Tripoli, May 02: Celebratory gunfire is heard in the streets of Benghazi as word reaches the city that Libya’s embattled ruler Muammar Gaddafi’s youngest son Saif al-Arab has been killed in a NATO airstrike.
The streets of the eastern city of Benghazi were filled with the throng of excited revolutionaries and people who hailed the death of Gaddafi’s son, a Media correspondent reported on Sunday.
With the front line mired in a stalemate, the Libyan revolutionaries were in need of something to celebrate and they finally celebrated the incident, which entered the Libyan war into a new phase.
There was little sympathy in Benghazi for the death of Gaddafi’s son and three of his grandsons also killed in the bombing raid.
NATO targeted the house of the 29-year-old Saif al-Arab on Saturday night, killing him and three of Gaddafi’s grandchildren.
The attack came after Gaddafi made a speech on state television, saying he would not step down but he was ready for a ceasefire and negotiations, provided that NATO halted its airstrikes.
But many in Benghazi took his words as a sign of the Libyan dictator’s growing desperation and the revolutionaries were in no mood to negotiate.
Some believe the strategy of directly targeting the Libyan leadership goes well beyond the UN resolution authorizing a no-fly zone.
——–Agencies