Euphoric Libyan rebels moved into the capital Tripoli on Sunday and moved close to the city's center. The opposition's leaders said Muammar Qaddafi's son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, has been arrested.
CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford reports that along the way of the speedy rebel advance, there was no substantial resistance from the Qaddafi troops. All the evidence suggested the soldiers had ditched their uniforms and had simply scarpered.
"They are running like rats so we are doing very good job now!" screamed one rebel, during a dramatic turning of the tides in the 6-month-old Libyan civil war.
"They will enter Green Square tonight, God willing," said Mohammed al-Zawi, a 30-year-old rebel in the force that was moving in. Green Square has been the site of night rallies by Gadhafi supporters throughout the uprising.
The rebels have claimed they are now in control of most of Tripoli, The New York Times reports.
The rebels' surprising and speedy leap forward, after six months of largely deadlocked civil war, was packed into just a few dramatic hours. By nightfall, they had advanced more than 20 miles to the edge of Qaddafi's last major bastion of support.
Along the way, they freed several hundred prisoners from a regime lockup. The fighters and the prisoners - many looking weak and dazed and showing scars and bruises from beatings - embraced and wept with joy.
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Thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with rebel fighters shooting in the air. Some were hoarse, shouting: "We are coming for you, frizz-head," a mocking nickname for Qaddafi. In villages along the way that fell to the rebels one after another, mosque loudspeakers blared "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great."
"We are going to sacrifice our lives for freedom," said Nabil al-Ghowail, a 30-year-old dentist holding a rifle in the streets of Janzour, a suburb just six miles west of Tripoli. Heavy gunfire erupted nearby.
As town after town fell and Qaddafi forces melted away, the mood turned euphoric. Some shouted: "We are getting to Tripoli tonight." Others were shooting in the air, honking horns and yelling "Allahu Akbar."
Inside Tripoli, widespread clashes erupted for a second day between rebel "sleeper cells" and Qaddafi loyalists. Rebels fighter who spoke to relatives in Tripoli by phone said hundreds rushed into the streets in anti-regime protests in several neighborhoods.
Libyan state television aired an angry audio message from Qaddafi Sunday night, urging families in Tripoli to arm themselves and fight for the capital.
"The time is now to fight for your politics, your oil, your land," he said. "I am with you in Tripoli - together until the ends of the earth," Qaddafi shouted.
The day's first breakthrough came when hundreds of rebels fought their way into a major symbol of the Qaddafi regime - the base of the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Qaddafi's son, Khamis. Fighters said they met with little resistance.
Hundreds of rebels cheered wildly and danced as they took over the compound filled with eucalyptus trees, raising their tricolor from the front gate and tearing down a large billboard of Qaddafi.
Inside, they cracked open wooden crates labeled "Libyan Armed Forces" and loaded their trucks with huge quantities of munitions. One of the rebels carried off a tube of grenades, while another carted off two mortars.
"This is the wealth of the Libyan people that he was using against us," said Ahmed al-Ajdal, 27, pointing to his haul. "Now we will use it against him and any other dictator who goes against the Libyan people."
