Justice Minister Mohammed al-Alagi said Seif al-Islam was wounded and being held in a hospital in the city of Zlitan. But Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam on Friday that the son’s whereabouts were uncertain.

Shammam said Gadhafi’s body was still in Misrata, where it was taken after he was found in his hometown of Sirte, and revolutionary forces were discussing where it should be interred.

Thursday’s death of Gadhafi, two months after he was driven from power and into hiding, decisively buries the nearly 42-year regime that had turned the oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom.

It also thrusts Libya into a new age in which its transitional leaders must overcome deep divisions and rebuild nearly all its institutions from scratch to achieve dreams of democracy.

Many Libyans awoke after a night of jubilant celebration and celebratory gunfire with hope for the future but also concern that their new rulers might repeat the mistakes of the past.

Khaled Almslaty, a 42-year-old clothing vendor in Tripoli, said he wished Gadhafi had been captured alive.

“But I believe he got what he deserved because if we prosecuted him for the smallest of his crimes, he would be punished by death,” he said. “Now we hope the NTC will accelerate the formation of a new government and … won’t waste time on irrelevant conflicts and competing for authority and positions.”

Bloody images of Gadhafi’s last moments also cast a shadow over the celebrations, raising questions over how exactly he died. Video on Arab television stations showed a crowd of fighters shoving and pulling the goateed, balding Gadhafi, with blood splattered on his face and soaking his shirt.

Gadhafi struggled against them, stumbling and shouting as the fighters pushed him onto the hood of a pickup truck. One fighter held him down, pressing on his thigh with a pair of shoes in a show of contempt.

Fighters propped him on the hood as they drove for several moments, apparently to parade him around in victory.

“We want him alive. We want him alive,” one man shouted before Gadhafi was dragged off the hood, some fighters pulling his hair, toward an ambulance.

Later footage showed fighters rolling Gadhafi’s lifeless body over on the pavement, stripped to the waist and a pool of blood under his head. His body was then paraded on a car through Misrata, a nearby city that suffered a brutal siege by regime forces during the eight-month civil war that eventually ousted Gadhafi. Crowds in the streets cheered, “The blood of martyrs will not go in vain.”

Libyan leaders said it appeared that Gadhafi had been caught in the crossfire and it was unclear who fired the bullet that killed him.

Shammam said a coroner’s report showed that Gadhafi was killed by a bullet to the head and died in the ambulance on the way to a field hospital. Gadhafi was already injured from battle when he was found in the drainage pipe, Shammam said.

“It seems like the bullet was a stray and it could have come from the revolutionaries or the loyalists,” Shammam said, echoing an account given by Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril the night before. “The problem is everyone around the event is giving his own story.”

Shammam said that the NTC was expecting a report from Financial Minister Ali Tarhouni who was sent as an envoy to Misrata on Thursday.

The governing National Transitional Council said interim leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil will formally declare liberation on Saturday in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the revolution against Gadhafi’s rule began in mid-February. The NTC has always said it will form a new interim government within a month of liberation and will hold elections within eight months.

NATO’s governing body, meanwhile, was meeting Friday to decide when and how to end the seven-month bombing campaign in Libya, a military operation whose success has helped reinvigorate the Cold War alliance.

The U.N. Human Rights Council established an independent panel earlier this year to investigate abuses in Libya, and spokesman Rupert Colville said it would likely examine the circumstances of the 69-year-old leader’s death. He said it was too early to say whether the panel — which includes Canadian judge Philippe Kirsch, the first president of the International Criminal Court — would recommend a formal investigation at the national or international level.

“We believe there is a need for an investigation,” Colville said. “More details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in some form of fighting or was executed after his capture.”

“The two cell phone videos that have emerged, one of him alive, and one of him dead, taken together are very disturbing,” he told reporters in Geneva.

Mohamed Sayeh, a senior member of NTC, said representatives from the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court would come to a “go through the paperwork.”

Sayeh also says Gadhafi’s body is still in Misrata, where it was taken after his killing in Sirte. He says Gadhafi will be buried with respect according to Islam tradition and will not have a public funeral.

The ICC did not issue any official comments about Gadhafi, but judges at the court would need official confirmation — most likely a DNA sample from the body — that Gadhafi is dead before they could formally withdraw his indictment.

Gadhafi, Seif al-Islam and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi have been charged with crimes against humanity for the brutal crackdown on dissent as the uprising against the regime began in mid-February and escalated into a civil war.

___

Associated Press writer Hadeel al-Shalchi in Cairo contributed to this report.

“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Moammar Gadhafi has been killed,” Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril told a news conference in the capital Tripoli.

Initial reports from fighters said Gadhafi had been barricaded in with his heavily armed loyalists in the last few buildings they held in his Mediterranean coastal hometown of Sirte, furiously battling with revolutionary fighters closing in on them Thursday. At one point, a convoy tried to flee the area and was blasted by NATO airstrikes, though it was not clear if Gadhafi was in the vehicles. Details of his death remained unverified.

Al-Jazeera TV showed footage of a man resembling the 69-year-old Gadhafi lying dead or severely wounded, bleeding from the head and stripped to the waist as fighters rolled him over on the pavement.

The body was then taken to the nearby city of Misrata, which Gadhafi’s forces besieged for months in one of the bloodiest fronts of the civil war. Al-Arabiya TV showed footage of Gadhafi’s bloodied body carried on the top of a vehicle surrounded by a large crowd chanting, “The blood of the martyrs will not go in vain.”

Celebratory gunfire and cries of “Allahu Akbar” or “God is Great” rang out across the capital Tripoli. Cars honked their horns and people hugged each other. In Sirte, the ecstatic former rebels celebrated the city’s fall after weeks of bloody siege by firing endless rounds into the sky, pumping their guns, knives and even a meat cleaver in the air and singing the national anthem.

Libya’s new leaders had said they would declare the country’s “liberation” after the fall of Sirte.

The death of Gadhafi adds greater solidity to that declaration.

It rules out a scenario that some had feared — that he might flee deeper into Libya’s southern deserts and lead a resistance campaign against Libya’s rulers. The fate of two of his sons, Seif al-Islam and Muatassim, as well as some top figures of his regime remains unknown, but their ability to rally loyalists would be deeply undermined with Gadhafi’s loss.

Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam said he was told that Gadhafi was dead from fighters who said they saw the body.

“Our people in Sirte saw the body,” Shammam told The Associated Press. “Revolutionaries say Gadhafi was in a convoy and that they attacked the convoy.”

Sirte’s fall caps weeks of heavy, street-by-street fighting as revolutionary fighters besieged the city. Despite the fall of Tripoli on Aug. 21, Gadhafi loyalists mounted fierce resistance in several areas, including Sirte, preventing Libya’s new leaders from declaring full victory in the eight-month civil war. Earlier this week, revolutionary fighters gained control of one stronghold, Bani Walid.

By Tuesday, fighters said they had squeezed Gadhafi’s forces in Sirte into a residential area of about 700 square yards but were still coming under heavy fire from surrounding buildings.

In an illustration of how heavy the fighting has been, it took the anti-Gadhafi fighters two days to capture a single residential building.

Reporters at the scene watched as the final assault began around 8 a.m. Thursday and ended about 90 minutes later. Just before the battle, about five carloads of Gadhafi loyalists tried to flee the enclave down the coastal highway that leads out of the city. But they were met by gunfire from the revolutionaries, who killed at least 20 of them.

Col. Roland Lavoie, spokesman for NATO’s operational headquarters in Naples, Italy, said the alliance’s aircraft Thursday morning struck two vehicles of pro-Gadhafi forces “which were part of a larger group maneuvering in the vicinity of Sirte.”

But NATO officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance to alliance rules, said the alliance also could not independently confirm whether Gadhafi was killed or captured.

The Misrata Military Council, one of the command groups, said its fighters captured Gadhafi.

Another commander, Abdel-Basit Haroun, said Gadhafi was killed when the airstrike hit the fleeing convoy.

One fighter who said he was at the battle told AP Television News that the final fight took place at an opulent compound for visiting dignitaries built by Gadhafi’s regime. Adel Busamir said the convoy tried to break out but after being hit it turned back and re-entered the compound. Several hundred fighters assaulted.

“We found him there,” Busamir said. “We saw them beating him (Gadhafi) and someone shot him with a 9mm pistol … then they took him away.”

Military spokesman Col. Ahmed Bani in Tripoli told Al-Jazeera TV that a wounded Gadhafi “tried to resist (revolutionary forces) so they took him down.”

“I reassure everyone that this story has ended and this book has closed,” he said.

After the battle, revolutionaries began searching homes and buildings looking for any hiding Gadhafi fighters. At least 16 were captured, along with cases of ammunition and trucks loaded with weapons. Reporters saw revolutionaries beating captured Gadhafi men in the back of trucks and officers intervening to stop them.

In the central quarter where Thursday’s final battle took place, the fighters looking like the same ragtag force that started the uprising eight months ago jumped up and down with joy and flashed V-for-victory signs. Some burned the green Gadhafi flag, then stepped on it with their boots.

They chanted “Allah akbar,” or “God is great” in Arabic, while one fighter climbed a traffic light pole to unfurl the revolution’s flag, which he first kissed. Discarded military uniforms of Gadhafi’s fighters littered the streets. One revolutionary fighter waved a silver trophy in the air while another held up a box of firecrackers, then set them off.

“Our forces control the last neighborhood in Sirte,” Hassan Draoua, a member of Libya’s interim National Transitional Council, told The Associated Press in Tripoli. “The city has been liberated.”

___

Associated Press Writer Kim Gamel in Tripoli contributed to this report.

That amount is likely an underestimate, based on an analysis of more than 300 reports by auditors with the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. And it does not take into account security costs, which have run almost 17 percent for some projects.

There are success stories. Hundreds of police stations, border forts and government buildings have been built, Iraqi security forces have improved after years of training, and a deepwater port at the southern oil hub of Umm Qasr has been restored.

But even completed projects for the most part fell far short of original goals, according to an Associated Press review of hundreds of audits and investigations and visits to several sites. And the verdict is still out on whether the program reached its goal of generating Iraqi good will toward the United States instead of the insurgents.

Col. Jon Christensen, who took over as head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq this summer, said it has completed more than 4,800 projects and is rushing to finish 233 more. Some 595 projects have been terminated, mostly for security reasons.

Christensen acknowledged that mistakes have been made. But he said steps have been taken to fix them, and the success of the program will depend ultimately on the Iraqis — who have complained that they were not consulted on projects to start with.

“There’s only so much we could do,” Christensen said. “A lot of it comes down to them taking ownership of it.”

The reconstruction program in Iraq has been troubled since its birth shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The U.S. was forced to scale back many projects even as they spiked in cost, sometimes to more than double or triple initial projections.

As part of the so-called surge strategy, the military in 2007 shifted its focus to protecting Iraqis and winning their trust. American soldiers found themselves hiring contractors to paint schools, refurbish pools and oversee neighborhood water distribution centers. The $3.6 billion Commander’s Emergency Response Program provided military units with ready cash for projects, and paid for Sunni fighters who agreed to turn against al-Qaida in Iraq for a monthly salary.

But sometimes civilian and military reconstruction efforts were poorly coordinated and overlapped.

Iraqis can see one of the most egregious examples of waste as they drive north from Baghdad to Khan Bani Saad. A prison rises from the desert, complete with more than two dozen guardtowers and surrounded by high concrete walls. But the only signs of life during a recent visit were a guard shack on the entry road and two farmers tending a nearby field.

In March 2004, the Corps of Engineers awarded a $40 million contract to global construction and engineering firm Parsons Corp. to design and build a prison for 3,600 inmates, along with educational and vocational facilities. Work was set to finish in November 2005.

But violence was escalating in the area, home to a volatile mix of Sunni and Shiite extremists. The project started six months late and continued to fall behind schedule, according to a report by the inspector general.

The U.S. government pulled the plug on Parsons in June 2006, citing “continued schedule slips and … massive cost overruns,” but later awarded three more contracts to other companies. Pasadena, Calif.-based Parsons said it did its best under difficult and violent circumstances.

Citing security concerns, the U.S. finally abandoned the project in June 2007 and handed over the unfinished facility to Iraq’s Justice Ministry. The ministry refused to “complete, occupy or provide security” for it, according to the report. More than $1.2 million in unused construction material also was abandoned due to fears of violence.

The inspector general recommended another use be found for the partially finished buildings inside the dusty compound. But three years later, piles of bricks and barbed wire lie around, and tumbleweed is growing in the caked sand.

“It will never hold a single Iraqi prisoner,” said inspector general Stuart Bowen, who has overseen the reconstruction effort since it started. “$40 million wasted in the desert.”

Another problem was coordination with the Iraqis, who have been left with health facilities that would cost at least as much as the Americans spent to complete. One clinic was handed over to local authorities without a staircase, said Shaymaa Mohammed Amin, the head of the Diyala provincial reconstruction and development committee.

“We were almost forced to take them,” she said during an interview at the heavily fortified local government building in the provincial capital of Baqouba. “Generally speaking, they were below our expectations. Huge funds were wasted and they would not have been wasted if plans had been clear from the beginning.”

As an example, she cited a date honey factory that was started despite a more pressing need for schools and vital infrastructure. She said some schools were left without paint or chalkboards, and needed renovations.

“We ended up paying twice,” she said.

In some cases, Iraqi ministries have refused to take on the responsibility for U.S.-funded programs, forcing the Americans to leave abandoned buildings littering the landscape.

“Initially when we came in … we didn’t collaborate as much as we should have with the correct people and figure out what their needs were,” Christensen said. He stressed that Iraqis are now closely involved in all projects.

The U.S. military pinned great hopes on a $5.7 million convention center inside the tightly secured Baghdad International Airport compound, as part of a commercial hub aimed at attracting foreign investors. A few events were held at the sprawling complex, including a three-day energy conference that drew oil executives from as far away as Russia and Japan in 2008, which the U.S. military claimed generated $1 million in revenues.

But the contracts awarded for the halls did not include requirements to connect them to the main power supply. The convention center, still requiring significant work, was transferred to the Iraqi government “as is” on Jan. 20, according to an audit by the inspector general’s office.

The buildings have since fallen into disrepair, and dozens of boxes of fluorescent lightbulbs and other equipment disappeared from the site. Light poles outside have toppled over and the glass facade is missing from large sections of the abandoned buildings.

Waste also came from trying to run projects while literally under fire.

The Americans committed to rebuilding the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah after it was destroyed in major offensives in 2004. The U.S. awarded an initial contract for a new waste water treatment system to FluorAMEC of Greenville, S.C. — just three months after four American private security contractors were savagely attacked. The charred and mutilated remains of two of them were strung from a bridge in the city.

An audit concluded that it was unrealistic for the U.S. “to believe FluorAMEC could even begin construction, let alone complete the project, while fierce fighting occurred daily.” The report also pointed out repeated redesigns of the project, and financial and contracting problems.

The Fallujah waste water treatment system is nearly complete — four years past the deadline, at a cost of more than three times the original $32.5 million estimate. It has been scaled back to serve just a third of the population, and Iraqi officials said it still lacks connections to houses and a pipe to join neighborhood tanks up with the treatment plant.

Desperate residents, meanwhile, have begun dumping their sewage in the tanks, causing foul odors and running the risk of seepage, according to the head of Fallujah’s municipal council, Sheik Hameed Ahmed Hashim.

“It isn’t appropriate for the Americans to give the city these services without completing these minor details,” Hashim said. “We were able to wipe out part of the memories of the Fallujah battles through this and other projects. … If they leave the project as it is, I think their reputation will be damaged.”

By contrast, the Basra children’s hospital — one of the largest projects undertaken by the U.S. in Iraq — looks like a shining success story, with gardeners tending manicured lawns in preparation for its opening. But that opening has been repeatedly delayed, most recently for a lack of electricity.

The construction of a “state of the art” pediatric specialist hospital with a cancer unit was projected to be completed by December 2005 for about $50 million. By last year, the cost had soared above $165 million, including more than $100 million in U.S. funds, and the equipment was dated, according to an auditors’ report.

Investigators blamed the delays on unrealistic timeframes, poor soil conditions, multiple partners and funding sources and security problems at the site, including the murder of 24 workers. Bechtel, the project contractor, was removed because of monthslong delays blamed on poor sub-contractor performance and limited oversight, the special inspector general’s office said. A Bechtel spokeswoman, Michelle Allen, said the company had recommended in 2006 that work on the hospital be put on hold because of the “intolerable security situation.”

In an acknowledgment that they weren’t getting exactly what they hoped for, Iraqi officials insisted the label “state of the art” be removed from a memorandum of understanding giving them the facility. It was described as a “modern pediatric hospital.”

The hospital’s director, Kadhim Fahad, said construction has been completed and the electricity issue resolved. “The opening will take place soon, God willing,” he said.

Residents are pleased with the outcome. One, Ghassan Kadhim, said: “It is the duty of the Americans to do such projects because they were the ones who inflicted harm on people.”

——

Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

NATO said the troops fired at “what appeared to be a threatening vehicle” near Camp Phoenix, an area where suicide attacks are not uncommon, but later described the incident as “regrettable” and promised an investigation.

A shopkeeper who witnessed the shooting said a military convoy was traveling from Kabul toward the eastern city of Jalalabad when the gunner in the lead vehicle opened fire as Yunus pulled onto the same highway.

The 25-year-old shopkeeper, who identified himself only as Aymal, said he heard no warning shots.

NATO said an investigation was under way and appropriate action would be taken to ensure troops complied with policies aimed at protecting civilians. It said Yunus’ family would be compensated in accordance with local customs.

In London, President Hamid Karzai called on NATO-led forces to do more to prevent innocent Afghans from being killed and wounded.

“Ladies and gentlemen, regrettably, civilian casualties continue to be a great concern for the people of Afghanistan,” he told an international conference on Afghanistan. “We should put the protection of people’s lives and property at the top of our agenda.”

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said despite measures in place to protect Afghans, “regrettable incidents such as this one can occur.”

“On behalf of (NATO), I express my sincere regrets for this loss of life and convey my deepest condolences to his family,” he said.

Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Camp Phoenix to protest the killing. They dispersed after police promised the Americans would discuss the death with local elders, according to district police chief Col. Rohullah, who like many Afghans only uses one name.

The cleric’s brother, Mohammad Youssef Ajami, said no compensation could make up for the loss of a life.

“It is totally cruel. Mr. Karzai sitting on his throne has no control over the foreign forces,” he said in a telephone interview after the funeral in Laghman province. “They should try these soldiers who shot my brother, who had done nothing wrong and was on a major road in a safe part of Kabul.”

A recent U.N. report showed that the number of civilians killed by NATO-led forces has dropped after U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, imposed limits on the use of airstrikes and other measures to protect the population. It said civilian deaths at the hands of the Taliban have increased.

But that hasn’t dimmed public outrage as such incidents continue to occur among a population weary of the presence of foreign forces and more than eight years of war.

Also Thursday, a U.S. service member was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, according to the international force. The death brings to at least 26 the number of American deaths in Afghanistan this month, nearly double the 14 killed in all of January last year.

An Afghan policeman also was shot to death by two militants on a motorcycle in the southern city of Kandahar, provincial police chief Gen. Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.

NATO also confirmed as many as 20 suspected militants were killed Wednesday in fighting in northern Afghanistan.

Provincial police said Wednesday 11 insurgents, including two senior commanders, were killed in a joint air-and-ground assault targeting a Taliban compound west of Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province.

Joint forces called in air support after coming under fire from a large number of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, NATO said in a statement issued Thursday. It said attack aircraft “bombed and strafed insurgents in a tree line,” killing 12 to 20 of them.

——

Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.

Carlsson, 77, is with the University of Goteborg in Sweden, Greengard, 74, is with Rockefeller University in New York and Kandel, 70, is an Austrian-born U.S. citizen with Columbia University in New York.

The medicine prize was the first announced in a week of awards. The winners of the prizes for physics and chemistry will be announced Tuesday and for economics — the only one not established in Nobel’s will — on Wednesday in Stockholm.

The awards culminate Friday with the coveted peace prize in Oslo, Norway. The date for the literature prize, also announced in Stockholm, has not yet been set.

Carlsson said he was thrilled to learn Monday morning that he had won.

“What shall I say, you get glad of course, overwhelmed,” he said in an interview with Swedish radio.

Carlsson’s studies during the late 1950s led to the development of the drug L-dopa, still the most important treatment for the disease, the committee said.

His research also shed light on how other drugs work, especially antipsychotic drugs used against schizophrenia.

Carlsson’s work has contributed strongly to the development of a generation of anti-depression drugs called SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), which includes Prozac, the Nobel committee said.

“The discoveries of Arvid Carlsson have had great importance for the treatment of depression, which is one of our most common diseases,” the citation said.

Greengard was awarded for showing how brain cells respond to dopamine and other chemical messengers.

Kandel was cited for his research on the biology of memory, showing the importance of changes in the synapse, the place where chemical messages pass from one brain cell to another.

Tim Bliss, head of neuroscience at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, said Kandel’s work — ongoing since the 1960s — could someday lead to new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions involving memory loss.

“It’s a very major piece of work and he’s been an outstanding leader in the field for many years,” Bliss said. “He identified the physical embodiment of learning and memory in the brain.”

This year’s award for medicine was bumped to the top slot after the academy failed to reach a decision last week on the literature prize — usually the first announced

The Swedish Academy, which traditionally keeps the date of the literature prize secret until a couple days before it announces the winner, has not set a time yet, but it is always a Thursday, usually in October.

The suspense for the literature award was heightened last week when the academy failed to reach a decision.

Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite, left only vague guidelines in his will establishing the prizes. The selection committees deliberate in strict secrecy.

The only public hints available are for the peace prize. The five-member awards committee never reveals the candidates, but sometimes those making the nominations announce their favorites.

This year that includes President Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter for wide-ranging peace efforts, as well as former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell for his efforts to resolve conflict in Northern Ireland.

As for the first announcement, Nobel’s direction that a prize be awarded to the person who made “the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine” is interpreted by a committee of 50 professors from the world-renowned Karolinska Institute in the Swedish capital.

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska invites nominations from previous recipients, professors of medicine and other professionals worldwide before whittling down its choices in the fall, as do the other selection committees.

Last year’s winner was Dr. Guenter Blobel, 64, a German native and U.S. citizen who discovered how proteins find their rightful places in cells — a process that goes awry in diseases like cystic fibrosis and plays a key role in the manufacture of some medicines.

The awards always are presented Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.