NTC forces claim to be closing in on Moammar Qaddafi at a location in the Libyan desert—but Pepe Escobar on Asia Times warns that “the real war starts now,” predicting a new insurgency as the NTC fractures.
Tuareg fighters are said to be accompanying a convoy of Qaddafi-loyalist forces that has crossed from Libya into Niger, raising speculation that the Tuareg leaders may have brokered a deal for Qaddafi’s exile in Burkina Faso.
The de facto authorities in Tripoli should stop the arbitrary arrests of African migrant workers assumed to be mercenaries, Human Rights Watch said, calling for the NTC to “release those detained as mercenaries solely due to their dark skin color.”
Human Rights Watch reports that Abdel Hakim Belhaj—recently an “al-Qaeda-linked terrorist” and now a military commander of Libya’s NATO-backed rebels—was actually “renditioned” by the CIA from Malaysia to Libya back in 2004.
France and the NTC deny claims in the Paris daily LibĂ©ration that they have signed a secret deal granting French companies exclusive access to 35% of Libya’s oil reserves. Qaddafi meanwhile charges imperialist designs on deep Saharan fossil aquifers.
Over the past days, more than 500 Tuaregs, including women and children, have crossed from Libya to Algeria, claiming they were forced to flee their homes by anti-Qaddafi fighters, who took reprisals after occupying their towns.
AlJazeera claims to have uncovered documents in the ransacked offices of Qaddafi’s intelligence chief implicating US officials—including Rep. Dennis Kucinich—in secretly aiding the strongman, in violation of stated policy.
Libya’s Transitional National Council denied charges made by Morocco’s official news service that some 550 Polisario Front fighters from occupied Western Sahara had been arrested for serving as mercenaries for Qaddafi.
As NATO carries out air-strikes and NTC forces advance on Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, the fugitive strongman’s forces are accused of holding the populace captive to use as “human shields.”
Abdelhakim Belhaj, recently appointed to Tripoli’s rebel military council, was a founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an anti-Qaddafi cell designated by the US State Department as a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaeda
Ali Tarhuni, oil minister of Libya’s Transitional National Council, has assumed executive powers in Tripoli. But the African Union, in an emergency summit at Addis Ababa, refused to recognize the TNC as the legitimate government.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed responsibility for three suicide attacks in Algeria this summer—most recently at military barracks in the coastal town of Cherchel, leaving 18 dead.
