Qaddafi
QaddafiArutz Sheva photo: Agencia Brasil,

In the continuing fight for the Libyan capital, Libyan rebels seized control of the Abu Salim neighborhood of Tripoli late on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

The neighborhood is one of Muammar Qaddafi’s main bastions of support in the Libyan capital, or so Libyan government officials have described it. Reuters said, however, that journalists who toured the district when the city was still under Qaddafi’s control said some residents had been ambivalent about him.

Earlier on Tuesday, the rebels seized Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli. TV footage showed fighters destroying statues and firing guns into the air in celebration inside the compound, which is several square kilometers in size.

Qaddafi was nowhere in sight as rebels conquered his compound and Colonel Ahmed Bani told Al-Arabiya TV that the rebels believed the Libyan leader was probably hiding in one of many hideouts in Tripoli, which he described as “holes.”

“It will take a long time to find him,” Bani said.