Jubilation erupted in Tripoli as news broke that Moammar Qaddafi had died after being captured in Sirte Oct. 20. But the circumstances of his death are greatly disputed. Initial reports said he was found hiding in a drainage tunnel after having been injured in a NATO airstrike on a convoy fleeing the town. Other reports indicated he was caught in crossfire after his capture. Images first showed him alive; other images then emerged of his gruesome corpse. "Keep him alive, keep him alive!" someone shouts in one video clip—just before gunshots ring out and the camera veers off. One National Transitional Council official speculated to the BBC that he was shot by own colleagues. By some reports, he died in a hospital in Misrata; by other accounts he was already dead upon arrival in the city. His son Mutassim is reported to have been killed alongside him. His other son Saif escaped from Sirte and remains at large.

Striking workers at Libya's Waha Oil firm have agreed to return to work after a company official said the government supports the dismissal of chairman Bashir Elshahab (also rendered Alashhab). Sources in the National Oil Corporation confirmed the decision. Workers went on strike last month to protest against Elshahab, who is accused of being a supporter of ousted dictator Moammar Qaddafi. Waha Oil, Libya's largest operation with foreign partners, is a joint venture with the US companies ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess. Its oilfields were used as bases by Qaddafi's fighters, bombed by NATO and then sabotaged by fleeing Qaddafi-loyalist forces. Before the conflict, it pumped nearly half a million barrels of oil per day but it is now producing no crude. The chairman of the Sirte Oil company has already been dismissed and replaced. (Reuters, WSJ, Oct. 14; Reuters, Oct. 2)

In some of the worst political violence since the fall of Moammar Qaddafi two months ago, a gun battle broke out in Tripoli Oct. 14 between supporters and opponents of the ousted dictator. The Washington Post says "truckloads of revolutionary gunmen clutching automatic rifles roared off to the Tripoli neighborhood of Abu Salim after reports emerged of a group of armed people there waving the green flag of Gaddafi's government." In the ambiguity of this lengthy transition period, it is necessary to glean from context which side are the "revolutionaries." (It's almost as bad as the lack of any consistency in the spelling of "Qaddafi.") There were no reports of casualties, but Col. Ahmed Bani, spokesman for Libya's new Defense Ministry, said: "Qaddafi's still alive, so the world is still in danger." Note the implicit play to aid from Western imperialism—Qaddafi is not just a risk to Libyans, but to "the world" (read: the West), as if he were Saddam Hussein. Never mind that for nearly the past 10 years, the West had been happy to embrace the despot as a GWOT ally and proxy.

Riot police in Tunis used tear-gas on Oct. 9 to disperse hundreds of young Islamists who fought back with stones, knives and sticks. At least 40 were arrested. The Islamists were protesting against Tunisia's long-standing ban on university enrollment by women who wear the niqab, or full-face veil, as well as a TV station's plan to broadcast animated film Persepolis, which they say denigrates their faith. Tunisians will vote in an Oct. 23 election for an assembly to draft a new constitution. The Islamist Ennahda party is expected to win the biggest share of the vote, alarming secularists. (AP, Reuters, Oct. 9)

This week, Libya's Berber (Amazigh) minority held the "First Libyan Amazigh Forum" in Tripoli, under the slogan: "Officialize the Amazigh language and support national unity." The unprecedented conference, which started Sept. 26, opened with the new Libyan national anthem, sung in Arabic and Tamazight, the Berber language. Thousand took part in a Berber music festival, making the Libyan capital echo with lyrics in the long-banned language, with revelers raising the yellow, blue and green Berber flag. "We...want to tell the transitional government and the government...that the Amazighs are an integral part of political life," said Fathi Abu Zakhar, chairman of the preparatory committee. "We want Tamazight inscribed as a right in the constitution."

The death toll from clashes following a soccer match in Western Sahara on Sept. 25 has reached seven, Morocco's MAP official news agency reports, making it the worst violence in the occupied territory since last November. Residents in Dakhla, the site of the match, told Reuters that clashes between ethnic Sahrawi supporters of the home team and Moroccan settlers who supported the visiting team from a town near Casablanca continued until early on Sept. 27. Street-fighting spread through the town as police used teargas, and army troops were ordered into two neighborhoods to restore order.

Libyan leaders, including National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, opened a three-day meeting in Benghazi Sept. 25 to begin a discussion regarding the formation of the country's interim government, which is to include a premier, vice premier and 22 ministers. As the NTC's troops continue to scour the country looking for ex-colonel Moammar Qaddafi, who has publicly announced his refusal to surrender, the transitional council continues to make progress within the international community. Last week, the new regime vowed to investigate allegations of human rights abuses after the World Bank recognized the NTC as the official government of Libya. The NTC was responding to an Amnesty International report asserting that both sides of the Libya conflict are responsible for human rights abuses, and warning the NTC to act quickly to investigate these claims. During a meeting in Paris earlier this month chaired by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, the NTC assured world leaders that Libya will be a society of tolerance and respect for the rule of law.

Reviving a protest movement that had become moribund in recent months, some 10,000 Moroccans marched in Casablanca Sept. 25, calling for a boycott of the upcoming elections. The February 20 movement has been continuing to hold weekly Sunday marches in Casablanca, the country's biggest city; after dwindling since the spring they have been growing again as the November parliamentary elections approach. Demonstrators who took to the streets in the sprawling low-income neighborhood of Sbata chanted slogans against government corruption, and the power of the king. "Head of the army, it's too much—head of the religion, it's too much," was one popular slogan, referring to some of the many powers the king keeps under the newly amended constitution. (Miami Herald, Sept. 25; AP, Sept. 18)