Libya celebrates end of Ramadan and the regime

Thousands of jubilant people in Libya took to the streets for the end of Ramadan with the annual Eid festivities turning into a victory celebration over the regime.

After Muammar al-Gaddafi and his family fled to Algeria after rebels seized his compound in Tripoli 11 days ago, there were scenes of euphoria today marking the end of the month-long fast, Australia's ABC reported from the capital.

ABC reports:

Men, women and children dressed in the colors of the red, green and black flag that goes back to the days before Muammar Gaddafi seized power in 1969.

Rebel fighters, former soldiers who've defected from the Libyan army; old men, young women, teenagers, students, workers, even tiny children all stood side by side to celebrate the end of four decades of repression, and the birth of a new Libya.

I feel a new feeling, I can't say you know, explain how I'm feeling because it's a new feeling without Muammar, without killing, without blood. We are free," a woman told the ABC.

Rebels have given Gaddafi loyalists until Saturday, the end of Eid, to surrender or face assault, CNN reports.

They plan to take the last of the regime strongholds, including Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, by Saturday and expect Gaddafi's four-decade rule to end within a week, it reports.

"I think this thug, this killer knows that he has nowhere to go," said Ali Tarhouni, finance and oil minister for the opposition's National Transitional Council.

"I really have no problem with waiting another week," he said Tuesday. "I've waited 42 years."

But Gaddafi's chief spokesman was quoted on Wednesday as rejecting the deadline, the New York Times reports.

Moussa Ibrahim said in a phone call to the headquarters of The Associated Press in New York that “no dignified honorable nation would accept an ultimatum from armed gangs,” the news agency reported.

He repeated an earlier offer from Gaddafi to send a son to negotiate with the rebels to form a transitional government, which they have rejected.

Saadi Gaddafi, one of the ruler's sons, said he won't surrender to the rebels, CNN reports.

"Since they don't want to negotiate, I don't think I will go to them and surrender myself," Gaddafi told CNN's Nic Robertson in an e-mail Wednesday. "They have already killed thousands of people and destroyed the country. I'd rather surrender myself to a real government than … to those guys."