Kadhafi rumoured in Niger, new bid to end Libya fighting

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WISHTATA: Libya's new authorities launched a fresh bid Tuesday to stave off a battle in Bani Walid, one of Moamer Kadhafi's last bastions, amid speculation the toppled strongman has crossed into Niger.

Kadhafi's spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, insisted his boss is still in Libya ready with his sons to fight to the death, even as rumours swirled that the fugitive dictator had fled in a military convoy during the night.

Negotiations for the peaceful surrender of Bani Walid, which anti-Kadhafi fighters encircled last week, had collapsed Sunday, and the latest talks were aimed at reassuring Warfalla tribesmen, elders and the local community.

"No one will be mistreated; We shall not attack property and we shall not assault anyone," Mahmud Jibril, the number two in the National Transitional Council (NTC), told the meeting in the village of Wishtata, on the outskirts of Bani Walid, in a telephone call from Benghazi.

"God willing, the negotiations will be successful," he said, calling the talks "an historic opportunity for Bani Walid and the Warfalla tribe" that dominates the region.

Kamal Hodeisa, a Libyan defence ministry official, told AFP in Tripoli earlier that anti-Kadhafi fighters would "move if there is an act of aggression
by Kadhafi's forces against our rebels inside Bani Walid or if they attack civilians."

Representatives of Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli, urged Libya's new leaders to declare a general amnesty, saying that the Wishtata meeting had cleared the suspicions of its people.

"We are here to spare bloodshed," a Bani Walid leader, Sheikh Abdel Qadir Mayad, told the gathering, even as NTC fighters took up forward positions ready to storm the town.

"Bani Walid has reached the stage where they realise the previous system is over. Bani Walid is with Libya, it is not an exception," said the sheikh.

Officials meanwhile told AFP that a 200-vehicle convoy had crossed during the night into Niger and was on Tuesday heading towards the capital Niamey.

The convoy drove through the city of Agadez, a stronghold of the former Tuareg rebellion the ousted Libyan leader once supported, a Niger military source said on condition of anonymity.

"I saw an exceptionally large and rare convoy of several dozen vehicles enter Agadez from Arlit... and go towards Niamey," the source said.

"There are persistent rumours that Kadhafi or one of his sons are travelling in the convoy," the source said, adding that the convoy included civilian and military vehicles.

The new Libyan leadership in Tripoli simply confirmed it knew of a convoy crossing into Niger.

"We can confirm that around 200 cars crossed from Libya to Niger, but we can't confirm who was in this convoy," Jalal al-Gallal, spokesman for the National Transitional Council in the Libyan capital, told AFP.

Niger Foreign Minister Mohamed Bazoum was adamant the ousted Libyan leader was not in the convoy.

"It is not true, it is not Kadhafi and I do not think the convoy was of the size attributed to it," he told AFP by phone from Algiers.

France, too, said it has no information to suggest Kadhafi had entered Niger.

Kadhafi spokesman Ibrahim insisted that the fugitive leader was still in Libya and was busy planning to re-take the country.

Kadhafi is "in excellent health and planning and organising Libya's defence," Ibrahim told Syria's Arrai television channel on Monday. "He is in place that those scums did not reach. He is fighting inside Libya.

"We are still powerful," he said, adding that the sons of the fugitive dictator "had assumed their role in the defence of and sacrifice for" their country. He however did not name them.

Pledging "a fight to the death or until victory," Ibrahim, who is thought to be in Bani Walid, said: "We will fight and resist for Libya and for all Arabs."

Local officials said most senior figures had fled Bani Walid with Kadhafi's most prominent son, Seif al-Islam, for Sabha, further south, that is still in the hands of regime loyalists.

Two other sons of Kadhafi, Saadi and Mutassim, were also reported to be in Bani Walid and it is suspected that the strongman himself crossed through the oasis town although it is unclear when.

No clashes were reported on Monday in Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte or the southern oases of Sabha and Al-Jufra.

However, NATO said its warplanes had on Monday bombed a military radar site, a command and control bunker, four armed vehicles, for surface to air missile systems and two "military settlements" at Sirte.

An AFP correspondent said forces of the new regime on Tuesday disarmed a pro-Kadhafi tribe east of Sirte, seizing 150 light weapons.

The operation was launched at dawn by fighters of the "Zintan Martyrs' Brigade" deployed in the Umm Khunfis frontline district some 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of Sirte.

The raid targeted encampments of the pro-Kadhafi Hossnia tribe dug into the desert some 30 kilometres inland, who possessed weapons that had been handed out by pro-Kadhafi forces, a brigade commander, Adel Semfez, said. (AFP)