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By DARIO LOPEZ and KARIN LAUB and BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - The trappings of Moammar Gadhafi's regime
crumbled Sunday as hundreds of euphoric Libyan rebels overran a
major military base defending the capital, carted away truckloads
of weapons and raced to within two miles of the center of Tripoli with virtually no
resistance.
      

The rebels' surprising and speedy leap forward, after six months
of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few
dramatic hours. By nightfall, they had advanced more than 20 miles
to the edge of Gadhafi's last major bastion of support.
     

 Along the way, they freed several hundred prisoners from a
regime lockup. The fighters and the prisoners - many looking weak
and dazed and showing scars and bruises from beatings - embraced
and wept with joy.
     

 Thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to
cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with rebel fighters
shooting in the air. Some were hoarse, shouting: "We are coming
for you, frizz-head," a mocking nickname for Gadhafi. In villages
along the way that fell to the rebels one after another, mosque
loudspeakers blared "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great."
     

 "We are going to sacrifice our lives for freedom," said Nabil
al-Ghowail, a 30-year-old dentist holding a rifle in the streets of
Janzour, a suburb just six miles west of Tripoli. Heavy gunfire
erupted nearby.
  

    As town after town fell and Gadhafi forces melted away, the mood
turned euphoric. Some shouted: "We are getting to Tripoli
tonight." Others were shooting in the air, honking horns and
yelling "Allahu Akbar."
    

  Inside Tripoli, widespread clashes erupted for a second day
between rebel "sleeper cells" and Gadhafi loyalists. Rebels
fighter who spoke to relatives in Tripoli by phone said hundreds
rushed into the streets in anti-regime protests in several
neighborhoods.

      Libyan state television aired an angry audio message from
Gadhafi Sunday night, urging families in Tripoli to arm themselves
and fight for the capital.
 


     "The time is now to fight for your politics, your oil, your
land," he said. "I am with you in Tripoli - together until the
ends of the earth," Gadhafi shouted.
 

     The day's first breakthrough came when hundreds of rebels fought
their way into a major symbol of the Gadhafi regime - the base of
the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Gadhafi's son, Khamis. Fighters
said they met with little resistance.
  


    Hundreds of rebels cheered wildly and danced as they took over
the compound filled with eucalyptus trees, raising their tricolor
from the front gate and tearing down a large billboard of Gadhafi.
   

   Inside, they cracked open wooden crates labeled "Libyan Armed
Forces" and loaded their trucks with huge quantities of munitions.
One of the rebels carried off a tube of grenades, while another
carted off two mortars.
  

    "This is the wealth of the Libyan people that he was using
against us," said Ahmed al-Ajdal, 27, pointing to his haul. "Now
we will use it against him and any other dictator who goes against
the Libyan people."
  

    One group started up a tank, drove it out of the gate, crushing
the median of the main highway and driving off toward Tripoli.
Rebels celebrated the capture with deafening amounts of celebratory
gunfire, filling the air with smoke.
 


     Across the street, rebels raided a huge warehouse, making off
with hundreds of crates of rockets, artillery shells and
large-caliber ammunition. The warehouse had once been using to
storage packaged foods, and in the back, cans of beans were still
stacked toward the ceiling.
    

  The prisoners had been held in the walled compound and when the
rebels rushed in, they freed more than 300 of them.
     

 "We were sitting in our cells when all of a sudden we heard
lots of gunfire and people yelling 'Allahu Akbar.' We didn't know
what was happening, and then we saw rebels running in and saying
'We're on your side.' And they let us out," said 23-year-old Majid
al-Hodeiri from Zawiya. He said he was captured four months ago by
Gadhafi's forces and taken to base. He said he was beaten and
tortured while under detention.
  

    Many of the prisoners looked disoriented as they stopped at a
gathering place for fighters several miles away from the base. Some
had signs of severe beatings. Others were dressed in tattered
T-shirts or barefoot. Rebels fighters and prisoners embraced.
    

  From the military base, about 16 miles west of Tripoli, the
convoy pushed on toward the capital.
  


    Mahmoud al-Ghwei, 20 and unarmed, said he had just came along
with a friend for the ride .
  


    "It's a great feeling. For all these years, we wanted freedom
and Gadhafi kept it from us. Now we're going to get rid of Gadhafi
and get our freedom," he said.
   


   At nightfall, the fighters reached Janzour, a Tripoli suburb.
Along the way, they were greeted by civilians lining the streets
and waving rebel flags. One man grabbed a rebel flag that had been
draped over the hood of a slow-moving car and kissed it, overcome
with emotion.
  

    "We are not going back," said Issam Wallani, another rebel.
"God willing, this evening we will enter Tripoli."
    


  The uprising against Gadhafi broke out in mid-February, and
anti-regime protests quickly spread across the vast desert nation
with only 6 million people. A brutal regime crackdown quickly
transformed the protests into an armed rebellion. Rebels seized
Libya's east, setting up an internationally recognized transitional
government there, and two pockets in the west, the port city of
Misrata and the Nafusa mountain range.


      Gadhafi clung to the remaining territory, and his forces failed
to subdue the rebellion in Misrata, Libya's third-largest city, and
in the Nafusa mountains. Since the start of August, thousands of
rebel fighters, including many who fled Gadhafi-held cities, joined
an offensive launched from the mountains toward the coast.
  


    The fighters who had set out from the mountains three weeks ago
rushed toward Tripoli on Sunday, start out at dawn from a village
just east of the coastal city of Zawiya. Only a day earlier had the
rebels claimed full control of Zawiya, an anti-regime stronghold
with 200,000 people and Libya's last functioning oil refinery.
 

     Rebels said Saturday that they had launched their first attack
on Tripoli in coordination with NATO and gunbattles and mortar
rounds rocked the city. NATO aircraft also made heavier than usual
bombing runs after nightfall, with loud explosions booming across
the city.
    


  On Sunday, more heavy machine gun fire and explosions rang out
across the capital with more clashes and protests.
 

     Government minders in a hotel where foreign journalists have
been staying in Tripoli armed themselves on Sunday in anticipation
of a rebel take over. The hotel manager said he had received calls
from angry rebels threatening to charge the hotel to capture the
government's spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim.
 


     Heavy gun fire was heard in the neighborhood around the Rixos
hotel, and smoke was seen rising from a close by building.
  


    "We are scared and staying in our houses, but the younger boys
are going out to protect our homes," said a woman who spoke to The
Associated Press by telephone from the pro-rebel Tripoli
neighborhood of Bin Ashour. She spoke on condition of anonymity for
fear of reprisal. She said a neighbor's son was shot dead on
Saturday night by Gadhafi troops as he tried to protect his street
with a group of rebel youth.

      Nuri al-Zawi, another resident of Bin Ashour, told the AP by
phone that the rebels were using light arms to protect their
streets, and in some cases were using only their bodies to fend off
the Gadhafi troops riding in pickup trucks.
    


  "We are used to this situation now. We are a city that is cut
off from the world now," he said.
   

   The residents reported clashes in neighborhoods all over Tripoli
as well as the city's Mitiga military airport. They said they heard
loud explosions and exchanges in of gunfire in the Fashloum,
Tajoura and Bin Ashour neighborhoods. Residents and opposition
fighters also reported large anti-regime protests in those same
neighborhoods. In some of them, thousands braved the bullets of
snipers perched atop high buildings.
 


     Mukhtar Lahab, a rebel commander closing in on Tripoli and a
former captain in Gadhafi's army, said his relatives inside the
capital reported mass protests in four neighborhoods known as
sympathetic to the opposition: Fashloum, Souk al-Jouma, Tajoura and
Janzour. He said mosques there were rallying residents with chants
of "Allahu Akbar" or "God is great," broadcast on loudspeakers.
      ---
      Laub and Hubbard reported from Janzour, Libya. Hadeel Al-Shalchi
in Cairo and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.
      
      (Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

Gallery

The trappings of Moammar Gadhafi's regime
crumbled Sunday as hundreds of euphoric Libyan rebels overran a
major military base defending the capital, carted away truckloads
of weapons and raced to the outskirts of Tripoli.

Libyan rebels reported in Tripoli

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