Rebels at Qaddafi Compound Loot Hat, Guns, and Golf Cart

The Libyan opposition has seized the country's seat of power

The AP is reporting that after breaching Muammar Qaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli on Tuesday after five hours of heavy fighting, hundreds of rebel fighters pushed and shoved to get a hold of brand new rifles, machine guns, and handguns, and hauling off trucks with guns mounted on the back. But the looting of arguably the most prominent symbol of Qaddafi's four decades in power didn't stop there. In the Sky News video below, one jubilant rebel fighter wears the Libyan leader's trademark white-and-gold military parade hat (see image on right), which he took from Qaddafi's bedroom. "I was like, oh my god, I'm in Qaddafi's room," he explains.

Rebel fighters also made away with Qaddafi's treasured golf cart:

The Libyan Youth Movement provides us with some context for the golf cart heist in the form of an old photo:

Others destroyed images of Qaddafi while still others decapitated a gold statue of the Libyan leader and stamped on the head in front of Qaddafi's iconic statue of a fist gripped a U.S. warplane--a monument that was also defaced.

Even amid all the looting, however, some were more reflective. In this Reuters image, a rebel fighter stops to pray at the entrance to the compound:

And in this AP photo, a Libyan unfurls the flag adopted by the opposition atop the fist-and-warplane statue:

Update: A reminder that even amid the celebration, fighting is still raging in Tripoli and elsewhere in Libya. CNN's Sara Sidner reports on how her team had to run out of the compound along with rebels and residents when the area came under tracer fire. "The headline is that Qaddafi is targeting Bab al-Aziziya, his own compound," Sidner notes.

And Reuters has another photo of a rebel fighter in one of Qaddafi's hats: