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Top Gadhafi loyalists flee to Niger in desert trek

07 September 2011 00:01 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Convoys of Moammar Gadhafi loyalists, including his security chief, fled across the Sahara Desert into neighboring Niger on Tuesday in a move that Libya’s former rebels hoped could undermine the ousted leader’s support in his last strongholds in the country and help lead to their surrender, APA reports quoting Associated Press.

Still, efforts to negotiate the peaceful handover of one of the most crucial of those strongholds, the city of Bani Walid, proved difficult.

Tribal elders from Bani Walid who met Tuesday with former rebels were met by angry residents of the city, including Gadhafi supporters, who fired in the air to intimidate them, sending them fleeing, mediators said. The round of talks illustrated how many in Bani Walid remain deeply mistrustful of the forces that have seized power in the country and reluctant to accept their rule, even beyond a simple loyalty to the ousted leader.

The scope of the flight to Niger was not immediately clear. Some former rebels depicted it as a major exodus of Gadhafi’s most hardcore backers. But information on the number and identity of those fleeing was scarce as they made their way across the vast swath of desert â€” over 1,000 miles â€” between any populated areas on the two sides of the Libya-Niger border.

Gadhafi himself is not in the convoys, the U.S. State Department said.

As the first group of a dozen vehicles pulled into Niger’s capital Niamey on Tuesday, a customs official confirmed that it included Mansour Dao, Gadhafi’s security chief and a key member of his inner circle, as well as around 12 other Gadhafi regime officials.

The official, Harouna Ide, told The Associated Press that other Libyan convoys had passed through Agadez, a town about halfway between Niger’s border with Libya and its capital in the far southwest.

The convoys included heavily armed contingents of Tuareg tribal fighters from Niger, who have been long enlisted by Gadhafi’s regime, Niger officials said.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. has urged Niger to detain any individuals who may be subject to prosecution in Libya; confiscate the weapons; and impound any state property such as money or jewels that were illegally taken out of the country.

Nuland said some senior members of the Gadhafi regime were in the fleeing group, but not Gadhafi or members of his family.

The West African nation of Burkino Faso, which neighbors Niger, offered Gadhafi asylum last month, raising speculation the convoys were part of plan to arrange passage there for the ousted leader. But on Tuesday, Burkina Faso distanced itself from Gadhafi, indicating that if he came there he would be arrested.