Gadhafi claims 'tactical' retreat from compound

Sergey Ponomarev - Rebel fighters gesture as one of them stands on a monument inside Moammar Gadhafi's main compound in Bab Al-Aziziya in Tripoli, Libya, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi claimed in a radio address early Wednesday that he retreated from his Tripoli compound in a "tactical move," hours after rebel fighters celebrated and looted inside his former residence and military barracks.Fighters first entered the compound after several hours of fighting on Tuesday. Hundreds of rebels fired their weapons into the air and took anything in the facility they could grab, including ammunition and arms. They found new rifles still in their paper wrappings, The Associated Press reported. Scuffles broke out, with people pushing and shoving to get inside two white buildings where the rifles, machine-guns and handguns were stored.
A TV channel is quoting Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi as saying he retreated from his Tripoli compound in a "tactical move" after 64 NATO airstrikes turned it to rubble.Al-Rai TV said Wednesday it would air the comments from Gadhafi in full soon and reported an excerpt in which the leader of Libya's crumbling regime vows his forces will resist "the aggression with all strength" until either victory or death.It was not clear from the remarks when Gadhafi abandoned the Bab al-Azaziya compound, which was overrun by rebel fighters Tuesday.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Hundreds of Libyan rebels stormed Moammar Gadhafi's compound Tuesday, charging wildly through the symbolic heart of the crumbling regime as they killed loyalist troops, looted armories and knocked the head off a statue of the besieged dictator. But they found no sign of the man himself.

 The storming of Bab al-Aziziya, long the nexus of Gadhafi's power, marked the effective collapse of his 42-year-old regime. But with Gadhafi and his powerful sons still unaccounted for — and gunbattles flaring across the nervous city — the fighters cannot declare victory.The rebel force entered the compound after fighting for five hours with Gadhafi loyalists outside, using mortars, heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns. They killed some of those who defended the compound and hauled off thousands of rifles, crates of weapons and trucks with guns mounted on the back in a frenzy of looting."We're looking for Gadhafi now. We have to find him now," said Sohaib Nefati, a rebel sitting against a wall with a Kalashnikov ifle.Abdel-Aziz Shafiya, a 19-year-old rebel dressed in camouflage with a rocket-propelled grenade slung over one shoulder and a Kalashnikov over the other, said the rebels believe Gadhafi is inside the compound but hiding underground."Wasn't he the one who called us rats? Now he is the rat underground," he said.Shafiya said he felt "an explosion of joy" to be standing inside Gadhafi's stronghold in the capital after a lightning-quick rebel advance. He had left the rebel-held western city of Misrata just two days earlier."I lost friends and relatives and now I can walk into Gadhafi's house," Shafiya said, choking up with emotion. "Many of my friends have died and now all of that meant something."Tripoli's new rebel military chief, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, said at nightfall that a small area of the vast compound was still under the control of regime fighters and heavy shooting was heard across Tripoli toward midnight.