Elders hold talks over Gaddafi stronghold

Tribal elders from one of Muammar Gaddafi's last strongholds were trying to persuade regime loyalists holed up there to lay down their arms, the elders said during talks today with rebel negotiators, hours after a large convoy of heavily armed Gaddafi soldiers crossed the desert into neighbouring Niger.

The elders left the besieged town of Bani Walid to meet with rebels in a tiny mosque about 40 miles away.

"The revolutionaries have not come to humiliate anyone. We are all here to listen," Abdullah Kenshil, the chief rebel negotiator, said at the start of the meeting. Then, in a message clearly intended for the hardcore Gaddafi loyalists in Bani Walid, some of whom may be fearing rebel retribution, he added: "I say we are not like the old regime. We don't take revenge and we don't bear grudges."

Gaddafi loyalists have been holed up in several towns, including Bani Walid, some 90 miles southeast of Tripoli. Thousands of rebel fighters have surrounded the town.

The four tribal elders at the meeting said rumours were circulating in Bani Walid that the rebels were going to rape the women of the town and kill the people.

"Bani Walid is split into two groups," said Moftah al-Rubassi. "The first and the majority want peace. The second, these are people who have been implicated (as part of Gaddafi's regime), either by blood or money, and they are cowards."

He said quickly restoring the city's basic services — it has had no water or electricity for many days — would assure residents of the rebels' intentions. The rebels said that would happen as soon as possible.

Gaddafi's whereabouts are unknown, but speculation has centred on his hometown of Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha in the far south.

Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim was defiant in a phone call to the Syrian TV station al-Rai today, saying the ousted dictator was "in excellent health, planning and organising for the defence of Libya." Ibrahim, who the rebels believe was in Bani Walid, said both Gaddafi and his sons remain in Libya.

"We are fighting and resisting for the sake of Libya and all Arabs," he said. "We are still strong and capable of turning the tables on Nato," he said, though the regime effectively collapsed more than a week ago.

Another rebel official, Khaled al-Zintani, said rebels had arrested Khalid Kaim, Gaddafi's deputy foreign minister in Tripoli yesterday.

A video, posted on rebels' Facebook pages, showed Kaim in a white robe sitting on a bed, with young men shouting at him.

"You are a dog," yelled the rebels, some of them in military uniform. "But we will treat you in a good way," one added.

He responded by saying: "I swear to God, I had good intentions."

Late yesterday, meanwhile, a large convoy of Gaddafi loyalists rolled into the central Niger town of Agadez, said Abdoulaye Harouna, the owner of the local newspaper. The convoy consisted of more than a dozen pickup trucks bristling with well-armed Libyan troops, said Harouna, who saw the arrival.

The convoy left this morning for Niger's capital, Niamey, 600 miles to the south.

At the head of the convoy, Harouna said, was Tuareg rebel leader Rissa ag Boula, a native of Niger who led a failed war of independence on behalf of ethnic Tuareg nomads a decade ago. He then sought refuge in Libya and was believed to be fighting on behalf of Gaddafi.

It was not immediately clear if the convoy included any members of the Gaddafi family or other high-level members of his regime.

Gaddafi is believed to have financed the Tuareg rebellion in the north of Niger. African nations where Tuaregs represent a significant slice of the population, like Niger, have been among the last to recognise the rebels that ousted Gaddafi.

Gaddafi remains especially popular in towns like Agadez, where a majority of the population is Tuareg.

Harouna says the pro-Gaddafi soldiers accompanying Boula were coming from the direction of Arlit.

The isolated desert that stretches north of Arlit borders both Libya and Algeria. Some members of Gaddafi's family, including his wife, his daughter Aisha and two of his sons, recently sought refuge in Algeria.

A rebel spokesman for Tripoli's military council said the rebel leadership was aware of the convoy but had few details.

"It was not a large number of soldiers. We think it was a protection team of some sort," Anis Sharif said.

A Nato official in Brussels said the alliance did not have any immediate information about the convoy.

Nato warplanes don't normally patrol that deep south in the Sahara, the official said.

Meanwhile, the International Organisation for Migration, an aid group that focuses on post-disaster displacement, said more than 1,200 migrants had taken refuge at an IOM transit centre in the southern loyalist stronghold of Sabha.

The migrants, most of them from Chad, but also including people from Niger, Nigeria and other countries, had fled to the transit centre to escape increasing fighting between rebel and loyalist forces on the outskirts of town.

But with no electricity and little food or water, the situation for everyone in the town is becoming increasingly perilous.

"The migrants are very scared and threatened," said the organisation's Chief of Mission for Chad Qasim Sufi. Sufi said they had lost contact with the town for two weeks, but an urgent call yesterday informed them of the migrants and asked for urgent evacuation.

Hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans worked in Gaddafi's Libya, doing everything from managing hotels to sweeping floors. But some also fought as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries, and many migrant workers have fled ahead of the rebels, fearing they would be mistaken for mercenaries.

AP