Libya's interim leader on Tuesday gave forces loyal to deposed ruler Muammar Qadhafi a four-day deadline to surrender towns still under their control or face military force. As the hunt for Qadhafi himself goes on, Libyan officials accused neighbouring Algeria of an act of aggression for admitting his fleeing wife and three of his children.
Algeria's Foreign Ministry said Qadhafi's wife Safia, his daughter Aisha and his sons Hannibal and Mohammed had entered Algeria on Monday morning, along with their children. That stirred a diplomatic row just as Libya's interim council works to consolidate its authority and capture places still loyal to Qadhafi, notably the coastal city of Sirte.
"By Saturday, if there are no peaceful indications for implementing this we will decide this matter militarily. We do not wish to do so but we cannot wait longer," Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of Libya's interim council, told a news conference.
Anti-Qadhafi forces have converged on Sirte from east and west, but have stopped short of an all-out assault in hopes of arranging a negotiated surrender of Qadhafi's birth-place. Qadhafi has been on the run since his foes captured his Tripoli compound on August 23 and his 42-year-old rule collapsed after a six-month uprising backed by Nato and some Arab states.
GADDAFI "WENT TO SABHA" Qadhafi was in Tripoli until Friday when he left for the southern desert town of Sabha, Britain's Sky News reported, quoting a 17-year-old bodyguard of Qadhafi's son Khamis. It quoted the unnamed captured youth as saying Qadhafi met Khamis, a feared military commander, at around 1:30 pm on Friday in a Tripoli compound that was under heavy rebel fire. Qadhafi had arrived by car and was soon joined by Aisha.
After a short meeting, they boarded four-wheel drive vehicles and left, the bodyguard told a Sky reporter, adding that his officer had told him: "They're going to Sabha." Along with Sirte, Sabha is one of the few remaining places in Libya where pro-Qadhafi forces are holding out. A Nato spokesman said reports of talks over Sirte were encouraging, but said the alliance, which has kept up a five-month bombing campaign, was targeting the city's approaches.
"Our main area of attention is a corridor... (leading up) to the eastern edge of Sirte," Colonel Roland Lavoie, speaking from Naples, told a Nato briefing in Brussels. Anti-Qadhafi officers have reported that Khamis Qadhafi and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi were both killed in a clash on Saturday. This has not been confirmed and the Nato spokesman said he had no word on Khamis's fate. A spokesman for the National Transitional Council said it would seek to extradite Qadhafi's relatives from Algeria, which is alone among Libya's neighbours in not recognising the NTC.
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