[1] The NTC initially claimed Gaddafi succumbed to injuries sustained in a firefight when loyalist forces attempted to free him, although a video of his last moments shows rebel fighters beating him and one of them sodomizing him with a bayonet[2] before he was shot several times.

[6] After the fall of Tripoli to forces of the opposition National Transitional Council (NTC) in August 2011, Gaddafi and his family escaped the Libyan capital.

[7] On 19 October 2011, Libya's prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, said that Gaddafi was believed to be in the southern desert, reestablishing his government among pro-Gaddafi tribes in the region.

An American Predator drone controlled from a base near Las Vegas[12] fired the first missiles at the convoy, hitting its target about 3 kilometres (2 mi) west of Sirte.

NATO stated that, in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, it does not target individuals, but only military assets that pose a threat.

[16] After the airstrike, which destroyed the vehicle in front of Muammar Gaddafi's car, he and his son Mutassim, along with former defence minister Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, took shelter in a nearby house, which was then shelled by NTC forces.

"The group belly-crawled to a sand berm", according to a United Nations report published in March 2012, and then through two drainage pipes and set up a defensive position.

[25] However, Prime Minister of NTC Mahmoud Jibril gave a contradictory account, stating that "when the car was moving it was caught in crossfire between the revolutionaries and Gaddafi forces in which he was hit by a bullet in the head".

The first shows footage of Gaddafi alive, his face and shirt bloodied, stumbling and being dragged toward an ambulance by armed militants chanting "God is Greater" in Arabic.

[27][28][29] Another shows Gaddafi, stripped to the waist, suffering from an apparent gunshot wound to the head, and in a pool of blood, together with jubilant fighters firing automatic weapons in the air.

[32] The interim Libyan authorities decided to keep Gaddafi's body "for a few days", NTC oil minister Ali Tarhouni said, "to make sure that everybody knows he is dead".

[43] On 25 October 2011, NTC representatives announced that Gaddafi's body had been buried in a secret grave in the desert early that morning, along with those of his son and the regime's defense minister.

[39] Moments after it was reported that Gaddafi was killed, Fox News published an article titled "U.S. Drone Involved in Final Qaddafi Strike, as Obama Heralds Regime's 'End'",[49] noting that a U.S.

Abdul Hakim Al Jalil, the commander of the NTC's 11th Brigade, stated that former Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim had been captured near Sirte.

[55] Numerous organizations, including the United Nations and the U.S. and UK governments, have called for an investigation of the exact circumstances of Gaddafi's death,[56] amid controversy that it was an extrajudicial killing and a war crime.

[61] Almost a year later, on 17 October 2012, new evidence was revealed by Human Rights Watch showing that mass killings occurred at the site of Gaddafi's death.

[62] In its immediate aftermath, the controversial killing of Gaddafi was thought to have significant implications in the Middle East, as a critical part of the wider "Arab Spring".

[63][64] Former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel speculated that the death would intensify protesting in Syria and Yemen, and French officials stated that because of this they were "watching the Algerian situation".

[65] Omran Shaban, the Misrata fighter who discovered Gaddafi in the drain pipe and who had posed in photos with his golden gun, was captured by Green Resistance soldiers in Bani Walid.

[68] Furthermore, French defence analyst and former intelligence officer, Eric Dénécé, referred to Obeidi's allegations as "patent nonsense", citing the fact that "in November 2011 France's stance towards Syria actually toughened, with Paris being the first country to recognise the rebel Syrian National Council".

"[69] Syria strongly rejected any foreign involvement in Libya and was one of the only Arab League member states to vote against a request to the UN for a no-fly zone within Libyan airspace.

[76] NTC official Ali Tarhouni said on 22 October that he had instructed the military council in Misrata to keep Gaddafi's body preserved for several days in a commercial freezer "to make sure that everybody knows he is dead".

[77] Two days later, Tarhouni admitted that there had been human rights abuses in the Battle of Sirte, which he said the NTC condemned, and claimed the executive board "did not want to put an end to that tyrant's life before bringing him to trial and making him answer questions that have always haunted Libyans".

Some officials, such as UK foreign secretary William Hague, expressed disappointment that Gaddafi was not brought back alive and allowed to stand trial.

[90] Government officials and politicians in Iran showed considerably diverse reactions with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accusing the West of plundering Libya.

"[94] Referring to the U.S. coalition's lobbying efforts for the airstrikes at the United Nations, the U.S. diplomat was quoted as saying that a later U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that "Putin blamed himself for letting Gaddafi go, for not playing a strong role behind the scenes" and that Gaddafi's death may have even influenced Putin's decision to intervene militarily in Syria since he "believed that unless he got engaged Bashar would suffer the same fate – mutilated – and he'd see the destruction of his allies in Syria.