Libya: Saif al-Islam and Mohammed Gaddafi, the dictator's sons, escape 'capture'

Flashing a V for victory sign, Saif al-Islam , Muammar Gaddafi's son, supposedly in rebel captivity, startled international journalists by greeting them outside the Rixos hotel overnight. Saif al-Islam boasted that the backs of the rebels had been broken as Gaddafi loyalists mounted a fierce counter-attack. But the rebels have breached the walls of Muammar Gaddafi's heavily fortified Bab al-Aziziya compound as of this writing (11 AM EST), amid reports that loyalist resistance has again slackened.

A tough fight lies ahead for the rebels. Bab al-Aziziya contains bunkers constructed by the same Swiss company, Luwa Air Engineering, that built bunkers for Saddam Hussein, bunkers designed to withstand chemical and nuclear attack- although in the case of Saddam Hussein they were able to be breached by US large-yield conventional bombs.

However bloody the fighting, Gaddafi has made his last desperate throw, knocking the rebels back on their heels, but only temporarily. His counter-attack has ground to a halt and he does not have the resources to win this fight. The best he can do is to go down in sanguinary glory. Nato officials are closely monitoring Gaddafi's chemical weapons facilities in the fear that he might turn to them as a last resort. Barring that, escape is a serious possibility for him: his bunker is linked to a network of underground tunnels running beneath Tripoli, tunnels which snake their way into the desert beyond.

Photo: AP; a rebel fighter runs near the Gaddafi compound