Rebel fighters captured Muammar Gaddafi’s heavily fortified Bab al-Aziziya compound and headquarters in Tripoli yesterday after a day of fierce fighting, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

The defenders had fled, and the whereabouts of Col Gaddafi or his family were unknown after the insurgents breached the defences as part of a massive assault that began in the morning.

“Bab al-Aziziya is fully under our control now. Colonel Gaddafi and his sons were not there; there is nobody,” Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani said from the rebel bastion of Benghazi.

“No one knows where they are,” he added.

However, a member of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), Fathi Terbel, said “we are sure that he is not in Tripoli”.

“This is an end which was expected, especially once rebels got inside Tripoli. It is now a matter of time to capture Gaddafi.”

The correspondent said the rebels had “breached the surrounding cement walls and entered inside. They have taken Bab al-Azizya. Completely. It is finished”, the correspondent said.

“It is an incredible sight,” he said, adding that the bodies of a number of apparent Gaddafi fighters were lying inside, as well as wounded.

The correspondent said rebels found an armoury in one of the buildings and were seizing quantities of ammunition, pistols and assault rifles.

Another AFP correspondent said hundreds of fighters were celebrating, shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest), and that whenever they encountered a foreigner they would say “thank you Nato.”

The buildings around the compound were completely destroyed.

Footage from Al-Jazeera television showed a young rebel climbing atop a huge sculpture of a fist gripping an airplane – a symbol of a US attack on the compound in 1986 – trying to break off a piece of it.

Another rebel proudly brandished a seized rifle with a gold-plated barrel and stock saying “Gaddafi people killed us with it”.

As young men tore up a poster portrait of Col Gaddafi, others were seen kicking around a metallic mask of Gaddafi (photo above). One young man, a green bandana around his head, then picked it up and held it above his head like a trophy, flashing a smile. Commenting on the seizure of the compound, a rebel official in the western city of Misurata said that “at the same house used by Gaddafi to describe the Libyan people as rats, today the independence flag is flying on its roof.”

Amid reports that ordinary citizens were beginning to stream into the complex of several hectares (acres), rebel television Al-Ahrar called on people to stay away so that insurgent fighters could mop up inside.

It also urged police in Tripoli to remain at their posts in order to guarantee security.

Yesterday morning, Col Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam, who was reportedly under arrest, made a surprise appearance in Tripoli and announced that his father and family were still in the capital.

However, he declined to say where.

“Gaddafi and the entire family are in Tripoli,” Mr Seif told reporters at the Rixos Hotel where many foreign journalists are housed.

Mr Seif also said the regime’s forces had deliberately not tried to prevent the rebels from entering the capital.

“Allowing the rebels to enter Tripoli was a trick,” he said, without elaborating. Nato, meanwhile, said Col Gaddafi was “not a target” for the military alliance.

“Nato does not target individuals,” said Operation Unified Protector spokesman, Colonel Roland Lavoie.

“Gaddafi does not constitute a target,” he told reporters in Brussels via video-conference from the mission’s Naples headquarters.

In the hours that led up to the storming of the compound in central Tripoli, the sound of the fighting was the most intense heard in the city since rebels arrived three days ago.

The correspondent said rebel forces coming from the western city of Misurata had reinforced the offensive during the afternoon.

The rebel official in Misurata said one of their commanders had been killed in the assault on the compound.

The sky was filled with the sound of heavy and light machine guns as well as mortars, with the overhead roar of Nato jets that had been carrying intensive over flights though it was unclear if there were any air strikes.

Even two kilometres from the fighting, the almost constant whistle of falling bullets could be heard from the rooftops, as the city’s mosques chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest).