what they was a taped message from the dictator. in it he vowed martyrdom or victory. he said the repeat from his compound was in his words a tactical move. his spokesman promising to turn libya into volcanics and fire. he claims that tribes loyal gadhafi are making their way to tripoli to liberate the city. at the gadhafi compound loyalist gunmen trying to take it back from the opposition who captured it today. our sara sidner was there when it all happen. >> reporter: we're having to run out of the compound now. we see gunfire coming from outside the compound. in and it's getting -- it's getting too close. so we're leaving. we're not going to go all the way into the compound. it's definitely now from the outside of the compound firing towards us. let's go! go ahead. we just got a gunfire incoming overhead. just saw gunfire. we're seeing all these tracers hitting the water tink, hitting the an iryeah. so we've got to go. >> sara sidner outside gadhafi's compound this evening. contrast that from earlier scenes this evening as fighters poured in firing shots, carrying out boxes of guns and ammunition. some went room to room searching for gadhafi and found no trace of him. they managed to shut off a key escape route, taking the airport, possibly paving the way for the transitional leaders to fly in from bengazi. military spokesman saying that could take place on thursday, assuming continued -- they have continued progress bringing tripoli under control. opposition forces say they have driven the majority of government forces back to gadhafi's hometown of cert. that remains to be seen. in a moment we'll have much more on that and the hunt for gadhafi and who may replace him. also cnn's matthew chance. he, his crew and other reporters right now trapped inside a hotel in tripoli, not far from where sara sidner was earlier at gadhafi's compound, being kept there by gadhafi loyalists who are armed and in the lobby and patrolling the hotel. the situation is growing more tense by the minute. all of that ahead. but first a quick wrap-up of what was a truly memorable day. >> reporter: in the streets of tripoli today cries of victory barely audible over the non-stop rattle of celebratory gunfire. opposition forces fighting ferociously this morning with remnants of the government army still defending moammar gadhafi's compound. after a siege lasting for hours, the opposition forces break through. >> reporter: this is a historic day! psychologically speaking, this is an important day especially for the rebels who gadhafi said would never be able to break his spirit, would never be able to take the city. but they have taken gadhafi's compound. and you can see now some of the press coming out. so clearly they have it. clearly they have taken this over. and clearly there is extreme excitement here in tripoli. >> gadhafi's compound is not only his official residence but a symbol of his regime of of his defines to the west. opposition fighters search the compound room by room, knocking down walls, confiscating valuable weapons, ammunition, and even personal documents and medical records of gadhafi and his family. but the one thing they want most is nowhere to be found. moammar gadhafi has vanished, but with control of the pal as the insurgents now say they control 85% of the city. today's victory, however, took a turn as residents began looting the compound and celebratory gunfire turned into chaos. >> reporter: that is the first part of the eastern gate. there are large blast holes in that gate. the sun is setting in this area just behind us, so it's starting to become darker. over here you're seeing them. these are carses that belong to the gadhafi regime. they are blowing up round on the top of them. that is obviously a low security -- i'm going to try not to get hit by any of those rounds. and then if you go just over here, you see the people streaming through the main gate. that's all the way into the compound. so you see people streaming into the main gate of the compound. a lot of smoke coming from the compound. you see these huge walls. these were supposed to be protective walls. this also gives you a sense of the power of the gadhafi regime. this honestly is the nicest part of the city. you're seeing these large, very nicely-paved streets. let's pull back a little bit just a little bill. let's just pull back. i'm getting hit by some of the shells. >> other parts of tripoli continue to see fighting on the streets. journalists held by government forces at the rixus hotel report of explosion and gunfire. matthew chance is trapped there. >> reporter: we're all rather frightened. a sort of silence has come over us. we're upstairs. it's very hot in the hotel. we've all got our body armor on. we don't really know what to expect. to the sense that we feel that we've kind of been used, that we're stuck here, we're not able to go out. we don't want to be here. we want to get out of here. but we're not being permitted to do that. so it's almost like a situation where we feel we're being kept here against our will. what the government say is they're taking care of us. what the gadhafi loyalists say they're here to protect us. but it just doesn't feel sometimes like that up here. >> it's unclear how many gadhafi loyalists remain in tripoli. despite a week of swift victories by the 07 significance, it's also unclear whether this is just the beginning of a prolonged urban battle. it could go either way until the gadhafi clan is rounded up, new government is in place and people start figuring out how to live their lives again. there have been plenty of surprises tonight. tonight's radio message from gadhafi and last night's sudden appearance by ssaif gadhafi. as it unfolds you have seen sara sidner, matthew chance, arwa damon is at tripoli international airport on the phone from the libyan capital as well. sara, i know your camera lights are causing people to shoot off their guns in celebration. but when your camera isn't on, is that the same scene? >> reporter: yes, actually it has been today. this evening it was quiet when the camera wasn't on, quiet as in there wasn't as much blasting into the air. people were just coming up and shaking our hands and handing us candy and trying to give us paraphernalia. as the night goes on, then the blasts start going and people want to show their appreciation in that way by blasting into the air and show their excitement, really. but throughout the day, that was happening whether or not we were rolling, not rolling, standing there or watch iing showing the can do whatever they want and they want to show the world that gadhafi and the regime is broken. but what you were seeing in the square earlier has really cleared out and i was trying to explain earlier, it's a kind of a creepy feeling riding through a city where there are no lights, there is no one on the roads except for perhaps one or two checkpoints. we can barely see now i'm standing at the checkpoint. very odd situation in a city that's the capital of a country as large as libya. >> and obviously there's still parts of the city, in particularly the area where matthew chance is which is frankly not far from where sara is right now that are still controlled in some manner and we're not sure how many these areas are. but in some manner by pro-gadhafi forces. arwa, how far is the airport where you are from the green square which is now being called martyr's square? so how far are you from where sara is? what's the situation like where your right now? >> reporter: we're about 15 to 18 miles to the south here at the tripoli international airport. and i have to say the response by the rebel fighters has been much more muted than what sara herself has been experiencing. and that is quite simply because they are still caught in the midst of a very intense battle, a battle that lasted for around nine hours today, anderson. because they have not managed to secure the area to the east of the airport. and there are two military bases located there. now, they have been telling us just a short while ago the rebel fighters have been telling us that they believe that some sort of vip, someone who gadhafi loyalists want to protect could possibly be in the farm lands to the east of this airport, quite simply because they said that the intensity of the fight that gadhafi forces are putting up here has been unexpected. >> sara, when you were inside gadhafi's compound today when it was overtaken by the opposition, are people there -- do they still believe that gadhafi is in tripoli, or do they feel he's gone to sert or is he somewhere else? do they have any idea? >> reporter: they believe that he is in tripoli. they believe he went underground quite literally. they believe there are bunkers underground by the regime. they believe that they would have prepared for a time like this. so after hearing from him again there's belief he's around here somewhere, not exactly where no one knows. he's a secretive person. but to his closest allies and friends and family members, they believe he is somewhere in the capital. >> sara, how do you know where you can safely drive? and i use the term "safely "losely. but how do you know where you can drive in tripoli where you're not going to run into progadhafi forces? >> we don't know to be quite honest with you. we do know that we're not seeing large numbers of gadhafi troops anywhere. it is the snipers, it's the people that are sort of behind buildings that we can't see. but it's a very sort of difficult and scary part of covering this, really, is not knowing if you go around a corner whether you're going to be face with someone who is a loyalist or a trained defender. it is a matter of trying to edge your way through the city walking to see if they're wearing rebel flags and that sort of thing. it's really hard. you're just hoping you're in the right place at the right time. >> arwa, the situation, you were witnessing a fire fight at the tripoli airport. you were saying the fighters there thought it was more opposition than they had expected. are pro-gadhafi forces still in control of some areas near where you are? >> reporter: yeah, anderson, they most definitely are. they are in control of the area to the east of my location, and they are also in control of the highway that goes straight from this airport all the way up to the complex. they've only managed to move a few miles north of that. that highway is also a strategic location for gadhafi's forces for a multitude of reasons, but also because it contains two military installations on it. one is a major refueling center, the other is where they store their fuel that would basically provide fuel for the majority of the military vehicles that they have. so this entire location around where we are right now is not one of the gadhafi forces are wanting to be giving up easily nor are they giving up easily. just a short while ago, even though the gunfire had tapered off quite a bit there was a gadhafi forces vehicle that drove up to the complex, fired into it a few round, and then shortly thereafter there was something of a fire fight that ensued. and then the rebels drove in a bloodied car with a gunshot through the windshield. they said that they killed one soldier, wounded two others. and so most certainly there are chunks of this area that rebels are not yet in control of. >> arwa damon, stay safe tonight. sara sidner as well as we mentioned. at the top of the program, matthew chance is in a very tough spot tonight. he, his crew, and a number of other foreign correspondents are trapped inside the ruxus hotel, not far from the gadhafi compound or where sara sidner just spoke to us, martyr's square, formerly green squamplt i spoke to matthew in the 8:00 hour. >> what's the situation where you are inside that hotel? >> reporter: well, in terms of we've not got much to report in terms of what's happening outside the perimeter of the hotel in the rest of tripoli. i know you're speaking to sair ra. i've not got any verification of what's going on from our very limited perspective here. we're still very much in the same kind of grim situation, which is where we're in a hotel where the top floor of the hotel, we've corralled ourselves into that top floor while gadhafi loyalists are still very much in control of this hotel and the immediate perimeter around it. beyond that, i can't give you any good indication of what extent gadhafi's forces -- to what extent they have control around this area. but we are very close to colonel gadhafi's compound. obviously we were very close to the fighting that was going on as the rebels wrestled control of that compound from the gadhafi forces. the concern that we have now, anderson, is that we seem to be in one of the few remaining patches of territory in libya which is still controlled by gadhafi's forces. and so we're kind of very anxious about what might happen at this hotel in the hours ahead. >> earlier we heard from you, and you said that mood was grim, that you were all basically in this room, it was obviously very hot. you're all in your body armor. do you have communication with the libyan forces which are inside the hotel, not allowing you to leave? >> reporter: well, i mean, i don't know whether we can describe it as communication. but certainly we have contact with them. they're walking around the hotel patrolling the lobby. they're in the basement as well. within the past few hours a number of them have come up to the journalists floor as well and gone into some of the rooms. which is something we're a little concerned about. but in general, we don't have much communication with them. having said that, about two hours ago i was leaning on the balcony overlooking the interior courtyard of the hotel the and one of them sided up to me. he said i suppose you're happy now, aren't you journalists? i asked him what he meant. he was referring to the fact that rebels had made all these gains and had obviously taken control of gadhafi's compound. and so there is still a sort of little bit of hostility towards us, a little bit in which -- sense in which gadhafi loyalists have basically regarded the international media as being on the rebels' side in this conflict, even though that's obviously not the case. we're just here trying to report the government's -- gadhafi's side of things in this conflict. but obviously we're doing that in a very restricted circumstances. we've asked of course to get out of the hotel. we're not happy being here anymore for our own security. but that's not something that the authorities in control of this hole are prepared at this point to let us do. we hope that will change soon. >> i heard earlier on the air you saying that you felt like you had been used. how so? >> reporter: in lots of different ways, i suppose. obviously we're here so that government thinks that -- feels that they've got the ears, the eyes of the international media to put across their point of view whether they want. and a good example of that last night when faithful colonel gadhafi's oldest son was reported to have been captured by the rebels as they advanced into tripoli a day earlier made this surprise appearance in the lobby of the rixos hotel. just outside of the hotel. it wasn't in the lobby at all, it was just outside the front doors in that car. i managed to speak to him. you may remember that. so in that sense, i think we feel and they feel that we're valuable, if you like, at the moment. so we want to try and continue that. we want to try and continue reflecting the government position as much as we can, anderson. >> matthew, you have -- obviously you have asked to leave. and what do they say? what is the reason for not letting you leave? >> reporter: well, what we've had confirmed over the course of the past several minutes, perhaps half an hour or so, there is a bunch from malta that stopped at the airport in libya near tripoli. and the maltese government spokesman who i've been in contact with has told us all here that space on that to take us all out to malta and to safety, obviously. the trouble is we've not managed to negotiate an exit from the hotel. what the people here say, the gadhafi loyalists controlling the hotel say it's not safe for us to do that. they say they're here for one reason only, and that's to protect us. and so at the moment that means that we're not being permitted to move outside the hotel, even though we made the point that we believe it's our right to move outside the hotel if we choose to do that. that's not something they've agreed to yet. >> have they indicated any knowledge, the men who are in the lobby, the loyalists, have they indicated knowledge of the fact that it seems like according to sara sidner the area they control now is relatively small. sara is very close by in green square, the gadhafi compound obviously has fallen. so it would seem that areas the loyalists control have considerably shrunk in the last 24 hours. >> reporter: yeah. i mean, we've certainly been hearing that as well. and i'm sure that people downstairs in the hotel have been hearing the same reports. i mean, they'll know what the reality is. they're not saying anything like that to us, though. essentially they're either in denial or they're just denying it to us, saying that everything is safe outside, the government is in control outside, that there are no more nato war planes flying in the skies outside. basically trying to sort of give us this idea that the government's fully in control still. so even though from our other sources and our own reporting that the gadhafi compound has fallen to the rebels. i've not heard anybody here sort of talk about that and acknowledge that fact. only that one instance which i mention today you earlier where one of the loyalists sidled up to me. i suppose you're happy now, aren't you, journalists. that's obviously an indication he was aware of what was going on outside and was a little bit angry with us about that having happened, anderson. >> matthew, we wish you and your crew well. please stay as safe as you can. a very dicey situation for matthew chance and all those others trapped right now in the rixos hotel. let us know what you think. we're on facebook. follow me on twitter @ anderson cooper up next, two experts here to talk about how to track down gadhafi. they'll also assess the opposition's performance so far. let's check in with isha sesay. >> reporter: new aftershocks tonight in the quake that took virginia and the washington, d.c. area completely by surprise and was felt as far north as montreal. we've got all the details on that, plus a very big, very dangerous hurricane that's heading for the eastern seaboard when 360 continues. ♪ [ female announcer ] we're throwing away misperceptions about natural gas vehicles. more of the vehicles that 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[ female announcer ] yoplait greek. it is so good. oh, and there's a smile. it is so good. confidence. available in color. depend for women is now peach. looks and fits like underwear. same great protection. depend. good morning. great day. . >> reporter: we're okay. please don't shoot, sir. we are in between two walls so we're fine. but as people drive by in their trucks they're so excited. and this is something that has become a bit of a problem in the city as they blast these guns through the city. we don't know where we're going to land. it is surrounded by a neighborhood. >> remarkable courage, sara sidner and matthew chance and aura d