Muammar Gaddafi has claimed his regime is still alive in Libya and has called his opponents' takeover of all but a few pockets of the country a charade.

A son of Muammar Gaddafi and three of his generals were trying to gain political asylum today in the poor, landlocked nation of Niger, after a 1,000 mile-plus drive across the vast desert that separates the two countries.

Muammar Gaddafi supporters rocketed a front line south of Tripoli today, testing the patience of the country’s new leaders as a grace period for the holdouts to surrender runs out.