Former rebels claim to have located Gaddafi
Leads come mostly from on-the-ground tips, but help is also coming from France and other Western countries, according to a French intelligence official.
Gaddafi — who has not been seen in public for months — went underground after anti-regime fighters swept into Tripoli on August 21.
Capturing the ousted ruler would allow the former rebels to seal their grip on the country and shut the door on the possibility of Gaddafi inspiring an insurgency against the new leaders.
After more than four decades under his authoritarian rule, Libyans are haunted by the question of Gaddafi’s whereabouts, and the country has been awash with rumours that have put him everywhere from deep in a bunker under Tripoli to safe in exile in neighbouring Niger or Algeria.
Yesterday Gaddafi himself dismissed talk of his flight, saying in an audio broadcast that he is still in Libya, and exhorting followers to keep fighting.
A former rebel fighter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that revolutionary forces stormed a villa on Tripoli’s outskirts last week acting on a tip. The fighter, who took part in the operation, said they believe Gaddafi was at the villa and escaped less than an hour before the raid through a secret tunnel.
Officials say the most reliable reports put the fugitive in or near one of three remaining strongholds of loyalist support — his hometown of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast, the city of Bani Walid southeast of Tripoli, or the city of Sabha deep in the southern desert.
Anis Sharif, a spokesman for the Tripoli military council, said the former rebels have a unit of more than 200 “special forces” leading the manhunt in collaboration with the operations room in the capital. He claimed they have located Gaddafi — he would not say where — and that his capture is “just a matter of time”.
