Daily Mail: Wanted dead or alive: £1m reward to capture runaway Gaddafi as rebels pose inside his famous Bedouin tent

"Victory or death." This was the pledge of Muammar Gaddafi today in one of several audio messages released by the world's most wanted fugitive. Loquacious under threat, Mr. Gaddafi also called on Libyans to 'cleanse' Tripoli of rebels. Though his words were strident, Gaddafi himself sounded subdued and confused, a man overwhelmed by events. Once the unquestioned ruler of an oil-rich state, he is now a hunted man. The governing National Transitional Council has put a £1,000,000  price on his head, dead or alive. Gaddafi is currently rumored to be at a farm on the outskirts of Tripoli, but the situation is very unclear.

Heavy fighting is still taking place at his Bab al-Aziziya compound. What Gaddafi loyalists remain are drawing rebel troops into bloody urban warfare throughout Tripoli, leading to the possibility that the mop-up operation in the conquest of the city might be a lengthy one: Gaddafi's troops are well-trained, well-armed, and know the terrain. But, in a sign of what might be to come, loyalists who had been holding Western journalists hostage at the Rixos hotel threw down their arms and walked away from their posts upon receiving news of the full extent of the rebels gains and the regime's collapse.

Elsewhere, rebel forces are moving rapidly towards Sirte, Gaddafi's home town and his last major stronghold, as fears continue that loyalists might unleash chemical weapons in one last desperate throw to reverse the verdict of history.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images; rebels pose for pictures before Tripoli landmark