Gaddafi's Son Talks Victory & Reform

Muammar Gaddafi's powerful son Saif al-Islam tells TIME in an exclusive interview Thursday night that his father's military is on track to seize the entire area of rebel-held eastern Libya, with pounding victories on Wednesday and Thursday in various parts of the country irreversibly turning the momentum of the war in Gaddafi's favor. "The big war is over," Saif says, sitting in a hotel room in central Tripoli. Thursday had been a bloody day of battle in Libya, during which Gaddafi's forces pummeled the key eastern oil-refinery town of Ras Lanuf, seizing it back from rebels with aerial bombing, ground attacks, and blasts from the Mediterranean, and reportedly inflicting heavy casualties. In an interview filled with rage, hurt, a sense of betrayal, and a taste of triumph, Saif — who before the war was long regarded as Libya's likely next ruler — says of the rebels: "Their backbone is broken. We have airplanes, reconnaissance, telling us they are escaping everywhere. They have no future."