic government and a just constitution," promised Abdel Jalil, chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC)

"Above all we do not wish to continue to be isolated in the world as we have been up to now," he added in comments published in the Italian La Repubblica daily.

Residents of the capital had celebrated late into the night following the capture of the Bab al-Azizya compound.

But in the early hours of Wednesday, the streets grew eerily empty of residents while rebels and loyalists engaged in deadly cat-and-mouse warfare and fears of Gadhafi snipers on rooftops dampened the jubilation.

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.

He did not specify if he was talking of both sides.

In an interview with France 24 television, Abdel Jalil also said that some 600 pro-Gadhafi fighters had been captured but the battle would not be over until the Libyan leader himself was a prisoner.

He said three areas of the capital were still resisting, including Abu Slim, from where half-a-dozen mortar bombs fell on Bab al-Azizya late Tuesday.

Rebels said Gadhafi loyalists in his birthplace of Sirte, the last major regime bastion remaining, had fired a missile at rebel-held Misrata, hours after negotiations began to try to secure a surrender of the city.

On the eastern front, Libyan rebels Tuesday overran the eastern oil hub of Ras Lanuf on the road to Sirte, spokesman Bani said.

In Doha, NTC number two, Mahmud Jibril said Libya's transition "begins immediately" and that Qatar would host a meeting on Wednesday to organize $2.4 billion in aid for the country.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev meanwhile said there were still two powers in Libya despite the success of rebels, and called for talks to resolve the situation.

"Despite the successes of the rebels, Gadhafi and his supporters still have a certain influence and military potential. We want them to sit down at the negotiating table and reach agreements on future peace," he said. "In essence, there are two powers in the country.

And in London, a rebel spokesman said that Libya's rebel leadership will honor contracts signed between foreign companies and Gadhafi's regime, near collapse after the six-month revolt.

Asked whether contracts signed in the Gadhafi era would be respected, the NTC's British coordinator Guma al-Gamaty told BBC radio: "They will be honored."