Muammar Gaddafi, ousted Libyan strongman who has been on the run since mid-August, has been captured by the rebels but unconfirmed TV reports claimed he has been killed.

"He's captured. He's wounded in both legs ... He's been taken away by ambulance," Abdel Majid, a senior National Transitional Council military official, said today.

69-year-old Gaddafi, who ruled Libya for over four decades with an iron hand, was captured from his hometown of Sirte by rebels who shot him and injured him severely with bullets.

However, pan-Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera claimed that the dictator has been killed but there was no confirmation of the development.

Celebrations broke out on the streets of Tripoli on news of capture of Gaddafi with rebels going around the streets with guns in hands and cars out on the roads honking horns.

Al-Jazeera quoted a senior NTC official as saying that Gaddafi died of his wounds after being captured.

The news came shortly after NTC claimed that it had captured Sirte after weeks of fighting.

NATO and the US state department said they cannot confirm the reports of Gaddafi's death.

Reacting to the development, Libyan Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said, "It's a great victory for the Libyan people."

An NTC military official said that Abu Bakr Younus Jabr, the head of Gaddafi's armed forces, was also killed during the capture of Gaddafi.

Gaddafi came to power in a bloodless coup against King Idris in 1969, when he was just an army captain. He claimed to be "King of Kings," a title he had a gathering of tribal leaders grant him in 2008.

But the revolt against his rule that began in February evolved into civil war, leading to his ouster from power.

Earlier in the day, anti-Gaddafi forces said they had wrested control of the last holdout of loyalists in Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, but were still battling pockets of resistance.

NTC has been waiting for weeks for the coastal city of Sirte to fall to officially declare liberation.

Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the Netherlands, for alleged crimes against humanity had not been seen in public in months.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters in Sirte celebrated by firing in the air, BBC said.

Interim government forces had been facing heavy resistance from snipers in the city, and used heavy artillery during its offensive. Thousands of civilians have fled.

The NTC has also suffered heavy casualties in the town of Bani Walid, south-east of Tripoli, in recent weeks.