Libya's revolt erupted in February as part of anti-government protests spreading across the Middle East. Islamist groups stand to gain ground in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, which shook off their dictators several months ago. Tunisia has taken the biggest steps so far on the path to democracy, voting Sunday for a new assembly, while Egypt's parliamentary election is set for next month.

Libya's struggle has been the bloodiest so far in the region. Mass protests quickly turned into a civil war that killed thousands and paralyzed the country. Gadhafi loyalists held out for two more months after the fall of the capital of Tripoli in late August. Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte fell last week, but Gadhafi's son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, apparently escaped with some of his supporters.

The anti-Gadhafi forces enjoyed strong Western political and military support during their revolt, especially from the U.S., Britain and France, and NATO airstrikes were key to their victory.

Abdul-Jalil paid tribute to the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation alliance led by Saudi Arabia, the Arab League and the European Union. NATO performed its task with "efficiency and professionalism," he said.

President Barack Obama congratulated Libyans on the declaration.

"After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise," he said

Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi dies

TRIPOLI, Libya — An autopsy confirmed that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi died from a gunshot to the head, the country's chief pathologist said Sunday, just hours before Libya's new leaders were to declare liberation and a formal end to an eight-month civil war to topple the longtime ruler's regime.

The declaration starts the clock on a transition to democracy that is fraught with uncertainty and could take up to two years.

However, international concern about the circumstances of Gadhafi's death and indecision over what to do with his remains overshadowed what was to be a joyful day. Gadhafi's body has been on public display in a commercial freezer in a shopping center in the port city of Misrata, which suffered from a bloody siege by regime forces during the spring.
The 69-year-old was captured wounded, but alive Thursday in his hometown of Sirte as it became the last city to fall to revolutionary forces. Bloody images of Gadhafi being taunted and beaten by his captors have raised questions about whether he was killed in crossfire as suggested by government officials or deliberately executed.

After Gadhafi's demise, biggest killers of Americans now are dead

A man reacts while viewing the bodies of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, background, his ex-defense minister Abu Bakr Younis and his son, Muatassim Gadhafi, foreground, in a commercial freezer at a shopping center in Misrata, Libya, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. 

The joyful ceremony formally marking the end of Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year tyranny was also clouded by mounting pressure from the leaders of the NATO campaign that helped secure victory to investigate whether Gadhafi, dragged wounded but alive out of a drainage ditch last week, was then executed by his captors.

The circumstances of Gadhafi's death remain unclear. In any case, critics said the gruesome spectacle of his blood-streaked body laid out as a trophy for a third day of public viewing in a commercial freezer tests the new leadership's commitment to the rule of law.




By Robert Windrem, NBC News' senior investigative producer
Since May 1, U.S. intelligence and special operations forces, or foreign forces working with U.S. intelligence and special operations forces, have killed the leading terrorists who targeted and killed more Americans than any others in the past 25 years.
Not only did the U.S. kill Osama Bin Laden on May 1, but also took out — "removed from the battlefield" — three of the jihadists they had identified as potential successors to bin Laden in the hours after the attack. Also, Somali forces loyal to the U.S. killed the mastermind of al-Qaida's East Africa embassy bombings. With 224 killed, 12 of them Americans, the attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were the group's deadliest attack before 9-11.
As for Moammar Gadhafi, it was his intelligence service that has been strongly linked to the attack on PanAm 103 in December 1988, which until September 11 was the single worst terrorist attack directed against the U.S., killing 269 people. (Gadhafi was also believed responsible for the deaths of 171 people on UTA 772 over the Congo.)
Here is the chronology:
May 1: Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
June 3: Ilyas Kashmiri, senior al-Qaida member and one of the five potential successors to al-Qaida leadership, is killed by a drone attack in Ghwakhwa area of South Waziristan, Pakistan.
June 8: Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, al-Qaida leader in East Africa and the mastermind of the East Africa embassy bombings was shot dead by Somali forces at a checkpoint in the capital. He was identified by a wanted poster provided by the U.S. military.
August 22: Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, newly minted No. 2 in al-Qaida, is killed by drone attack in North Waziristan. Attiyah was also seen by the CIA as potential successor to bin Laden and had served as bin Laden's "chief of staff" prior to the May 1 attack.
September 30: Anwar al-Awlaki, operational leader in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, is killed by drone attack in Yemen's al-Jawf province. He, too, had been identified as a potential successor to bin Laden.
October 20: Moammar Gadhafi, Libya’s leader for 42 years, was killed in a gun fight by Libyan rebels near Sirte.
U.S. officials remain confident that they are going to find and kill bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri himself admits he’s been targeted at least five times.
(Historical footnote: The Marine Barracks bombing in 1983 killed 241 U.S. servicemen and the East Africa embassy bombing and was until the Pan Am 103 bombing the single worst terrorist attack on the United States. It was the handiwork of Imad Mugniyah, who was killed in February 2008 in Damascus, Syria, by a bomb hidden in the headrest of a car. As he walked past the car, the bomb was detonated. It was believed to be the handiwork of a joint U.S.-Israeli operation.)