Tripoli, Aug 24 (ANI): Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, whose regime is now on the verge of collapsing, has said that he has abandoned his Tripoli compound in a "tactical withdrawal" after it was targeted by NATO missiles.
"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 in a speech carried by the website of a television station headed by his son Seif al-Islam.
The speech, which was also telecasted by the pro-Gaddafi Al-Oruba channel, came after heavily armed rebels seized his Tripoli compound, and his personal belongings in his bedroom. However, it did not indicate a possible location where Gaddafi might currently be hiding, the Herald Sun reports.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi spokesman Mussa Ibrahim has told the Syrian-based Arrai channel that over 6,500 "volunteers" had arrived in Tripoli to fight for the regime and called for more.
"The volunteers can come to Libya and we will give them weapons, ammunition and training," he said, adding that the dictator's forces had captured several rebel leaders and warned that if NATO raids continued "we will turn Libya into a brazier and we can protect civilians from the crusader gangs and alliances".
Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, who was presumed to have been detained by the rebels, surprisingly appeared on Tuesday at a hotel with foreign journalists, and reports suggest that some of the dictator's loyalist forces stubbornly resisted rebel efforts to take control of the capital.
Saif walked as a free man to the Gaddafi-controlled luxury Rixos Hotel in the center of Tripoli, boasting to foreign journalists there that his father's government was still "in control". (ANI)
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