WARNING - VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT<br/> <br />October 11, 2011 -- Sirte, Libya.<br/> <br />Muammar Gaddafi's final days played out here in his home town -- to where many of his die-hard loyalists had fled since the fall of Tripoli almost three months earlier.<br/> <br />The battle for Sirte was a long, intense and relatively close-range fight between the rebels and the remaining Gaddafi loyalists.<br/> <br />To this day, it's unclear how exactly Libya's longtime leader was apprehended just over a week later on October 20 2011.<br/> <br />One scenario, pieced together from various sources, suggests he tried to flee Sirte at dawn in a convoy of vehicles.<br/> <br />The story goes that Gaddafi's attempted escape was thwarted by a French air strike, and that some hours later National Transitional Council fighters found him hiding in a roadside drainage culvert.<br/> <br />Both NATO and French officials confirmed that warplanes had fired on a convoy in the area, but neither could confirm that Gaddafi had been a passenger.<br/> <br />This amateur video seems to corroborate the account -- showing him pleading against violent treatment by his captors.<br/> <br />Filmed by one of the fighters who surrounded the brutal autocrat, the footage was handed to a Reuters journalist covering the Libyan conflict.<br/> <br />What happened next is unclear.<br/> <br />But what we do know is that several hours later Gaddafi was dead -- with a bullet wound in the side of his head.<br/> <br />Some accounts suggest he was killed during a gun battle -- others say he was summarily executed.<br/> <br />After eight months of war, the capital Tripoli erupted in celebration.<br/> <br />While the world tried to piece together the events leading to the despot's death, it was far from the minds of these jubilant Libyans.<br/> <br />As cheering crowds filled Martyrs' Square, fireworks filled the night sky.
