TRIPOLI (AFP) – Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi called in an audio message on Thursday for an armed struggle to defeat the “enemies” and to “liberate Tripoli.”

In the message, broadcast on Syria-based Arrai Oruba television, he said, “We must resist these enemy rats, who will be defeated thanks to the armed struggle.”

“Leave your homes and liberate Tripoli,” he added.

This is the third message that  Gaddafi, whose whereabouts are unknown, has delivered since rebels captured his headquarters in Tripoli on Tuesday and failed to find him.

In one speech, carried by the website of a television station headed by his son Seif al-Islam, he said he had abandoned his compound in a “tactical withdrawal” after it had been wrecked by NATO warplanes.

“Bab al-Aziziya was nothing but a heap of rubble after it was the target of 64 NATO missiles and we withdrew from it for tactical reasons,” he said early Wednesday.

In a later audio message on Arrai Oruba,  Gaddafi urged residents to “cleanse Tripoli of rats.”

He also said he had taken to the streets of Tripoli without being recognised.

Muammar Gaddafi has not been seen in public for weeks and his whereabouts are unknown.