Sa'adi Qadhafi flees to Niger

According to Niger's Justice Minister Marou Amadou one of Colonel Mu'ammar Qadhafi's sons, Sa'adi Qadhafi, has been allowed into Niger on humanitarian grounds. The minister said he is expected in the capital city of Niamey later today.

Qadhafi's own whereabouts are unknown, but the Libyan leader has vowed to die on Libyan soil. Most of the country is now controlled by anti-Qadhafi revolutionaries, but pro-Qadhafi loyalists are still holding out in several cities, including Bani Walid, Sirte, Jufra and Sabha.

On Sunday 11th September, anti-Qadhafi forces renewed their attack on Bani Walid, 180km from Tripoli. The operation was supported by NATO airstrikes. According to a number of sources, the forces are within reach of the town centre. They are also reportedly closing in on the city of Sirte.

It has now been established that some of Qadhafi's family, including his wife and daughter, have fled to the neighbouring Algeria. A number of pro-Qadhafi convoys have also crossed the southern border with Niger recently. According to Niger's government, who has officially recognised the National Transitional Council (NTC), it has yet to decide whether it would allow Qadhafi to enter the country.

The US has urged Niger to detain any individual wanted by Tripoli and strip them of weapons and money.

In related news, the West African nation of Guinea Bissau has said it would welcome Qadhafi if he sought refuge there. Guinea Bissau's Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, said: “With all the investment that Qadhafi has put into Guinea Bissau he deserves the respect and good treatment by the authorities and people of Guinea Bissau."

Head of NTC Mahmoud Jibril has announced that an interim government will be formed within 10 days. Speaking on Sunday 11th September, he said that all areas of Tripoli would be represented, including those where conflict was ongoing.

Jibril also noted that Libya had resumed producing oil, saying more would be on stream in the near future.

On the same day, an NTC spokesman Anes Sharif, announced that Qadhafi's head of foreign intelligence, Abuzeid Dorda, has been arrested in Tripoli.

Sources: BBC News, Reuters, WSJ

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

Libya: Playing on religion

Alongside its strategy of employing brute military force, the regime has also been making efforts through other channels to resolve the situation. Colonel Mu'ammar Qadhafi is still trying to reach out to some of the eastern tribes, offering them incentives in a bid to neutralise them.

The regime is also playing on the religious sensibilities of the Libyans. It has made appeals to a number of influential Saudi Islamic scholars, including Sheikh Salman Al-Awda and Sheikh Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qarni, asking them to impress upon Libyans that it is Islamically unacceptable to rise up against one's rulers.

This was presumably a bid to capitalise on the popularity that Saif al-Islam gained by inviting figures such as these to Libya last year in sup¬port of his de-radicalisation initiative with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. However, while these scholars may have been willing to play ball where the de-radicalisation programme was concerned, they have unsurprisingly proved com¬pletely unwilling to back the regime in this way.

The last rather desperate tactic on this front was to wheel Sa'adi Qadhafi out on state television. Dressed in a long white jalaba and sporting a beard, surrounded by religious books and quot¬ing from the Qu'ran, Sa'adi explained to Libyans that they should not rise up against the state.

This is not quite as bizarre as it appears. Although Sa'adi is known these days primarily for his love of football and his penchant for parties and Hollywood actresses, he went through a religious phase in the 1990s, so much so that Qadhafi senior was reportedly worried about him. Therefore his being the one to try to tap into religious sensibilities was not so surprising. Such attempts, however, are unlikely to have cut much ice with the opposition.

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2011 Menas Associates