Decisive Anti-Gaddafi victory National Transitional Council Support: Qatar[1][2] UAE[2] UN Security Council Resolution 1973 forces[3] Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Support: Belarus Mustafa Abdul Jalil Mahmoud Jibril Mahdi al-Harati Abu Oweis Abdelhakim Belhadj Khalifa Haftar The Battle of Tripoli (Arabic: ﻣﻌﺮﻛﺔ ﻃﺮﺍﺑﻠﺲ maʻarakat Ṭarābulis), sometimes referred to as the Fall of Tripoli (Arabic: سقوط طرابلس suqūt Ṭarābulis), was a military confrontation in Tripoli, Libya, between loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi, the longtime leader of Libya, and the National Transitional Council, which was attempting to overthrow Gaddafi and take control of the capital.

The rebels codenamed the assault "Operation Mermaid Dawn"[19] (Arabic: ﻋﻤﻠﻴﺔ ﻓﺠﺮ ﻋﺮﻭﺳﺔ ﺍﻟﺒﺤﺮ ʻamaliyyat fajr ʻarūsat el-baḥr).

Fighting was especially fierce in the city's eastern Tajura district, but loyalist forces were able to crush the uprising, with many casualties on both sides.

Loyalists shut down the internet thus cutting access to social networks structuring the opposition, while the extensive design of Tripoli did not allow protests to reach critical mass.

[24] Several loyalists organizing the crackdown were actually double agents, informing rebels of governmental moves and future arrest attempts.

[27] Rebel forces within Zawiya fought for control of a strategic bridge on the road to Tripoli, 27 kilometres (17 miles) from the capital.

Loyalist forces arrived and attempted to assault the mosque, but were driven back by armed residents, taking refuge in the state TV centre nearby.

[32] The uprisings quickly spread through Tripoli, notably the neighbourhoods of Fashloum, Souq al Jum'aa, Tajura and Ben Ashur, and continued throughout the rest of the city.

[38] Later, he stated that "armed militants" had "escaped into some neighbourhoods", causing "a few scuffles", but the governmental forces "dealt with it within a half-hour, and it is now calm.

[48] A resident speaking to Al Jazeera from Tajura in Tripoli said that about 450 prisoners in poor health were freed from a military base after locals took control of the area and pushed out Gaddafi forces, who were shelling the neighbourhood.

[42] By the afternoon, resident rebels had fully taken control of Tajura, Suq al-Jumaa, Arada, and al-Sabaa neighbourhoods in Tripoli.

[52] In a night-time press conference, governmental spokesman Moussa Ibrahim stated that there were an estimated 1,300 killed and 5,000 wounded in the Battle for Tripoli; he blamed the death toll on NATO.

[63] Al Jazeera confirmed the capture, and interviewed Muhammad; he took an apologetic tone, and blamed what caused the revolution as lack of wisdom.

[69] Heavy fighting continued around the Rixos Al Nasr hotel, which housed foreign journalists in Tripoli and remained a government stronghold.

[74] The situation in Tripoli was confused, but loyalist forces were definitively known to remain in control of Bab al-Azizia, the Rixos Al Nasr hotel, a hospital in Tajura,[75] and part of the port.

[79] Misrata's local military council said they sent several ships "with a large number of fighters and ammunition on board" as reinforcements to Tripoli.

[80] The location of Muammar Gaddafi was unclear on 22 August; it was thought that he could still be staying in Tripoli, surrounded by the remaining forces in his Bab al-Azizia compound, but this was yet to be determined.

[83] Mutassim Gaddafi was allegedly remaining in the Bab al-Azizia compound directing the remaining defences,[84][85] while Khamis Gaddafi (who had earlier been rumored killed in an airstrike at Zliten) was reported to be leading loyalist tank forces in a counterattack against central Tripoli, in an attempt to relieve the siege of Bab al-Azizia.

[92] Saif claimed the people of Libya were behind him and his father, that NATO had jammed loyalist communications, including state TV and that "gangs of saboteurs" had been smuggled into Tripoli via civilians cars and boats.

Saif was seen amongst Gaddafi supporters handing out weapons to them outside the Bab al-Azizia compound and being organised in "street brigades" to fight the rebels.

[105] The rebels, meeting fierce resistance, continued to use heavy weaponry to expose loyalists and destroy fortifications in the centre of the compound.

[112] Around 5 p.m., Tripoli time, all foreign reporters and staff that had been restricted to within the Rixos Al Nasr hotel were able to leave the compound in four vans of the Red Cross.

[106] It was confirmed that rebel forces had been in full control of Tripoli International Airport for four days, and that Gaddafi's personal planes were still on the ground.

[122] At this time, Muammar Gaddafi held a meeting with his son Khamis and daughter Ayesha at a military compound in the city, following which they all left Tripoli in two heavily guarded convoys towards Sabha.

[124] In the final actions of the battle, NLA forces launched an attack on the last remaining loyalist base in Salaheddin, a suburb 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) south of Tripoli and took it after seven hours of fighting.

The National Transitional Council had been in contact with rebel cells inside Tripoli, including employees of the Gaddafi government sympathetic to the opposition's cause.

The data contained invaluable information on the state of the regime, as well as the numbers of people working in various facilities and the military capabilities of loyalist forces based in Tripoli.

Memory cards containing information on loyalist command and control centres and other regime military and intelligence facilities were supplied to NATO by rebel cells in Tripoli.

The NTC assigned 2,000 armed men to go into Tripoli and 6,000 unarmed to go out onto the streets in the uprising that was to occur the day before the assault on the city from the western outskirts.

The trigger for the uprising, the so-called "Zero Hour", was the speech by NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil in which he said that the noose is tightening around Gaddafi.