Ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was killed today, Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said.

Update at 6:08 p.m. ET: In an interview on the PBS NewsHour, a GlobalPost journalist in Tripoli says an 18-year-old rebel fighter has claimed he shot Gadhafi in the head after he was captured. That's still not confirmed.

Update at 5:13 p.m. ET: Though it's still not clear exactly how Moammar Gadhafi died, Reuters offers two scenarios:

* Reading a post-mortem report, Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said that after rebels hauled Gadhafi out of a cement sewage pipe, he was shot in an arm -- it's not clear by whom -- and put into a truck that was "caught in crossfire" as it took him to a hospital. Gadhafi was already wounded with gunshots to his leg and to his back from an attack on his convoy as he fled Sirte, a rebel at the scene said.

"He was hit by a bullet in the head," Jibril said, adding it was not clear who had fired. He died a few minutes before reaching the hospital.

* According to a senior National Transition Council source and brief video footage, rebels beat and kicked Gadhafi after his capture, dragging him off the hood of the truck by his hair. As someone shouts, "Keep him alive," Gadhafi disappears from view and gunshots are heard.

"While being taken away, they beat him and then they killed him," the source told Reuters before Jibril's announcement. "He might have been resisting."

Earlier reports said Gadhafi was shot with a 9mm pistol.

A ruling council official said no order was given to summarily execute Gadhafi.

More here.

Meanwhile, the corpse of Gadhafi's son Mo'tassim was laid out this evening in a private house in Misrata, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. Locals were jostling around the body to take pictures on their cellphones.

A blue plastic sheet covered the body to the waist. The upper half was naked, and wounds could be seen to the chest and neck.

Update at 4:36 p.m. ET: U.S. officials are saying little about what role, if any, the United States and NATO played in Moammar Gadhafi's death, USA TODAY's David Jackson tells us.

"I simply don't have any information for you on what are a number of very conflicting reports about Gadhafi's death," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. "And so I'm not going to answer hypotheticals. ... I think we need to wait and see."

Jackson writes:

There are conflicting reports -- and, frankly, rumors -- that a U.S. predator drone and a French fighter jet may have been involved in the attack that killed Gadhafi; NATO has employed such assets over the past seven months in its operations to assist the Libyan rebels. French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said today that a French Mirage-2000 fired a warning shot to stop a convoy of vehicles carrying Gadhafi, reports the AFP news agency. The convoy "was stopped from progressing as it sought to flee Sirte but was not destroyed by the French intervention," Longuet told reporters, adding that Libyan forces destroyed the vehicles after removing Gadhafi from one of them.

By Douglas Stanglin

USA TODAY

Update at 2:53 p.m. ET: NATO will decide Friday to end the aerial campaign over Libya, according to diplomats, the Associated Press reports.

Diplomats said Friday's meeting would decide when and how to wind up the seven-month operation, the AP reports.

Update at 2:17 p.m. ET: Obama calls on Libyans to secure dangerous weapons and respect human rights.

"Today we can definitively say that the Gadhafi regime has come to an end," Obama says in the White House Rose Garden."The last major regime strongholds have fallen. The new government is consolidating the control over the country. And one of the world's longest-serving dictators is no more."

Update at 2:15 p.m. ET: President Obama says Gadhafi's death "marks the end of a long and painful chapter" for Libya.

Update at 1:45 p.m. ET: France's defense minister says a French fighter jet fired on the convoy carrying ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Gerard Longuet tells reporters in Paris that the French strike stopped the convoy of about 80 vehicles heading for Bani Walid, but did not destroy it.

He says that fighters on the ground then intercepted the vehicle carrying Gadhafi himself.

Update at 11:37 a.m. ET: Al-Jazeera quotes a rebel fighter on the capture of Gadhafi as saying that the ousted Libyan leader had been beaten and shot by Libyan revolutionaries and was still alive when he was placed in a car for transport to Misrata.

Update at 11:13 a.m. ET: Al Arabiya quotes a Libyan military source as saying that protesters have encircled the convoy of another Gadhafi son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi.

Update at 11:11 a.m. ET: Reuters quotes a senior National Transitional Council military official as saying that Moammar Gadhafi's son, Motassim Gadhafi, was killed by NTC fighters.

Update at 11:06 a.m. ET: Gadhafi's bloodied body was loaded on top of a vehicle and taken to Misrata, a city that was besieged for months by his forces, the AP reports. A large crowd surrounding the vehicle chanted, "The blood of the martyrs will not go in vain."

Update at 10:34 a.m. ET: "We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Moammar Gadhafi has been killed," Jibril tells a news conference in Tripoli.

Update at 10:32 a.m. ET: NBC's Richard Engel reports that Gadhafi was not in a convoy struck by NATO planes as it left Sirte, but was found hiding in a drainage ditch. He was pulled from the hide-out alive and killed, Engel says.

Update at 10:22 a.m. ET: Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril says Moammar Gadhafi has been killed, the Associated Press reports.

Update at 10:17 a.m. ET: U.S. officials say Libyan leaders have confirmed that ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is dead, the Associated Press reports.

Update at 10:08 a.m. ET: Al Arabiya quotes unidentified sources as saying Gadhafi's body has arrived in Misrata.

Update at 10:05 a.m. ET: Al-Jazeera carries on its website a graphic video that it says is a dead Gadhafi being carried through the streets.

Update at 9:48 a.m. ET: Al Arabiya reports that Gadhafi's body has arrived in Misrata and that it would be allowed to film the corpse.

Al Arabiya and other networks earlier broadcast a photo that the interim government confirmed was the body of ousted Libyan leader.

Update at 9:43 a.m. ET: A Libyan fighter tells the Associated Press he was there when Gadhafi was shot with a 9mm gun in the lower body. Standing in front of a truck with a crowd of congratulatory comrades, he says he struck the former dictator with his shoe — a grave insult in the Arab world — waving the footwear in question for emphasis.

Update at 9:19 a.m. ET: Al Arabiya carries a combined report from AFP and Reuters that quotes Abdel Hafez Ghoga said, a spokesman for the National Transitional Council, as saying: "We announce to the world that Qaddafi has been killed at the hands of the revolution. It is a historic moment. It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship. Qaddafi has met his fate."

NTC official Abdel Majid Mlegta tells Reuters that Gadhafi was "hit in the head" in an attack on him and his convoy as he was fleeing his hide-out in Sirte. "There was a lot of firing against his group and he died," Mlegta says according to Reuters.

Update at 9:09 a.m. ET: Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam says he has confirmed that Gadhafi was dead from fighters who said they saw the body, the Associated Press reports. Shammam says he expects the prime minister to confirm the death soon, noting that past reports emerged "before making 100% confirmation."

"Our people in Sirte saw the body … Mustafa Abdul-Jalil will confirm it soon," he tells the AP. "Revolutionaries say Gadhafi was in a convoy and that they attacked the convoy."

Col. Roland Lavoie, spokesman for NATO's operational headquarters in Naples, Italy, says the alliance's aircraft this morning struck two vehicles of pro-Gadhafi forces "which were part of a larger group maneuvering in the vicinity of Sirte."

Update at 9:07 a.m. ET: Al Arabiya reports that Gadhafi was found hiding in a basement in Sirte with his minister of defense.

Update at 9:02 a.m. ET: The Guardian is carrying on its website a photo from a cellphone purportedly showing Gadhafi's arrest.

Update at 8:52 a.m. ET: NTC Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam tells CNN that all indications are that Gadhafi was killed by NTC forces. He tells CNN that Gadhafi was injured while trying to flee a house under attack in Sirte.

Update at 8:39 am. ET: Bel Haj, the military chief for the National Transition Council, tells Al-Jazeera that Gadhafi has been killed.

Update at 8:29 a.m. ET: Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the National Transitional Council, will address the Libyan nation shortly, Al Jazeera reports.

Update at 8:27 a.m. ET: A pro-Gadhafi TV website denies reports that the former Libyan leader has been been killed or captured, Al-Jazeera reports. "The reports peddled by the lackeys of NATO about the capture or death of the brother leader, Moammar Gadhafi, are baseless," saiys Al-Libiya television. Gadhafi "is in good health," it adds. Reports that Gadhafi was killed or captured "are nothing but rumors. It is not the first time they resort to this kind of disinformation," the report notes.

Update at 8:23 a.m. ET: Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley, reporting from Sirte, says it appears that the last hundred or so of Gadhafi loyalists tried to make a run for it and that 95% is under the control of the NTC forces.

Update at 8:14 a.m. ET: The Misrata Military Council, one of multiple command groups for revolutionary forces, says its fighters captured Gadhafi in Sirte, the Associated Press reports. Another commander, Abdel-Basit Haroun, tells the AP that Gadhafi was killed when an airstrike hit a convoy trying to flee.

The spokesman for Libya's transitional government, Jalal al-Gallal, and its military spokesman Abdul-Rahman Busin, however, say the reports have not been confirmed. A NATO official also says the alliance could not independently confirmed, the AP reports.

Update at 8:03 a.m. ET: The BBC's Caroline Hawley in Tripoli reports hearing "quite a lot of celebratory gunfire."

Update at 7:59 a.m. ET: Al Arabiya reports that the head of Libya's National Transitional Council will be speaking shortly about some "good news" regarding Gadhafi.

Update at 7:55 a.m. ET: There are numerous unconfirmed reports that Gadhafi may have died of wounds inflicted when his convoy was attacked. Reuters quotes a "senior NTC military official" as saying Gadhafi had died of wounds suffered in his capture near Sirte.

Al Jazeera reports that its sources also say that Gadhafi has been killed, but again no official confirmation.

Update at 7:45 a.m. ET: A fighter from the transitional government tells Al Jazeera that Gadhafi has been captured, but cannot confirm whether he is dead or alive.

Update at 7:40 a.m. ET: Al Jazeera quotes unidentified sources as saying that Gadhafi has been captured and is "critically injured."

Update at 7:38 a.m. ET: Reuters, quoting an NTC official, says a wounded Gadhafi was taken away in a hospital.

pdate at 7:35 a.m. ET: Libyan TV reports that GAdhafi is being taken to the city o f Misrata, Al-Jazeera reports.

Update at 7:31 a.m. ET: Reuters quotes an official with the National Transitional Council as saying a woundedGadhafi was captured near Sirte as tried to flee in convoy which attacked by NATO.

Update at 7:28 a.m. ET: Former Libyan minister of information Ali Errishi tells Al Jazeera that top officials in the National Transitional Council have confirmed Gadhafi's capture.

The Reuters reports says that Gadhafi was wounded in both legs.

Al Jazeera quotes an NTC official as saying only that a "high-profile target" has been captured.

The report come as the transitional government says it has seized Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte.

Original post: Libyan TV channels are reporting the arrest of Moammar Qaddafi in his hometown of Sirte, Al Alibya reports. There has been no official confirmation.

Al Arabiya, quoting medics, also reports that ousted defense minister Abu Bakr Yunis has been found dead in the city, which was one of the last strongholds of Gadhafi loyalists.