Stricken Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has issued a defiant audio message calling on his supporters to cleanse Tripoli of rebel fighters.
Even as those opposition forces picked over the remains of Gaddafi's prized Bab al-Azizyah compound in the centre of Tripoli, looting his possessions including military-style hats and weapons and smashing apart bronze statues, the fallen leader called on the city to cleanse itself of rebel "rats".
"Cleanse your areas, they want to sabotage Tripoli," he said in the message broadcast by the al-Rai TV station in Kuwait.
"Each tribe should cleanse an area. They don't want you to live in happiness, they want you to live in the dark and they will take your oil," he said. "They will torture you and show you hard ways."
Gaddafi also boasted that he had been travelling around the city in secret to see the destruction for himself.
"I have been out in Tripoli discreetly yesterday, without people seeing me," he said. "I saw youths sitting and chatting as if everything is normal and without feeling that Tripoli is in danger or that the rats came or not."
Another pro-Gaddafi TV channel quoted the Libyan leader as saying that he had retreated from the Tripoli compound as a "tactical move" after it was struck 64 times by Nato bombs, and vowed that he would resist "the aggression with all strength" until he died or was victorious.
Gaddafi's message is largely at odds to the situation on the ground in Tripoli, where a deadly five-hour battle for the compound ended on Tuesday with hundreds of rebel fighters looting arms and gathering in groups to cheer the end of the 42-year-old regime.
But for all their celebration the rebels' most elusive prize - Gaddafi himself - remained out of reach.
Without reliable details about where the former dictator may be hiding many were forced to speculate that he may have gone underground - literally - into a network of tunnels beneath his compound that some rumours say stretch up to 30km away from the centre of the city.
Others suggested that Gaddafi may have returned to his as-yet untouched home town of Sirte, while others said he may have already crossed the porous border with Algeria.
"We're looking for Gaddafi now. We have to find him now," said one of the rebels, Sohaib Nefati, as he sat against a wall with a Kalashnikov rifle, reported the Press Association.
There were also reports that pockets of fighting continued to erupt in parts of Tripoli.
Meanwhile Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, urged rebels to hold talks with Gaddafi, according to the Reuters news agency.
Foreign journalists reported that as of Wednesday morning there were pro-Gaddafi forces and snipers on the roof of the Rixos Hotel.
Throughout the day many reported that a "siege situation" was taking hold around the hotel. The BBC's Matthew Price said food and water was running out and the situation was "getting miserable".
At around 4.30 PM local time the journalists were reportedly evacuated.
Earlier British foreign secretary William Hague said breaking into the six kilometre wide compound was an "historic achievement" for the rebels and we were seeing the "death throes" of the regime. Speaking on Sky News, he cautioned that there still "may be some formidable problems ahead".
Meanwhile the European Union said it was preparing to unfreeze Libyan assets once it had approval from the United Nations. The bloc's foreign policy chief Baroness Catherine Ashton said she wanted to make sure that public sector workers would be paid and that the country was able to support itself as soon as possible.
The Press Association reported that Ashton was talking to foreign ministers across Europe to co-ordinate "coherent collaboration" for dealing with the post-Gaddafi state.