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Monday, 29 August, 2011, 2:27 ( 0:27 GMT )
Editorial/OP-ED




Rebels Using Special Forces to Hunt Fugitive Libyan Dictator
26/08/2011 13:21:00
Reports by Reuters news agency say that Libyan rebels have indicated they were sending in special forces in their hunt for fugitive Libyan dictator Muammar Al Qathafi, whose supporters are now pinned down in pockets of resistance in the capital, Tripoli.

Rumours that Al Qathafi or his sons had been cornered or sighted, swirled among excitable rebel fighters engaged in heavy machine-gun and rocket exchanges on Thursday, but even after his compound at bab Al-Azziziyah was combed hopes were dashed. He is still on the run, holed up in some apartment afraid even to push his head out to see the light of day.

Hopes of a swift end to the war were still being frustrated by fierce rearguard actions as the search for the former leader are ongoing. The rebels are said to be targeting several areas to find the dictator who five days from now would have been celebrating 46 years as ruler of the North African country.

The rebels are said to be sending special forces every day to hunt Al Qathafi down. They have one unit that does intelligence and other units that hunt him down.

NATO warplanes, whose support has been crucial to the rebels' advance into the capital, could be heard over Tripoli during the night, residents said, with a measure of the rebels' grip on the capital expected to be apparent at Friday prayers.

Reports have stated that as the insurgency developed, Al Qathafi's security forces saw the weekly worship as a protest and shot people as they exited mosques.

It is despicable behaviour. No wonder Western powers have demanded AL Qathafi's surrender and are helping the revolutionaries to start developing what Reuters described as, “the trappings of government and bureaucracy lacking in the oil-rich state after 42 years of an eccentric personality cult.”

Meanwhile, with regime loyalists holding out in the capital, in Al Qathafi's home town of Sirte, violence could go on for some time, testing the rebel government's ability to keep order when it moves from Benghazi, a shift seen as a crucial step to smoothing over rifts in the country, fragmented by regional and tribal divisions, particularly between east and west.
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