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As his capital was wrestled from him after days of ferocious fighting, Muammar Gaddafi issued a defiant message from his hiding place yesterday urging his supporters to "purify" Tripoli as 1,000 rebel fighters bombarded the regime's remaining enclave in the city.

An angry Colonel Gaddafi denounced the "rats, crusaders and unbelievers" in an audio message broadcast by loyalist satellite television channels during another day of brutal combat in Tripoli. There was no sign of an end to the conflict as the battle raged for four hours in the battered neighbourhood of Abu Salim, amid rumours that some of Colonel Gaddafi's family or even the dictator himself could be ready to launch a final stand from a loyalist enclave in a block of flats.

Read more at The Independent