Interpol declares Gaddafi, son wanted
Sep 10, 2011
PARIS: Interpol has issued red notices — its top most-wanted alert — for the arrest of the former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif Al Islam and the country's ex-head of military intelligence, Abdullah Al Senoussi.
PARIS: Interpol has issued red notices — its top most-wanted alert — for the arrest of the former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif Al Islam and the country's ex-head of military intelligence, Abdullah Al Senoussi.
The move comes in response to a request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which is seeking the men for alleged crimes against humanity.
Gaddafi hasn't been seen in public for months and went underground after anti-regime fighters swept into Tripoli on August 21.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi loyalists are among a new group that has fled to Niger, security sources there said yesterday, a day before a deadline expires for the surrender of some of the deposed leader's remaining strongholds in Libya.
Gaddafi himself declared in an audio broadcast on Thursday that he was still in Libya, cursing as rats and stray dogs his Nato-backed opponents who are now trying to run the large, oil-producing North African country.
The security sources in Niger said a party of 14 Libyans, including General Ali Kana, a Tuareg who commanded Gaddafi's southern troops, a second general and two other top officials had arrived in Agadez in northern Niger in a convoy of four-wheel drive vehicles on Thursday afternoon.
A Reuters reporter in Agadez said the four senior officials were staying at a Gaddafi-owned hotel in the town.
Niger's government, under pressure from Western powers and Libya's new rulers to hand over former Gaddafi officials suspected of human rights abuses, has not yet commented.
It said it accepted a convoy carrying Mansour Dhao, head of Gaddafi's security brigades, on Monday on humanitarian grounds.
Ultimatum
Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) has given Gaddafi-held bastions such as the desert town of Bani Walid, 150 kilometres southeast of Tripoli, and the coastal city of Sirte until today to surrender or face a military assault.
Some NTC officials have said Gaddafi must be captured or killed before Libya can be declared liberated and a timetable for elections and a new constitution can start running.
"This is a stage where we have to unify and be together. Once the battle is finished ... the political game can start," Mahmoud Jibril, head of the NTC's interim cabinet, said on Thursday.
"Perhaps some thought the tyrant had already left and that the regime had toppled. And this has brought to the surface some differences," he said, in a city where disparate militias have been staking out territory for the past two weeks.
Gaddafi said in what Syrian-based Arrai TV said was a live broadcast from Libya: "We will not leave our ancestral land ... The youths are now ready to escalate the resistance against the rats in Tripoli and to finish off the mercenaries." Backing up his words, volleys of Grad missiles flew out of Bani Walid, where NTC forces are besieging what they believe to be a hard core of about 150 pro-Gaddafi fighters.
"We can do it within two hours maximum," Ahmad Bani, an NTC military spokesman, said of capturing Bani Walid.
Agencies
The move comes in response to a request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which is seeking the men for alleged crimes against humanity.
Gaddafi hasn't been seen in public for months and went underground after anti-regime fighters swept into Tripoli on August 21.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi loyalists are among a new group that has fled to Niger, security sources there said yesterday, a day before a deadline expires for the surrender of some of the deposed leader's remaining strongholds in Libya.
Gaddafi himself declared in an audio broadcast on Thursday that he was still in Libya, cursing as rats and stray dogs his Nato-backed opponents who are now trying to run the large, oil-producing North African country.
The security sources in Niger said a party of 14 Libyans, including General Ali Kana, a Tuareg who commanded Gaddafi's southern troops, a second general and two other top officials had arrived in Agadez in northern Niger in a convoy of four-wheel drive vehicles on Thursday afternoon.
A Reuters reporter in Agadez said the four senior officials were staying at a Gaddafi-owned hotel in the town.
Niger's government, under pressure from Western powers and Libya's new rulers to hand over former Gaddafi officials suspected of human rights abuses, has not yet commented.
It said it accepted a convoy carrying Mansour Dhao, head of Gaddafi's security brigades, on Monday on humanitarian grounds.
Ultimatum
Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) has given Gaddafi-held bastions such as the desert town of Bani Walid, 150 kilometres southeast of Tripoli, and the coastal city of Sirte until today to surrender or face a military assault.
Some NTC officials have said Gaddafi must be captured or killed before Libya can be declared liberated and a timetable for elections and a new constitution can start running.
"This is a stage where we have to unify and be together. Once the battle is finished ... the political game can start," Mahmoud Jibril, head of the NTC's interim cabinet, said on Thursday.
"Perhaps some thought the tyrant had already left and that the regime had toppled. And this has brought to the surface some differences," he said, in a city where disparate militias have been staking out territory for the past two weeks.
Gaddafi said in what Syrian-based Arrai TV said was a live broadcast from Libya: "We will not leave our ancestral land ... The youths are now ready to escalate the resistance against the rats in Tripoli and to finish off the mercenaries." Backing up his words, volleys of Grad missiles flew out of Bani Walid, where NTC forces are besieging what they believe to be a hard core of about 150 pro-Gaddafi fighters.
"We can do it within two hours maximum," Ahmad Bani, an NTC military spokesman, said of capturing Bani Walid.
Agencies