THE MANHUNT:THE LIBYAN rebels stepped up attempts to find Muammar Gadafy yesterday by announcing that any members of his entourage who killed or captured him would be given an amnesty, a pardon and possibly a reward of 2 million Libyan dinars (€1.15 million).
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, said anyone in the regime’s “inner circle” who obliged would be given an “amnesty or pardon for any crime he has committed”. A businessman in Benghazi, he added, had put up the reward of two million Libyan dinars for anyone who managed to capture Gadafy.
The announcement marked a change in tone from Mr Jalil, who on Monday had called on Libyans not to take justice “into their own hands”, and said he hoped the dictator would be captured alive. Guma El-Gamaty, UK co-ordinator of the council, said he hoped the reward would prove a “huge incentive” to switch sides to those still close to Gadafy.
US, British and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) countries are using every intelligence resource and electronic tracking device at their disposal to find Gadafy. UK defence officials said it was a question of when – not if – the 69-year-old would be discovered.
The search has been fraught with difficulty. Early yesterday, Gadafy issued a rambling message of defiance, broadcast on Syrian television, hours after rebel forces stormed his compound in Tripoli. He had left the capital “discreetly”, he said, and his retreat had been “tactical”.
Many believe he is still in Libya. Mohammed Ganbawa, an opposition activist in Tripoli, said the rebels believed Gadafy had moved between the homes of his sons, a hospital and the Rixos hotel. “There are so many rat holes in Tripoli. We are searching for him in the holes,” Col Ahmad Bani, a rebel military spokesman, told Associated Press.
Julian Lindley-French, a strategist at the international affairs think tank Chatham House in London, said Gadafy had most likely sought refuge in either Sirte, his hometown, or Sabha, a city in the southern desert region which could prove his last stronghold and which has seen vicious fighting since the fall of Tripoli.
The colonel is not the only one attempting to elude capture. Even as the rebel army proclaimed it had taken 95 per cent of Libya, key loyalist figures were still at large. They are remnants of a regime that did away with traditional government structures and rooted itself instead in the regime of the Gadafy family and its tribal allies, most of whom knew they would have “no future” in the new era, said Mr Lindley-French.
“[Gadafy] is now falling back on his clan and tribal affiliations. This is a guy who destroyed all vestiges of state structures during his 42 years in power and actually exaggerated the tribal structure of Libya to maintain his grace-and-favour approach to government, and for that reason the only people he can really trust are what I call the ‘irreconcilables’,” he said.
Those most central to the crumbling court of Gadafy are his sons – in particular Saif al-Islam, who is still at large after a dramatic reappearance in Tripoli on Monday night. The whereabouts of his two military commander brothers, Khamis and Muatassim, are unknown. Another son, Mohammad, the telecommunications chief, is reported to have escaped from house arrest on Monday.
Last night, comments from a woman claiming to be their sister, Aisha Gadafy, were broadcast on the loyalist al-Orouba TV channel. “I tell the Libyan people to stand hand-in-hand against Nato,” she said. “I tell the Libyan people not to fear the armed forces. The leader is in the right.”
Despite mass defections in Tripoli, the dictator was also still being supported by a handful of others outside his immediate family, most vocally by Moussa Ibrahim, the information minister.
Yesterday, Mr Ibrahim was not giving speeches from a podium in the Rixos hotel but down a phone line to Syrian TV, insisting the regime could continue fighting for the capital “for years”.
Abdullah al-Senussi, Col Gadafy's brother-in-law, also appeared to have evaded capture. With Gadafy and Saif al-Islam, he is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. – ( Guardianservice)