LONDON/ ROME/WASHINGTON: World leaders hailed the death of former Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi Thursday as the end of despotism, tyranny, dictatorship and war in the North African country.
As Libyans on the streets of Tripoli and Sirte fired automatic weapons into the air and danced for joy, the death of the man who had ruled the oil-rich north African nation for 42 years was widely welcomed.

President Barack Obama cast the demise of Gadhafi as a momentous opportunity for Libya and its long-suffering people and said his death acted as a warning to other authoritarian leaders across the Middle East that iron-fisted rule “inevitably comes to an end.”

“This marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya who now have the opportunity to determine their own destiny in a new and democratic Libya,” Obama told reporters at the White House.
“You have won your revolution,” Obama said. “One of the world’s longest-serving dictators is no more.”

Obama said he considered Gadhafi’s death a vindication of his “leading from behind” strategy that had drawn criticism at home for casting the U.S. in a support role in the NATO air assault in Libya.Other players in the NATO campaign queued up to praise Libya’s National Transitional Council – and the success of their own mission.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Gadhafi’s death was an occasion to remember his victims, while hailing it as a chance for a “democratic future” for Libya. “I think today is a day to remember all of Col. Gadhafi’s victims” including those who died in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, he said in a statement outside his office.

Families of the U.S. victims of the Lockerbie bombing applauded the Libyan people, but urged Libya’s new leaders to bring the other perpetrators to justice.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, meanwhile, said Britain does not approve of “extrajudicial killing” but will not mourn Gadhafi.
“We would have liked him to face justice for his crimes in a court, in an international or Libyan court, and we don’t approve of extrajudicial killing,” he said.

“But we are not going to mourn him. There are so many thousands who have died in this conflict, and the end of the battle in Sirte and the death of Gadhafi does mark that big opportunity now for the Libyans to move on.”

In Rome, Libya’s former colonial ruler, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the first to respond to the news of the death of his onetime ally, he said: “Now the war is over.”
“Sic transit gloria mundi (Thus passes the glory of the world),” Berlusconi said, quoting a Latin tag.

The Vatican’s number two, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, prayed for “peace in the country and democracy”.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Gadhafi’s disappearance was “a major step forward in the battle fought for more than eight months by the Libyan people to liberate themselves from the dictatorial and violent regime imposed on them for more than 40 years”.

“A new page is turning for the Libyan people, one of reconciliation in unity and freedom,” Sarkozy said.
French and British forces spearheaded the air campaign against Gadhafi’s military by the NATO military alliance, which has launched nearly 1,000 strike sorties since March 31.

Egypt’s government said it hoped that the death of ousted Libyan leader would “open a new chapter” in the country’s history.
Egypt “hopes the Libyan people will open a new chapter and rebuild their country after the death of Col. Moammar Gadhafi,” the Cabinet said in a statement, adding it is “ready to support the Libyan people in reconstructing their country.”

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Gadhafi’s death ushered in a “historic transition” for Libya. “The road ahead for Libya and its people will be difficult and full of challenges. Now is the time for all Libyans to come together,” he said at the U.N. headquarters.

In Brussels, the European Union said Gadhafi’s death “marks the end of an era of despotism.”
The news means an end also to the “repression from which the Libyan people have suffered for too long,” EU president Herman Van Rompuy said in a joint statement with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Libyans “can now look to the future.”

Two of the five Bulgarian nurses imprisoned in Libya for eight years over an HIV scandal said Gadhafi “got what he deserved.”
“The news made me very happy. It’s a punishment. A dog like him deserved to die like a dog,” Valya Chervenyashka told AFP.
The nurses were tortured and twice sentenced to death under Gadhafi’s regime.