GADDAFI SON REPORTEDLY HIDING IN SAHARA
PanARMENIAN.Net
November 3, 2011 - 16:03 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - A fugitive wanted by the International Criminal
Court, Moammar Gadhafi's one-time heir apparent appears to have
disappeared in the Sahara Desert's ocean of dunes and could remain
hidden for months in an area more than twice the size of Texas.
Seif al-Islam Gadhafi may be plotting a counterrevolution, scheming
about a getaway to a friendly country, or negotiating a surrender to
the ICC. Nothing has been heard of him since sources on Oct. 28 said
Tuareg nomads were escorting him the length of Libya and that he was
close to the Mali border, AFP reports.
"My latest information is that they are not in Mali and they are not
in Niger yet either," Malian legislator Ibrahim Ag Mohamed Assaleh
said this week, adding to the mystery of his whereabouts.
Gadhafi, a 39-year-old British-educated engineer, could be deliberately
feeding disinformation from a desert where national boundaries
are unmarked and unpoliced and where smugglers and al-Qaida gunmen
roam freely.
Analyst Adam Thiam, a columnist for Le Republicain newspaper in Mali,
said life in the desert for long periods outside of isolated oases
is nearly impossible, but that a zone in Mali has water, livestock
and small game. However the area is used by al-Qaida in the Islamic
Maghreb, an extremist group which has "no love of the Gadhafi family,"
Thiam said. Gadhafi violently repressed Libya's own Islamist movement
and was a longtime enemy of al-Qaida.
Gadhafi and his late father's former chief of military intelligence,
Abdullah al-Senoussi, have reportedly been traveling in separate
convoys escorted by Tuaregs, the hardy nomads who understand best
how to survive in the desert. Loyalty to the ethnic group trumps
nationality, and the Tuareg's traditional stomping grounds stretch
across North Africa, from Morocco and Algeria to Libya and southwest
to Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad.
Gadhafi and al-Senoussi are both wanted by the ICC for allegedly
organizing and ordering attacks in Libya that killed civilians during
the revolt against Moammar Gadhafi.
PanARMENIAN.Net
November 3, 2011 - 16:03 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - A fugitive wanted by the International Criminal
Court, Moammar Gadhafi's one-time heir apparent appears to have
disappeared in the Sahara Desert's ocean of dunes and could remain
hidden for months in an area more than twice the size of Texas.
Seif al-Islam Gadhafi may be plotting a counterrevolution, scheming
about a getaway to a friendly country, or negotiating a surrender to
the ICC. Nothing has been heard of him since sources on Oct. 28 said
Tuareg nomads were escorting him the length of Libya and that he was
close to the Mali border, AFP reports.
"My latest information is that they are not in Mali and they are not
in Niger yet either," Malian legislator Ibrahim Ag Mohamed Assaleh
said this week, adding to the mystery of his whereabouts.
Gadhafi, a 39-year-old British-educated engineer, could be deliberately
feeding disinformation from a desert where national boundaries
are unmarked and unpoliced and where smugglers and al-Qaida gunmen
roam freely.
Analyst Adam Thiam, a columnist for Le Republicain newspaper in Mali,
said life in the desert for long periods outside of isolated oases
is nearly impossible, but that a zone in Mali has water, livestock
and small game. However the area is used by al-Qaida in the Islamic
Maghreb, an extremist group which has "no love of the Gadhafi family,"
Thiam said. Gadhafi violently repressed Libya's own Islamist movement
and was a longtime enemy of al-Qaida.
Gadhafi and his late father's former chief of military intelligence,
Abdullah al-Senoussi, have reportedly been traveling in separate
convoys escorted by Tuaregs, the hardy nomads who understand best
how to survive in the desert. Loyalty to the ethnic group trumps
nationality, and the Tuareg's traditional stomping grounds stretch
across North Africa, from Morocco and Algeria to Libya and southwest
to Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad.
Gadhafi and al-Senoussi are both wanted by the ICC for allegedly
organizing and ordering attacks in Libya that killed civilians during
the revolt against Moammar Gadhafi.