photo Armée de l'Air
Oct 20, 2011 ASDNews by Tanja Vujisic AFP
PARIS - French warplanes fired a warning shot to stop a convoy of vehicles carrying Moamer Kadhafi before he was killed in clashes in Libya, French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said Thursday.
The convoy of several dozen vehicles "was stopped from progressing as it sought to flee Sirte but was not destroyed by the French intervention," Longuet told journalists.
Libyan fighters then intervened, destroying the vehicles, from which "they took out Colonel Kadhafi," he added.
He said a French plane was sent to the area after news emerged of a large convoy of up to 80 vehicles trying to flee Sirte.
He said a French Mirage-2000 "was informed by the integrated general staff (of NATO) of the need for an intervention to prevent this column from advancing."
"A French warning shot was fired to prevent the column from proceeding and it divided," he said, after which some of the vehicles were confronted by fighters from Libya's National Transitional Council.
"In these clashes, vehicles were destroyed, people were wounded and killed and it was among them that... Kadhafi was a part," he said.
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