Kadhafi au Niger?

Était-il dans le convoi?

"An armed convoy of dozens of vehicles, believed to be carrying hard-core loyalists of Moammar Gaddafi, including his security chief, crossed the southern border into Niger on Tuesday, raising questions about the fugitive leader’s whereabouts and whether he was preparing to flee.

Rebel leaders said Gaddafi was not in the convoy, but they were unsure exactly who was in the vehicles. Fighters opposing Gaddafi have no access to the desert south of Sabha, which lies on the edge of the Sahara and about 300 miles from Libya’s southwestern border with Niger. The border is not secured, leaving the rebels dependent on their neighbors to stop nefarious activity.

“Our military said there was a convoy that crossed into Niger,” said Jalal el-Gallal, a spokesman in Tripoli for the rebels’ governing Transitional National Council. “As to the content, I don't think anyone has any idea what was inside.”

The head of the council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, has asked Niger to lock down its border with Libya. But according to council members, the loyalist convoy was welcomed into the country. Officials in Niger confirmed that the convoy entered but said Gaddafi was not inside, Niger’s foreign minister, Bazoum Mohamed, told al-Arabiya television.

The hunt for Gaddafi has been a disorganized and a difficult task that depends on eyewitness accounts throughout the country. Various reports have placed the leader in different locations throughout his tribal heartland, a triangle between his coastal home town of Sirte, the oasis town of Bani Walid to the west and the city of Sabha on the edge of the Sahara in the south. But council members insist that they have a solid idea of where Gaddafi is.

On Tuesday, NATO said it was not its job to search for Gaddafi and could not speak about the reports the alliance receives about movements on the ground.

“To be clear, our mission is to protect the civilian population in Libya, not to track and target thousands of fleeing former regime leaders, mercenaries, military commanders and internally displaced people,” said Col. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/convoy-of-gaddafi-loyalists-crosses-into-niger/2011/09/06/gIQA3LfH7J_story.html