Gaddafi 'sighted' in Tripoli amidst gunfire

Three days after the fall of his Bab al-Azizia citadel, elusive Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi held last meeting of his clan on a street in southern Tripoli amidst gunfire to plan his and his family's exit.

The meeting in a complex on Friday with his son Khamis and daughter Aisha was the last confirmed sighting of Gaddafi before he made a dash across the desert to hole up in his home region of Sabha, on the edge of the Sahara, the Telegraph reported.

The extraordinary details of the flight of Gaddafi -considered now to be the most wanted man on earth - was recounted by a soldier of the ultra-loyalists Khamis brigade escorting the fleeing cavalcade, who was captured by the rebels, the paper said.

Seventeen-year-old Abdulsalam Taher Ali said that he had heard talk in the convoy that they were headed towards the city of Sabha, a place in the middle of Sahara, long mooted as the dictator's final redoubt.

The soldier said that Gaddafi, his son and daughter held the clan summit for 10-15 minutes before converging into two heavily armed convoys of Land Cruisers to dash across the desert.

While Gaddafi and his son's 25-car convoy took the direct route to Sabha, 85 kilometres away escorted by a Posse of 90 guards. Aisha and other members of the family took the circuitous route to head for Sabha and then on to the Algerian border.

Recounting what was to prove Khamis's final journey, Taher Ali said that Gaddafi's son decided at first to ride in a Mercedes but changed his mind to ride an armoured Toyota Land Cruiser.