Qaddafi Watch
Colonel Qaddafi is seen in England in this 2007 photo. (AP/File)
Libya's NTC believes Qaddafi is laying low near Algerian border
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
Libya's interim government said today that they believe Muammar Qaddafi is being protected by tribesmen in the desert along the Algerian border – far from the cities where his remaining supporters are fighting a last stand against rebel forces.
Hisham Buhagiar, a National Transitional Council (NTC) official, told Reuters that they suspect Qaddafi is hiding in the town of Ghadames, with protection by Tuareg tribesmen who also supported Qaddafi before he was ousted from power. The former leader supported their rebellions against the governments of Mali and Niger.
Mr. Buhagiar also said that they suspect that Qaddafi's son Said al-Islam is hiding in Bani Walid, one of the loyalist holdouts, and that his son Mutassem is in Sirte, Muammar Qaddafi's hometown.
Members of the Qaddafi family taking refuge in Algeria – his daughter Aisha, as well as two of her brothers – were ordered by the Algerian government to remain out of the fray after Aisha told the media her father was still fighting.
Anti-Qaddafi fighters fire 130mm howitzers at pro-Qaddafi forces near east of Sirte, on Tuesday, Sept. 20. (Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)
Qaddafi releases defiant message as he is hunted in Sabha
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
A Syrian television station broadcast a new message from Muammar Qaddafi Tuesday in which he said that the Qaddafi government was impossible to topple because it is controlled by the people, The Associated Press reports.
"What is happening in Libya is a charade gaining its legitimacy through airstrikes that will not last forever," he said in the statement broadcast on the Syrian-based Al-Rai TV, which has become his mouthpiece. "It's hard to bring down this regime because it represents millions of Libyans."
Today, anti-Qaddafi fighters entered the southern city of Sabha, one of the last Qaddafi strongholds, with little resistance, CNN reports. They are searching the city for Qaddafi and his former head of military intelligence, Abdullah Al-Senussi, both of whom are wanted by the International Criminal Court and have been periodically suspected of hiding out in Sabha.
Another Qaddafi son flees, this time to Niger
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
Another of Muammar Qaddafi's sons has fled Libya.
A Nigerien official said that Saadi Qaddafi arrived in Niger Sunday, along with eight former Libyan officials, CNN reports. Niger accepted Saadi on a "humanitarian basis."
A convoy containing former Libyan officials and soldiers arrived in the country last week as well, while two of his sons sought refuge in Algeria, to Libya's west.
Rumors circulated last week that Mr. Qaddafi had fled for Niger, Libya's southern neighbor, but he rejected the claims, vowing never to leave Libya. Monitor reporter Scott Baldauf wrote last week that he has a solid relationship with his neighbors in the Sahel region, including Niger, and it's "entirely plausible" that Qaddafi could seek refuge there.
NATO air strikes have continued in the last few strongholds of Qaddafi loyalists, including Bani Walid, his hometown of Sirte, and Sabha in the south. Rebels are fighting loyalists in Bani Walid and Sirte but have yet to take full control.
Interpol issues warrant for Qaddafi's arrest
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
Interpol, the international police agency, issued an arrest warrant Friday for Muammar Qaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, and Abdullah al-Senussi, the former head of the Libyan intelligence agency. (See full text of warrant here)
The International Criminal Court at The Hague requested the notices for the men for alleged war crimes. With the red notices, as they're called, any of Interpol's 188 member nations are expected to arrest the suspects and turn them over to the ICC, The New York Times reports.
Niger, Libya's southern neighbor, is an Interpol member. Several former Qaddafi officials have fled there in the last week, but the Nigerien government says the arrivals have not included Muammar Qaddafi or any other wanted persons.
Algeria, which last week accepted two of Qaddafi's sons as well as his wife, is also an Interpol member.
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Libyan fighters prepare a projectile at the last checkpoint between Tarhouna and Bani Walid, Libya, Thursday, Sept. 8. Thousands of fighters have converged on areas outside Bani Walid and have threatened to attack if residents don't surrender by Saturday. Officials have said the town emerged as a focus because of the number of prominent regime loyalists believed to be inside. (Alexandre Meneghini/AP)
Qaddafi: I didn't and won't leave Libya
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
In an audio recording released today, Muammar Qaddafi denied rumors that he had fled the country and vowed to not leave Libya, Agence France-Presse reports.
In the five-minute-long audio, a man who sounded like Gaddafi denounced reports that he had fled to neighbouring Niger and claimed he is still in Libya.
He called those who ousted him "a bunch of mercenaries, thugs and traitors".
"We are ready to start the fight in Tripoli and everywhere else, and rise up against them," Gaddafi said.
"All of these germs, rats and scumbags, they are not Libyans, ask anyone. They have cooperated with NATO."
He also encouraged his supporters to keep fighting. AFP reports that his loyalists fired rockets Thursday from inside Bani Walid, one of his last remaining strongholds, at anti-Qaddafi fighters in the area surrounding the town.
IN PICTURES: Qaddafi: A look back
Qaddafi reportedly tracked heading south, although not in convoy
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
The Libyan official in charge of the manhunt for Muammar Qaddafi says that the deposed leader was tracked heading south and may be bound for Burkina Faso, which offered to shelter Mr. Qaddafi in the past, Reuters reports.
Burkina Faso denies that it has any plans to provide refuge for Qaddafi.
On Tuesday, a convoy carrying former Libyan government officials and aides to Qaddafi entered Niger, south of Libya, but Nigerien officials denied that the former leader was in the convoy. However, Hisham Buhagiar, who is coordinating efforts to locate Qaddafi, says that they suspect Qaddafi is in a town near the border. A French official told Reuters that he believed Qaddafi planned to "rendezvous" with the convoy, likely in the Sahara Desert.
Rebel fighters celebrate, as negotiations resumed between tribal elders and rebel leaders in a mosque at a checkpoint between Tarhouna and Bani Walid, Tuesday, Sept. 6. Muammar Qaddafi is determined to fight his way back to power, the toppled dictator's spokesman said Tuesday, but a large convoy of his soldiers has apparently deserted, crossing the Libyan desert into neighboring Niger. (Alexandre Meneghini/AP)
Did Qaddafi flee to Niger? Libyan convoy in Niger is reminder of Sahel's close ties.
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
Armored columns containing Libyan soldiers and top allies of former Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi, arriving in the West African country of Niger, set off speculation today that Mr. Qaddafi may be preparing to flee the country.
Wishful thinking, perhaps. Eyewitnesses at the border and in the Nigerien capital of Niamey say that Qaddafi himself had not been seen in the convoy, although 12 senior Libyan officials including Qaddafi’s own security chief, Mansour Dao, had been sighted, along with Niger’s ethnic Tuareg rebel leader Rissa ag Boula, who had come to fight in Qaddafi’s defense.
Niger may simply be a stopover for the convoy on the way to Burkina Faso, where President Blaise Compaore – a longtime Qaddafi supporter and protégé – has reportedly offered Qaddafi asylum.
But Qaddafi’s long-standing relationship with his neighbors in the African Sahel region – including Chad, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso – make it entirely plausible that Qaddafi might seek refuge there, if and when he makes the decision to flee.
“I don’t have specific information about this convoy, but what is clear is that all the Sahelian countries had relationships with Libya and benefited from Libya, and if Burkina Faso has offered asylum, it’s likely that some of Qaddafi’s people are moving to Burkina Faso,” says Thierry Vircoulon, a Sahel expert for the International Crisis Group’s office in Nairobi, Kenya.
Qaddafi’s ties with the arid nations south of the Saharan desert go deeper than mere financial support. They extend back several decades, when several of the present leaders of Sahelian countries were still rebel leaders, desperately seeking arms, logistical support, and training. Qaddafi provided these.
Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Campaore once trained in Libyan military training camps, before overthrowing the government of his predecessor Thomas Sankara in 1987. Chad’s President Idriss Deby once scraped together a ragtag force of fellow ethnic Zaghawa fighters, before overthrowing then-President Hissene Habre in a Qaddafi-supported insurgency.
But what the Brother Leader gives, he also takes away. Qaddafi has supported rebel attacks against several of his neighbors, including ethnic Tuareg fighters in Niger and Mali and ethnic Zaghawa fighters against Qaddafi’s own former protégé, President Deby.
As signatories of the treaty that created the International Criminal Court, both Burkina Faso and Niger would be legally obliged to hand over Qaddafi to the ICC’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has issued an arrest warrant against Qaddafi for targeting civilians in the past six months. But Mr. Vircoulon, the Crisis Group expert, says that no Sahelian country is likely to do so.
“As you know, the whole of Africa will not arrest Qaddafi, even though they all signed the ICC treaty,” says Vircoulon. “As a whole, the Sahelian countries benefited from Qaddafi’s largesse. It’s not likely that he should carefully look at which countries are offering asylum, because they simply won’t cooperate with ICC.”
Many members of the African Union – Africa’s largest regional bloc – say that African nations should resist cooperation with the ICC, arguing that the Hague-based criminal court targets African nations for human rights prosecution, but ignores human rights charges leveled against richer nations like the US, Britain, and France.
Kenya’s parliament voted earlier this year to urge the rescinding of the Hague court treaty. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has managed to travel relatively freely in Africa and the Middle East, despite facing arrest warrants for genocide and war crimes charges allegedly committed in Sudan’s Darfur region.
In Washington, the US State Department urged Nigerien officials to detain the Libyan convoy.
"We have strongly urged the Nigerien officials to detain those members of the regime who may be subject to prosecution, to ensure that they confiscate any weapons that are found and to ensure that any state property of the government of Libya, money, jewels, etc., also be impounded so that it can be returned to the Libyan people," US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said, according to Reuters.
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Qaddafi family escape to Algeria provides hints for leader's hiding spot
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
Details about how Muammar Qaddafi's family members escaped to Algeria reveal another possible hiding spot for the former Libyan strongman. The Guardian reports today that the family members now in Algeria fled from the town of Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli.
The escape was made in a convoy of six armored Mercedes limousines, once part of an extensive government fleet, which departed from the town of Bani Walid, the stronghold of Libya's biggest tribe, the Warfallah, where significant remnants of the regime are holding out.
Guma al-Gamaty, the NTC's UK coordinator, said the motorcade was carrying a total of 32 Qaddafi family members, including the ousted leader's second wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and two sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, and reached the Algerian border on Saturday.
That they were taking refuge there reveals another pocket of Qaddafi support that the rebels need to keep an eye on. Mr. Gamaty told the Guardian that the interim government now thinks Mr. Qaddafi is hiding in the vicinity of Bani Walid and has dispatched rebel forces and Western intelligence and special forces to the area.
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Qaddafi family members flee to Algeria. Libya's interim leaders want them back.
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafiand developments in Libya's war
Muammar Qaddafi's wife, three of his children, and some of his grandchildren arrived in Algeria today, CNN reports. They were allowed into the country on "humanitarian grounds." According to the Algerian diplomat to the United Nations, Mourad Benmehidi, none of the family members allowed into the country are on the UN's sanction list.
Mr. Benmedidi said Algerian officials did not know whether Muammar Qaddafi himself would attempt to flee to Algeria. He has not been seen for weeks, but the Obama administration said today they have no reason to believe he has left Libya.
Reuters reports that the National Transitional Council (NTC), Libya's interim government, considers Algeria's decision to allow the Qaddafis into the country an "act of aggression" and will request their extradition back to Libya.
Algeria is the only neighbor that has not yet recognized the TNC as Libya's legitimate government.
A rebel fighter jumps from a T-55 tank in Misrata August 29. Rebels said they had seized about 150 tanks from a military base near Misrata and prepared to use them as part of a possible operation to take control over the central Libyan city of Sirte, Muammar Qaddafi's last remaining stronghold. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)
Anti-Qaddafi forces move toward 'Brother Leader's' hometown of Sirte (VIDEO)
• The latest updates on Muammar Qaddafi and developments in Libya's war
Despite their success in securing Tripoli, Libya's interim government asked NATO to continuing putting pressure on the remnants of Muammar Qaddafi's regime.
"Qaddafi is still capable is doing something awful in the last moments," National Transitional Council leader Abdul-Jalil told NATO officials at a meeting in Qatar, according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, anti-Qaddafi forces in eastern Libya moved toward Sirte over the weekend, the Monitor reported. With progress from the west as well, fighters appear to be closing in on the Qaddafi stronghold, where some believe the former leader may be hiding. Qaddafi has not been seen for several weeks.
According to Bloomberg, the fighters are waiting for NATO to bomb Scud missile sites on the road to Sirte from the west so that they can continue their advance. Commander Col. Salm Miftah told Bloomberg that the rebels will need about 10 days to capture Sirte if Qaddafi loyalists there remain unwilling to negotiate a surrender.
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