Libyan rebels put a price of two million dinars ($1.67 million, 1.2 million euros) on the head of strongman Muammar Gaddafi, dead or alive, the head of the Transitional National Council said on Wednesday. “The NTC supports the initiative of businessmen who are offering two million dinars for the capture of Muammar Gaddafi, dead or alive,” Mustafa Abdel Jalil said in Tripoli. A beleaguered Muammar Gaddafi vowed on Wednesday to fight on to death or victory after jubilant rebels forced him to abandon his Tripoli stronghold in an apparently decisive blow against the Libyan leader's 42-year rule. In Rome, Libyan rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said Wednesday the country will hold free elections in eight months's time and Gaddafi will be put on trial in the country if he is caught and not handed over to an international court; “In eight months we will hold legislative and presidential elections,” said Jalil, chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) which now controls all but isolated pockets of the oil-rich state. “We want a democratic government and a just constitution. Above all we do not wish to continue to be isolated in the world as we have been up to now,” he told Italy's La Repubblica daily. Gaddafi's whereabouts remained unknown Wednesday after the rebels had overrun his Tripoli compound, but the rebel leader said he and his inner circle should be captured alive and stand trial in Libya. The rebels ransacked Gaddafi's Bab Al-Aziziya bastion, seizing arms and smashing symbols of a ruler whose fall will transform Libya and rattle other Arab autocrats facing popular uprisings. Gaddafi said the withdrawal from his headquarters in the heart of the capital was a tactical move after it had been hit by 64 NATO air strikes and he vowed “martyrdom” or victory in his six-month war against the Western alliance and Libyan foes. Urging Libyans to cleanse the streets of traitors, he said he had secretly toured Tripoli. In Libyan diplomats and students smashed portraits of Gaddafi, shouted “Game over!” and raised the rebel flag at their Manila embassy as part of defections at missions worldwide underscoring the leader's rapid fall. Libyan consul Faraj Zarroug in the Philippine capital said at least 85 percent of his country's 165 diplomatic missions now recognized the interim rebel government, the National Transitional Council. “It's game over for Mr. Gaddafi!,” Zarroug told The Associated Press. “Probably in a few days, everything will be over, hopefully. I'm very happy.” Libyan diplomats abroad have been pledging allegiance to the rebels gradually for months, but defections surged this week. The missions to Switzerland and Bangladesh, for example, switched soon after the rebellion erupted nearly six months ago, and Libyan embassy officials in Japan and Ethiopia replaced the government flag with the rebel's tricolor on Monday. A spokesman for the rebels in Dubai, Edward Marques, said Wednesday the defections had turned into a “cascade,” but declined to list the locations of rebel supporters. Th Libyan rebel government would honor all the oil contracts granted during the Muammar Gaddafi era, including those of Chinese companies, Ahmed Jehani, a senior rebel representative for reconstruction told Reuters in an interview.
