Where is Col Muammar Gaddafi?

As rebel troops enter the Libyan capital Tripoli - and crowds are seen celebrating the end of the old regime - one question remains: Where is Col Muammar Gaddafi?

  
         The leader of Libya for 42 years was heard on Saturday night calling on "all Libyans to join this fight".
"I am in Tripoli," he told Libyan TV via phone link. "Go out, I am with you until the end," he urged people.
Audio broadcast messages have been his way of making his presence felt during the fierce fighting between rebels and government troops in recent months.
But he has not been seen in public since May and one of his last TV appearances was in mid-June when he was pictured playing chess with the World Chess Federation president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
If it is true, that he has remained in his compound in the Libyan capital, then it is possible his whereabouts will be confirmed within a few hours. Fierce fighting is currently being reported around his Bab al-Azizia residence.
Until then, speculation abounds over where he might be.
One of the most persistent rumours is that he left Tripoli a while ago and may have gone to his birthplace of Sirte, on the western coast, or his ancestral home of Sabha in the south.

Gone abroad?
When the BBC was taken on a government-guided visit to Sirte last month, they were treated to an early evening rally of several thousand people showing their support for Col Gaddafi.

However, there are rumours too that he may have fled the country.
South Africa - which has led mediation efforts by the African Union to seek a solution to the crisis - was forced on Monday to deny it had sent planes to Libya to help Col Gaddafi escape.
"The South African government would like to refute and dispel the rumours and claims that it has sent planes to Libya to fly Col Gaddafi and his family to an undisclosed location," Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane told a news briefing.
Meanwhile, unnamed rebels have been quoted as saying that Col Gaddafi and some of his family are "near to the Algerian border".
The US defence department said on Monday it believed he was still in Libya. "We do not have information that he's left the country," said Pentagon spokesman Col Dave Lapan, without giving any further details.
Whatever the truth of his whereabouts, it is impossible to predict how this is going to end for the flamboyantly-dressed, maverick leader who has long liked to portray himself as the spiritual guide of the nation.

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