Libya Rebels to Ask Niger: Don't Allow Qaddafi Officials

Libya's ambassador said Friday his country's rebel administration wants Niger to stop giving refuge to fleeing officials of ousted strongman Muammar Qaddafi.

Ambassador Souleymane Ahmed Mohamed Moussa told The Associated Press that Libya's National Transitional Council is sending a delegation next Thursday "to try to convince the Niger government not to grant political asylum to former officials of the Qaddafi regime."

Niger officials have confirmed that Gadhafi's security chief, Mansour Dao, arrived there Tuesday along with at least 12 other Libyans. The other 12 have not been identified.

Niger said it was allowing them to stay on humanitarian grounds, and that it was acting in consultation with the Libyan rebel administration.

But Libya's ambassador to Niger indicated other Gadhafi loyalists also have escaped to Niger along the long, desert border that the two countries share.

"Libya and Niger share a long border, and some armed elements have escaped with their weapons. The movement of these arms must be controlled and we need to recuperate them," he said.

Unconfirmed reports say Qaddafi's army commander for southern Libya, Gen. Ali Kana, also escaped to Niger this week with an unknown number of armed troops.

The Africa Intelligence newsletter reported that Kana, a Libyan Tuareg, had crossed the border into Niger on Sept. 2, a week ago, "along with his heavily armed troops."

Several sources in Agadez, Niger's border town that is the capital of its Tuareg desert tribe, said they had heard rumors that Kana was in Agadez but had been unable to confirm the stories.

Initial reports about the convoys from Libya speculated that it might be an advance team to smooth the way for an exit by Qaddafi himself. Asked if Qaddafi might try to come to Niger, the ambassador Moussa said it was possible.

"Qaddafi was still in Libya yesterday, according to our information. But he has many contacts in Chad and in Niger, he could try to come to one or other of those countries," he said.

Qaddafi had a Tuareg battalion in his army and recruited hundreds more fighters from Chad, Niger and Mali as he came under attack from NATO airstrikes and advancing rebels.

The Sahara Desert along the Libyan/Niger border is largely barren, uninhabited and impossible to police. The Niger side is a lawless refuge for bandits who have kidnapped foreigners.

Roman Moktar, a Tuareg authority in Brussels who used to be a spokesman for the MNJ Tuareg group that fought for Qaddafi, said he received a call Thursday informing him that Kana was considering defecting.

Tuaregs, he said, are angry at Kana because, even though he is a Tuareg, he had led an attack by Qaddafi loyalists on a Tuareg town in Libya. An untold number of Tuaregs were killed, Moktar said by telephone Friday.

"I was told that he was considering defecting because of enormous pressure from Tuareg elders," said Moktar, who now supports Libya's rebel administration.

Moktar said that Qaddafi had paid Tuareg leaders like Kana huge sums of money to recruit Tuareg mercenaries from Mali and Niger. He claimed that Kana recruited thousands of Tuareg shepherds, but never paid them.

"Many illiterate shepherds were massacred as a result of this," Moktar said. "It's my opinion that Kana won't be able to find refuge for long in Niger, if that is where he is."