This article titled “Somali Islamists ban Red Cross” was written by Clar Ni Chonghaile in Nairobi, for The Guardian on Tuesday 31st January 2012 21.49 UTC

Hundreds of thousands of Somalis could be deprived of critical food aid after Islamist rebels banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from areas under their control.

The move severes a critical lifeline in the south of the country where famine still threatens 250,000 people.

Rebel group al-Shabaab, which professes allegiance to al-Qaida and is hostile to foreign intervention of any kind, said it had decided to “fully terminate” the Red Cross contract, accusing the group of delivering out-of-date food.

A Red Cross spokeswoman in Nairobi had no immediate comment. The aid group had suspended food distribution to 1.1 million people in southern and central Somalia on 12 January, saying militants were blocking deliveries.

The new ban could deal a major blow to aid operations in the dangerous south of the country as the Red Cross was one of only a few international agencies still able to operate there after al-Shabaab banned 16 other groups last November.

One official, who did not wish to be named, said the ban was serious because it affected the Somali Red Crescent Society, a well-respected local organisation working with the ICRC.

He attributed the ICRC’s expulsion partly to a breakdown of communication linked to increased militariastion in the zone, where Kenyan troops are also fighting al-Shabaab.

Given the scale of the Red Cross operation, it will be difficult for local organisations or other groups still operating in the south and centre to pick up the slack if the ban is upheld. Several Islamic relief agencies still have access to southern Somalia.

Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, said the ICRC ban risked rolling back gains made after international relief began to flow into Somalia last summer, following a declaration of famine in six regions.

“Leaving so many vulnerable Somalis without food will endanger their lives and could also result in pushing a large number of people back into famine, reversing any gains made,” he said. “We appeal to all factions in Somalia to allow humanitarian actors to reach people most in need, wherever they are.”

Six months after famine was declared in six regions, Somalia remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis although three areas have been lifted out of famine. The UN says 4 million people still need aid, and 1.4 million have been displaced inside the country.

Delivering food and other essential relief is complicated by al-Shabaab’s hostility to foreigners and the demands they make of aid groups. Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries for aid workers, al-Shabaab, pirates and bandits have all targeted aid workers in recent months with kidnappings and shootings.

The UN has appealed for $1.5bn (£952m) to fund relief programmes this year, and officials have warned that any delay could be catastrophic. One British estimate says between 50,000 and 100,000 people died across the Horn of Africa because of last year’s drought and famine.

In a statement from its Office for Supervising the Affairs of Foreign Agencies, al-Shabab said it had inspected Red Cross warehouses and food depots and found that up to 70% of the food was “unfit for human consumption.” It said it had publicly burned around 2,000 metric tonnes of food.

“Despite being offered unrivalled access to all the regions governed by the Mujahideen in south and central Somalia, the International Committee of the Red Cross has repeatedly betrayed the trust conferred on it by the local population,” the statement said.

Al-Shabaab posted a picture on its Twitter account of burning sacks of food. It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the photograph.

The rebel group, which numbers Britons and Americans among its ranks, is fighting Somalia’s weak, western-backed Transitional Federal Government and the African Union peacekeepers that support it. It is also battling Kenyan troops in the south and Ethiopian troops in the west of the country.

Once lauded by some Somalis for restoring order in a country that has not had a functioning government in more than 20 years, al-Shabaab lost a lot of popular support during the famine amid reports that it stopped hungry people from leaving villages, diverted resources and imposed taxes on residents.

Somalia’s descent into anarchy has raised fears among its neighbours, such as Kenya, but also further afield. David Cameron is to host a conference in February on a country he described as “a failed state that threatens British interests.”

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This article titled “US commando team that killed Bin Laden swoop on Somali pirates” was written by Karen McVeigh in New York, for The Guardian on Wednesday 25th January 2012 19.39 UTC

The special forces commandos who swept into Somalia under cover of darkness to rescue two hostages, an American woman and a Danish man, were part of Seal team six, the same navy unit that killed Osama bin Laden, it has emerged.

The Seals killed nine pirates on Tuesday night before rescuing Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60. They had been held hostage for three months after their kidnap from Galkayo, in the Galmudug region of Somalia, last October.

President Barack Obama, who authorised the mission two days ago, made no mention of it in his state of the union address to Congress on Tuesday. But he was overheard congratulating the defence secretary, Leon Panetta, on a “good job tonight” as he entered the House of Representatives chamber to give his address.

Minutes after he had finished his speech, the president was on the phone to Buchanan’s father, John, to tell him that his daughter was safe.

Obama said in a predawn statement released by the White House on Wednesday: “Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our special operations forces, yesterday Jessica Buchanan was rescued and she is on her way home.

“As commander-in-chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts. The US will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice,” he said.

The pair were working for the DGG, a land mine clearance unit of the Danish Refugee Council, which confirmed the hostages were unharmed and “on their way to be reunited with their families”.

A senior administration official who was not authorised to speak publicly told AP that new intelligence over the “deteriorating health” of Buchanan had prompted Obama to direct his security team to develop a rescue plan.

Mary Ann Olsen of the refugee council said Buchanan was “not that ill” and did not have to be hospitalised but did require medicine.

Olsen informed Thisted’s family of the successful military operation and said “they were very happy and incredibly relieved that it is over”. She said the freed hostages were in Djibouti and would soon be moved to a “safe haven”.

Pentagon officials have refused to discuss the details of the raid, which took place near the Somali town of Adado. But according to officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, the rescue team, part of the naval special warfare development group, parachuted into the area before moving in on foot.

They arrived when the guards were asleep. A pirate who gave his name as Bile Hussein told AP the guards had been sleeping off the effects of the stimulant leaf khat, popular in Somalia, which they had been chewing for most of the evening. Hussein said he was not present, but had spoken to others who said that nine people had been killed and three were “taken away”. Officials said that the Seals had intended to capture the kidnappers, but, for reasons that have not been explained, nine were killed.

Following the operation, the rescue team and hostages flew by helicopter to Camp Lemonnier, a US base in Djibouti.

While the commandos were drawn from Seal team six, it is understood they were not the same personnel as those in the Bin Laden operation, and officials stressed that members of the other armed forces were also involved in the rescue.

When the pair were kidnapped, hundreds of Somalis demonstrated against the act in the streets.

“We are really happy with the successful release of the innocents kidnapped by evildoers,” Muhammad Sahal, an elder in Galkayo town, told AP. “They were guests who were treated brutally. That was against Islam and our culture … These men have spoiled our good customs and culture, so Somalis should fight back.”

Several hostages are still being held in Somalia, including a British tourist, two Spanish doctors seized from neighbouring Kenya, and an American journalist who was kidnapped on Saturday.

Negotiations with Somali pirates are notoriously tricky and they typically only release hostages for multimillion-pound ransoms. A British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, who were kidnapped from their yacht by Somali pirates in 2009 and held captive for 13 months, were finally freed in November 2010 after an undisclosed sum was paid.

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This article titled “Al-Qaida offshoot hopes to turn Africa’s Sahel region into a ‘new Somalia’” was written by Simon Tisdall, for The Guardian on Thursday 8th December 2011 19.02 UTC

An offshoot of al-Qaida is working to turn the whole of Africa’s Sahel region into a “new Somalia” and terrorist bases there pose a growing threat to European and pan-African security, a panel of experts has warned.

Jerome Spinoza, head of the Africa bureau in the French ministry of defence, said the sub-Saharan Sahel area, up to 1,000km wide and stretching from the Atlantic in the west to the Red Sea in the east, presented challenges that western policymakers ignored at their peril.

“Instability is on the rise,” Spinoza told the Chatham House thinktank in London on Thursday. “Without a meaningful policy, the area could constitute a lasting safe haven for jihadists.”

Robert Fowler, a former UN special envoy to Niger and Canadian diplomat who was kidnapped and held hostage for four months in 2008-9 by al-Qaida in the Maghreb (AQIM), said the 31-strong group of captors was well-disciplined and wholly concentrated on its aim of creating an Islamic caliphate embracing the Muslim lands of Africa and the Middle East.

“These men are highly motivated and totally ascetic,” Fowler said. “These guys have no needs. They are dressed in rags. They have a bag of rice and a belt of ammunition and that’s it. I was held in 23 different locations in about 70 days. They are organised. They can break camp in under four minutes.”

Fowler continued: “This was the most focused group of young men I have ever encountered in my life. They are totally committed to jihad. They said to me, ‘We fight to die, you fight to go home to your wife and kids. Guess who will win?’ Even if it takes 200 years … They want to turn the Sahel into a new Somalia.”

Fowler said the terrorist threat to Europe’s southern flank had risen after advanced weapons were plundered during the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. “They (AQIM) are now equipped with enormous amounts of Libyan weapons and I mean sophisticated weapons such as 20,000 [shoulder-mounted] SA-24 missiles, heavy mortars, heavy artillery and thousands of anti-tank mines … The UN has demanded they be handed over. Well, good luck with that.”

The Sahel region embraces southern Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, southern Algeria, Niger, northern Nigeria, Chad, South Sudan and Darfur in western Sudan, northern Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Spinoza said a host of critical issues faced the region going beyond terrorism. They included recurring rebellions by nomadic Tuareg tribesmen, some of whom were armed by and fought as mercenaries for Gaddafi in this year’s Libya conflict, cocaine trafficking to Europe from the west African coast, and people and arms smuggling.

The region was also confronted by rapid population growth, weak and ineffective governance, inter-state tensions, poor access to education and employment, and increasingly acute food supply problems exacerbated by climate change and the southward advance of the Sahara desert, he said.

AQIM was exploiting the resulting instability, he suggested, spreading its influence south from Algeria and raising the prospect of transcontinental link-ups with Boko Haram militant Islamists in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Spinoza called for a joined-up approach by the international community, suggesting interested countries including France, the Netherlands and the US needed to coordinate their policies with regional and local players. “The EU’s strategy for security involves development, rule of law and (non-military) security but the EU needs to be more concrete,” he said.

Speaking this week, Kristalina Georgieva, the EU commissioner for humanitarian aid crisis response, said the Sahel was likely to experience severe food shortages next year because of erratic rainfall and localised dry spells.

Seven million people were already facing shortages in Niger, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, she said. Current trends pointed to a massive problem of food availability next year.

The European commission last month increased humanitarian funding to the Sahel by €10m (£8.5m) to a total of €55m this year. Niger and Mauritania have already declared a crisis, prepared national action plans, and appealed for international help.

At the eastern end of the Sahel arc, 13 million people remained in need of emergency help and the crisis there was expected to last until the spring and perhaps the summer of 2012, Georgieva said.

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This article titled “Gay rights must be criterion for US aid allocations, instructs Obama” was written by Karen McVeigh in New York, for The Guardian on Wednesday 7th December 2011 00.03 UTC

President Barack Obama has instructed officials to consider how countries treat their gay and lesbian populations when making decisions about allocating foreign aid.

In the first US government strategy to deal with human rights abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens abroad, a presidential memorandum issued on Tuesday instructs agencies to use foreign aid to promote such rights.

Gay and lesbian lobby groups have reported an increase in human rights abuses across Africa and parts of the Middle East.

Obama is among international leaders who have condemned a bill proposed in Uganda that would make some homosexual acts a crime punishable by death. The Ugandan parliament recently reopened debate on the bill, which had been abandoned after an international outcry.

In a speech in Geneva to mark international human rights day, secretary of state Hillary Clinton backed the presidential directive. “I am not saying that gay people can’t or don’t commit crimes,” she said. “They can and they do. Just like straight people. And when they do, they should be held accountable. But it should never be a crime to be gay.”

Clinton has called for greater protection of sexual minorities and the safety of those seeking asylum. In June, she welcomed a UN resolution on equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.

Clinton compared the struggle for gay equality to difficult passages toward women’s rights and racial equality, and said a country’s cultural or religious traditions are no excuse for discrimination. “Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights,” she said.

Among US measures, the state department will lead a group to direct agencies to provide a “swift and meaningful” response to serious incidents that threaten the human rights of LGBT people abroad, Obama said. Agencies are directed to combat the criminalisation of LGBT status or conduct abroad, protect vulnerable LGBT refugees and asylum seekers, and engage international organisations in the fight against such discrimination. Agencies are instructed to report on progress within 180 days.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney argued gay rights should not be a test for US engagement abroad. “I will be looking at foreign aid, whether it meets our national security interests and, number two, whether these nations are friends of ours and are willing to be friendly with us in ways when it matters the most,” he said on Fox News.

The Texas governor, Rick Perry, went further. “Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money,” a Perry campaign statement said.

It was unclear whether those countries that target and discriminate against gay and lesbians would have their funding cut.

The latest state department report cites countries including US allies such as Saudi Arabia as having human rights issues over treatment of homosexuals.

The UN Human Rights Council passed the resolution on equal rights for all by a narrow margin, despite strong objections from African and Muslim countries.

While the US, the EU and Brazil backed the effort, the move drew strong criticism from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Pakistan, among others.

In October this year, USAID made an announcement that it “strongly encourages” businesses contracted with USAID to go beyond mandatory non-discrimination protections, to prohibit job bias for LGBT employees and other workers.

Among the top 10 countries granted economic and military assistance from the US, according to USAID, are Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Egypt Pakistan, Sudan, West Bank/Gaza, Ethiopia, Kenya and Columbia.

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This article titled “Egypt’s cabinet offers to resign as protests against junta grow” was written by Jack Shenker in Cairo, for The Guardian on Monday 21st November 2011 21.17 UTC

Egypt’s interim government has tendered its resignation following a third day of deadly violence in Cairo, throwing the country into fresh turmoil less than a week before nationwide parliamentary elections are due to begin.

The possible exit of the beleaguered prime minister, Essam Sharaf, and his cabinet came as anti-junta protesters announced plans for a “million-man” occupation of Tahrir Square on Tuesday, and after the use of live ammunition by security forces on demonstrators was confirmed for the first time.

At least 33 people have been killed and more than 2,000 injured in the ongoing clashes, prompting a range of revolutionary movements from across the political spectrum, including leftist, liberal and Islamist organisations, to throw their full weight behind the protests.

“We confirm our readiness to face all the forces that aim to abort the revolution, reproduce the old regime, or drag the country into chaos and turn the revolution into a military coup,” said a joint statement by 37 groups.

As the crowds in Tahrir Square swelled on Monday evening, it seemed unlikely that the dismissal of Sharaf and his ministers – which had yet to be confirmed by the military council – would be enough to calm the unrest. The protesters’ main demand remains the return of the country to civilian rule, not just a change of the personnel operating on behalf of the ruling generals. But the resignations, if accepted, could pave the way for a compromise, with the armed forces appointing a new government of “national salvation” and offering a clearer timetable for their own departure from power.

“I don’t think this crowd cares at all about the government,” said Khalid Abdalla, an actor and activist who has been demonstrating in Tahrir Square. “This is about a battle on the streets in which people are being killed.”

Earlier in the day a last-ditch effort by the junta to stem the violence by offering concessions to their critics – including the passing of a long-awaited “treachery law” that would bar former members of Hosni Mubarak’s now-disbanded ruling party from running in the upcoming elections, which are now less than a week away – appeared only to galvanise resistance.

“The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [Scaf] only have two choices – they obey the will of the people, or Egypt burns,” said Ramy el-Swissy, a leading member of the April 6th youth movement, which will be joining the sit-in on Tuesday. “People on the streets are so angry; no matter what certain ordinary people may have thought of the protests initially, they are now seeing endless TV footage of innocent Egyptians losing their lives at the hands of the security forces. Everyone knows that this is not what we launched a revolution for, and they are standing with us.”

Despite continued denials by the authorities, evidence has emerged that some police or army units are using live ammunition on protesters.

Researchers from the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights, a Cairo-based human rights organisation, told the Guardian they had confirmation that the bodies of four people killed by live bullets were in the city’s main morgue. The victims were all aged between 19 and 27.

William Hague, the British foreign minister, said the violence was of “great concern” but added that the UK would not be taking sides.

The US urged Egypt to go ahead with the elections and called for restraint on all sides. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said: “The United States continues to believe that these tragic events should not stand in the way of elections.” His comments came as clashes continued in the side streets off Tahrir Square, with the frontline between revolutionaries and armed police shifting back and forth throughout the day.

At one point teargas was fired by the security forces into a makeshift field hospital off the central plaza, forcing volunteer doctors and wounded protesters to flee. Nearby mosques and churches opened their doors to the injured, though medics said they were vastly under-resourced and struggling to keep count of the casualties.

Some demonstrators took to writing the contact details of their families on their arms before joining the fray so they can be identified if killed. Meanwhile Tahrir’s main holding station for fatalities said it had run out of coffins, and appealed for a fresh supply.

“People have political demands – specifically for civilian rule and the end of the military council – but right now this is simply a fight between the police and the people, and you can only stand on one side,” said Ramy Raoof, a prominent activist.

“And now through the statements of the government and the fact that the soldiers attacked Tahrir yesterday, it’s clear that Scaf and the army stand with the police. There is now one enemy, and when you have that situation people get mobilised and come down from their homes to join.”

He said elections, now only six days away, should go ahead but that they must be accompanied by Scaf withdrawing from politics. “Right now that seems like the only scenario that would work,” said Raoof, 24. “But other alternatives could be proposed.”

Beyond the capital, unrest has spread to almost every major urban centre in the country, including Ismailia on the Suez Canal and the strategically important town of al-Arish in the northern Sinai peninsula. In Egypt’s second-largest city, the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, thousands of students took to the streets after the death of a second protester.

Amid mounting calls for the formation of a new civilian government as a way of ending the crisis and appropriating power back from the armed forces, the country’s largest organised political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a statement condemning Scaf for the bloodshed and vowed to push for the prosecution of those responsible for the attacks.

But in a sign that it was not yet ready to give up on the “transition” timetable – which is likely to see it emerge as the biggest winner in next week’s parliamentary vote – the Brotherhood refused to endorse the protests or follow several liberal and leftists in calling off its parliamentary campaign, though it did promise to suspend electoral activities temporarily.

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This article titled “Gaddafi killer faces prosecution, says Libyan interim government” was written by Martin Chulov and agencies, for The Guardian on Thursday 27th October 2011 18.21 UTC

Libya’s interim government says it will prosecute anyone found responsible for the death of Muammar Gaddafi after his capture, in a retreat from its earlier insistence that the dictator had been killed by crossfire.

The change in position comes after a week of sustained criticism of the Libyan leader’s captors, who used their camera phones to chronicle his death. The footage, including images of a wounded Gaddafi being sodomised with what looked like a bayonet, caused widespread revulsion outside the country.

Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, deputy chief of the National Transitional Council, said it would try to bring to justice anyone proven to have fired the shot to the head that killed Gaddafi.

“With regards to Gaddafi, we do not wait for anybody to tell us,” he told the al-Arabiya satellite channel. “We had already launched an investigation. We have issued a code of ethics in handling of prisoners of war. I am sure that was an individual act and not an act of revolutionaries or the national army. Whoever is responsible for that [Gaddafi's killing] will be judged and given a fair trial.”

Attempts to launch an investigation are unlikely to be welcomed in Misrata, where the rebels who captured Gaddafi in his home town of Sirte are based. Asked this week about the questions surrounding his death by people outside Libya, Misrata’s military chief, Ibrahim Beit al-Mal, said: “Why are they even asking this question? He was caught and he was killed. Would he have given us the same? Of course.”

Talk of an inquest was being seen by Misrata officials as an attempt by the Benghazi-dominated NTC to claim prominence in post-Gaddafi affairs.

“Everybody knows who caught him and who fought the most during the past nine months,” an official said. “It was us. It was no one else.”

The identity of the man who allegedly pulled his 9mm pistol from his waistband and shot the wounded dictator in the left temple around 20 minutes after his capture is widely known in Misrata, as is the unit he belonged to, the Katiba Ghoran.

“They won’t come near us,” said the rebel who pulled Gaddafi from a drain last Thursday. “They won’t dare. Gaddafi was saying: ‘What’s this, what’s this?’ After nine months of blood, he was saying: ‘What’s this?’. What does he expect?”

There is little sympathy on the streets of Misrata for Gaddafi’s violent end, despite the troubling images and his rotting body being publicly displayed for the next four days.

Meanwhile, Gaddafi son and former heir apparent Saif al-Islam is thought to be in southern Libya approaching the Niger border, where Nigerien officials believe he is planning to join his brother Saadi and the former regime’s spy chief Abdullah Senussi in exile.

The NTC maintains that Saif al-Islam is interested in handing himself in to the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant against him and Senussi. The court in The Hague says it has had no contact from Libya.

The United Nations on Thursday said it would terminatethe Nato mandate enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya at the end of October, formally ending an eight-month blockade of the country’s skies and military operations on the ground. The NTC had earlier asked for operations to continue until the end of the year.

“This marks a really important milestone in the transition in Libya,” Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant, said. “It marks the way from the military phase towards the formation of an inclusive government, the full participation of all sectors of society, and for the Libyan people to choose their own future.”

The security council said it looked forward “to the swift establishment of an inclusive, representative transitional government of Libya” committed to democracy, good governance, rule of law, national reconciliation and respect for human rights.

It strongly urged Libyan authorities “to refrain from reprisals”, to take measures to prevent others from carrying out reprisals, and to protect the population, “including foreign nationals and African migrants”.

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This article titled “Libya rebels get taste of luxury at Gaddafi family resort” was written by Martin Chulov in Tripoli, for The Guardian on Tuesday 30th August 2011 17.24 UTC

Hazem Mehdi’s withered right shoulder is pink and raw and inflamed by sea salt. Yet as he emerges from the ocean outside the Gaddafi family’s beach house, he says the pain no longer bothers him.

“I don’t want to go home,” he says as he tinkers away with an outboard motor, propped up by a cushion from a sofa inside worth several thousand dollars. “I’ll go home for Eid [the Islamic festival to mark the end of Ramadan] tomorrow and then I’m coming back here.”

His two friends agree, oblivious to the cost of the cushion swilling in the sea beneath them and unaware of the value of almost everything in the opulent house up the hill.

The young rebels hail from the town of Zintan, and were among the first to make their way to Tripoli in the sweep that routed Gaddafi’s forces week ago. Since then, they have made themselves at home in the holiday homes of Gaddafi’s sons, a world that is clearly unfathomable to the scrawny, war-weary revolutionaries of the impoverished western mountains.

“I had one month and 20 days in hospital in Tunis after the tank shell hit,” says Hamza, his arm looking like a shark had mauled it. He flashes a smile that reveals gaping holes where most of his teeth should be. “They also went in the explosion,” he says, then asks: “Do you know anything about motors?”

All the cushions from the plush white Italian sofas inside the low-set hardwood home have been taken outside to be used as mattresses. A nearby brochure suggests that one of the sofas cost €3,000 – and there are four inside the home. There are packets of dates scattered all over them, along with empty bottles of Pepsi and 7Up. The box of Dom Pérignon rosé doesn’t have any takers, nor do the packets of pasta still in the kitchen near the maid’s quarters.

Whoever was living here – and the rebels suspect it was mostly the hedonistic Gaddafi sons – clearly had very expensive tastes; the bathroom sinks are made from sculpted European hardwood, the outdoor gym is state-of-the art and each of the fittings and finishings seem utterly befitting of a dictator’s son’s holiday pad.

But the western ways of the young Gaddafis is utterly lost on the rebels. They’ve taken the giant plasma TV and the toys from the pool – handy additions to any Libyan home – but they left behind the giant stereo system, the gym equipment, carpets and lounge suite, none of which they seem to have judged as useful or valuable.

In far greater demand were sensible things, like electrical power boards – $15 (£9.20) each at most shops – and dining table chairs, which they are using as beach chairs. Everything else practical seems also to have found a use – the two Zodiac boats sitting high on the foreshore and the speedboat in the bay.

Down the road in this walled-off compound in the western Tripoli enclave of Regatta, three far smaller homes – also Gaddafi retreats – jut from overgrown green lawns, and they too have been re-arranged by the rebels.

Hannibal Gaddafi, who fled to Algeria yesterday with his brother Mohammed, sister Aisha and mother, Safia, is thought to have spent time in one of these homes, a minimalist mish-mash of black and white – a gangster pad of leather and tiles, with sweeping Mediterranean views.

Mohammed seems to have used the more humble abode down the hill, which has more of a rustic-shack feel. Behind them all is a nine-foot wall covered in frescoes of desert scenes far removed from the azure of the coastline. The paintings include African elephants, sunrises and the ubiquitous shot of Muammar Gaddafi in a tent, presiding over the spoils of absolute power below.

“We haven’t damaged that painting yet,” says Hamza. “It’s a long way to walk up there and there’s lots to do here. We’ll be back after Eid, probably tomorrow afternoon. It’s all been good, but if we had to fight again to catch Muammar, sure we’d leave this behind too.”

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This article titled “Diplomatic standoff after Gaddafi’s family make a break for the border” was written by Julian Borger, Martin Chulov in Tripoli and Richard Norton-Taylor, for The Guardian on Tuesday 30th August 2011 20.20 UTC

New details have emerged of the route used by Muammar Gaddafi’s family to escape into neighbouring Algeria, triggering a diplomatic row over their fate.

According to officials in Libya’s National Transitional Council, Gaddafi’s second wife, daughter and two sons slipped out of the country along a road through central Libya not yet under NTC control.

The escape was made in a convoy of six armoured Mercedes limousines, once part of an extensive government fleet, which departed from the town of Bani Walid, the stronghold of Libya’s biggest tribe, the Warfallah, where significant remnants of the regime are holding out.

Guma al-Gamaty, the NTC’s UK co-ordinator, said the motorcade was carrying a total of 32 Gaddafi family members, including the ousted leader’s second wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and two sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, and reached the Algerian border on Saturday.

“They were kept waiting there for 10 to 12 hours while the Algerian government decided what to do. It was the Algerian president himself [Abdelaziz Bouteflika] who authorised their entry,” Gamaty said. “We will definitely be seeking their return, and we are co-operating with Interpol to secure their return.”

On Monday the Algerian foreign ministry confirmed that the Gaddafi entourage had crossed the border that morning, after denying a report to that effect on Sunday.

The crossing is said to have taken place at a remote border post at Tinkarine in the far south-east of Algeria, from where the family was taken to the town of Djanet. Aisha – a firebrand defender of the regime throughout the conflict – gave birth to a baby girl in Djanet’s hospital.

According to one report, the new baby was named Safiah after her grandmother. An Algerian newspaper, El Watan, said Algerian troops were ordered to seal off the southern border immediately after the crossing.

The escape took place while the NTC’s forces were focused on taking Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace and last coastal stronghold. The NTC leader, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, has given loyalist forces there until Saturday to surrender or face a military onslaught.

But the fact that a conspicuous convoy of six armoured limousines could drive unmolested down the length of the country, from Bani Walid to the pro-Gaddafi bastion at Sebha, on the edge of the Sahara desert, and then west to the Algerian border, indicates that there is a wide swath of the central Libyan hinterland outside the NTC’s grasp.

Gamaty said the NTC now thought that Gaddafi was probably in the Bani Walid area, where the situation was reported fluid but where pro-Gaddafi broadcasts were still being made on the local radio on Tuesday.

“He probably thought Bani Walid was a stronger place to be [than Sirte], as it belongs to the Warfallah, the largest tribe in Libya,” he said.

The manhunt for Gaddafi and his most powerful sons, Saif al-Islam, Mutassim and Khamis, is moving southwards to the Bani Walid-Sebha desert road. It was being assisted by western intelligence and special forces, including MI6 officers and the SAS. However, they are thin on the ground. Their role is to pick up signals from intercepting equipment not available to the Libyans and identify their significance with NTC help. Any attempt to detain Gaddafi and his remaining sons would be carried out by Libyans, British sources stressed.

The diplomatic row that has blown up in the wake of the family’s escape reflects the tensions caused by the western spread of the Arab spring, as the Algerian government tries to ensure it is not the next domino to fall. It has so far refused to recognise the provisional NTC government in Tripoli. For its part, the NTC is seeking to ensure Algeria does not become a base from which Gaddafi loyalists could mount a counter-revolution.

The NTC’s interior minister, Ahmed Darrat, reacted angrily to Algeria’s decision to grant members of the Gaddafi family asylum. “From a political point of view this situation is an enemy act,” he said.

Gamaty said the NTC is particularly anxious to extradite Hannibal and Mohammed Gaddafi for alleged large-scale embezzlement from the shipping and telecommunications industries.

An Algerian newspaper, Echorouk, has reported that the government had promised to hand over Muammar Gaddafi should he try to follow his family into Algeria. It quoted President Bouteflika as telling his cabinet that the deposed leader would be handed over to the international criminal court, where he faces charges of crimes against humanity for the brutality with which the first Libyan anti-government protests in February and March were suppressed.

But Algiers showed no readiness to hand back the family members taking refuge on its soil. The country’s ambassador to the UN, Mourad Benmehidi, told the BBC that in the desert regions there was a “holy rule of hospitality” by which his government had accepted the family on humanitarian grounds.

President Bouteflika was under heavy international pressure to relent and hand back at least some of the Gaddafi clan. “We would hope that there will be full co-operation from Algeria with any judicial process with regard to members of the Gaddafi family,” a European diplomat said.

It has been confirmed that damage caused by retreating regime loyalists to the water lines supplying Tripoli was worse than first thought. The main damage is at a pumping station 100 miles south of the capital, and fixing it could take at least a week. However, supply lines to Tunisia along the main coastal road were fully open and food and drinking water was entering the capital.

Key town, key tribe

The town of Bani Walid and the dominant local tribe, the Warfallah, now find themselves at the heart of the endgame in the struggle for Libya. The Warfallah are the country’s largest tribe and have a long history of ambiguous relations with Gaddafi.

They were sometimes described as a pillar of the regime, which claimed last month that thousands of Warfallah tribesmen were going to defend Tripoli. But the rescue did not come, a reflection perhaps of Warfallah ambivalence and a painful history.

While in power, Gaddafi responded brutally to any suggestion of disloyalty in Warfallah ranks. Bani Walid rose up in the mid-1990s after 55 officers from the area were arrested and accused of spying for the US. Some officers were executed, leaving a lasting legacy of bitterness towards Gaddafi.

That history suggests that Bani Walid may not prove an enduring haven for the ousted leader and his sons. The military situation in and around the town was described on Tuesday as mixed and fluid.

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This article titled “Lockerbie bomber: al-Megrahi saga about to end after 23 years” was written by David Smith and Luke Harding in Tripoli, and Severin Carrell, for The Guardian on Tuesday 30th August 2011 00.45 UTC

The gate of the luxury mansion remained firmly shut. It was clear Abdelnasser al-Megrahi had no intention of letting anyone pass. The world would have to accept it was time to let go of his dying brother. A grim saga that began 23 years ago and 2,000 miles away was all but at an end.

A short distance away lay the cancer-ridden body of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. It was evident on Monday that the campaign for his extradition from Libya was effectively over.

Calls for his re-arrest from US senators, lawyers and relatives of the Lockerbie bombing appeared redundant given Megrahi’s condition, apparently close to death, filmed at his mother’s house on Sunday and broadcast around the world.

The scoop by CNN prompted a media stampede to the mansion in an upmarket suburb of Tripoli on Monday morning. Two dozen foreign journalists gathered outside in the hope of their own tour of the three-storey, white-walled property decorated with marble cladding, intricate Islamic carvings and green tiled turrets, watched by six security cameras.

More than once a wrought iron door swung open, offering a glimpse of garden, but then closed behind Abdelnasser Megrahi, one of 11 residents. Speaking in Arabic, the 53-year-old former military man politely deflected all requests to see his brother, answered questions and even joked about English football.

Asked about Megrahi’s condition, he replied: “He is very sick. The coma came two or three months ago. Sometimes he speaks to his wife or mother, sometimes he is in a coma. His life is in danger now.”

He reiterated that his brother had been without proper medical attention for several days. “Medicines have been stolen and we couldn’t get them. He did have professional doctors from Italy and Germany and England, but now there is no one, only the doctor here. ”

He said the family had emailed a medical report to the Scottish government – with whom Megrahi is obliged to be in regular contact – on Sunday and requested that it send medicine.

Abdelnasser Megrahi also insisted that his brother was not guilty of the Lockerbie bombing. “From day one I believed he was innocent. The case was more political than a crime. There is no actual evidence. The world knows my brother is innocent.”

He said Megrahi receives messages of support from Scotland and around the world and criticised the US for continuing to demand his extradition. “He was released by the court. He did not escape. The Americans are being too cruel. They don’t even respect him as human being because of his condition.”

The American effort now seems increasingly futile. Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, said recent speculation about Megrahi’s disappearance had been “completely inaccurate”. Salmond told Sky News: “The only people who have any authority in this matter are the Scottish government, who have jurisdiction in this matter … and the new Libyan transitional council, who are the new duly constituted legal authority in Libya.

“We have never had and don’t have any intention of asking for the extradition of Mr Megrahi. It’s quite clear from the Libyan transitional council that following their own laws that they’d never any intention of agreeing to such extradition.”

Andrew Mitchell, the UK government’s secretary for international development, said the question was now moot: “It’s clear that many of these matters are now academic as his life is drawing to a close… It’s clear from reports today that he has not got much longer to live.”

The Obama administration said that the Libyan rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) had agreed to review Megrahi’s case once it has established a fully functioning government.

State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: “This is a guy with blood on his hands, the lives of innocents. Libya itself under Gaddafi made a hero of this guy. Presumably, a new, free, democratic Libya would have a different attitude towards a convicted terrorist. So it is in that spirit the NTC will look at this case.”

Calls for Megrahi to be either taken back into Scottish custody or extradited to the US for a fresh trial intensified last week, led by the US Republican Mitt Romney, after it emerged that Scottish officials charged with monitoring him in Libya after his early release from jail had been unable to make contact.

That raised substantial questions about whether Megrahi had breached the terms of his release on licence in August 2009. On Sunday night, East Renfrewshire council and the Scottish government issued a joint statement saying they had finally made contact with Megrahi’s family over the weekend.

However, East Renfrewshire officials have admitted to the Guardian that they have not yet spoken to Megrahi in person. Their last contact directly with him was on 8 August. They said they were still trying to talk to him, but confirmed that his dramatically worsening health was making that task far more difficult.

“We are still in the process of re-establishing contact,” a council spokesman said on Monday morning. “We have had some contact with the family and we will continue with that.” Direct contact is “part of the licence and that is what we are aiming for, if we can do that”, he said.

Romney and US relatives claim Megrahi was not properly punished for his alleged role in the Lockerbie atrocity, in which 270 crew, passengers and people on the ground were killed when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish town in December 1988.

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, said Megrahi should have received the death penalty.

“To me it will be a signal of how serious the rebel government is for good relations with the United States and the west if they hand over Megrahi for trial,” he said. “He killed 270 people. He served roughly 10 years in jail before he was released by British authorities. Do the math – that means he served roughly two weeks in prison for every person he killed. Two weeks per murder. That is not nearly enough.”

On Monday the NTC backed down from its previous statement that Megrahi would under no circumstances be extradited to Britain. The justice minister, Mohammed al-Alagi, had stated that Megrahi would not be handed back to the west, adding that he had been judged once and would not be judged again. On Monday, however, the minister struck a more ambiguous position, and said Libya was prepared to discuss the issue when other more urgent problems had been sorted out.

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This article titled “Gaddafi wanted dead or alive, says rebel leader” was written by Lizzy Davies and Richard Norton Taylor, for The Guardian on Wednesday 24th August 2011 20.02 UTC

The Libyan rebels have stepped up attempts to find Muammar Gaddafi by announcing that any members of the fleeing leader’s entourage who killed or captured him would be given an amnesty, a pardon and possibly a £1m reward.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), said anyone in the regime’s “inner circle” who obliged would be given an “amnesty or pardon for any crime he has committed”. A businessman in the eastern city of Benghazi, he added, had put up 2m Libyan dinars (£1m) for anyone who managed to capture Gaddafi.

The announcement marked a change in tone from Jalil, who on Monday called on Libyans to “not take justice into their own hands” and said he hoped the dictator would be captured alive. Guma El-Gamaty, the UK co-ordinator of the NTC, said he hoped the reward would prove a “huge incentive” to those close to Gaddafi, such as his bodyguards and aides, to switch sides.

US, British, and other Nato countries are using every intelligence resource and electronic tracking device at their disposal to find Gaddafi. UK defence officials said that, while the fighting was not over, it was a question of when – and not if – the 69-year-old leader would be discovered.

But the search has been fraught with difficulty. Early on Wednesday, Gaddafi issued a rambling message of defiance, broadcast on Syrian television, just hours after rebel forces stormed his compound in Tripoli, finding plenty of Gaddafi-era memorabilia but no Gaddafi. He had left the capital “discreetly”, he said, and his retreat had been “tactical”.

Many believe he is still in Libya. Mohammed Ganbawa, an opposition activist in Tripoli, said the rebels believed Gaddafi had moved around between the homes of his sons, a hospital and even the Rixos hotel. “There are so many rat holes in Tripoli. We are searching for him in the holes,” Colonel Ahmad Bani, a rebel military spokesman, told Associate Press.

Julian Lindley-French, a strategist and associate fellow at the London-based thinktank Chatham House, said Gaddafi had most likely sought refuge in either Sirte, his hometown, or Sabha, a city in the southern desert region which could prove his last stronghold and which has seen vicious fighting since the fall of Tripoli.

“There are real similarities here with Saddam [Hussein]: he will go where he feels that he’s not going to be betrayed and given [Gaddafi's] tendency to move back towards his own clan in the last year or so, my guess is that it has to be one of those two places,” said Lindley-French.

Wherever he is, Gaddafi is not the only one eluding capture. Even as the rebel army proclaimed it had taken 95% of Libya and had hoisted the rebel flag atop the Bab al-Aziziya compound, key loyalist figures were still at large. They are remnants of a regime that did away with traditional government structures and rooted itself instead in the Gaddafi family and its tribal allies, most of whom knew they would have “no future” in the new era, said Lindley-French.

“[Gaddafi] is now falling back on his clan and tribal affiliations. This is a guy who destroyed all vestiges of state structures during his 42 years in power and actually exaggerated the tribal structure of Libya to maintain his grace and favour approach to government, and for that reason the only people he can really trust are what I call the ‘irreconcilables’,” he said.

Those most central to the crumbling court of Gaddafi are his sons – in particular Saif al-Islam, the heir presumptive who is still at large after a dramatic reappearance in Tripoli on Monday night. The whereabouts of his two military commander brothers, Khamis and Muatassim Gaddafi, are unknown, while the telecommunications chief sibling, Mohammad, escaped from house arrest on Monday.

On Wednesday night, comments from a woman claiming to be their sister Aisha Gaddafi were broadcast on the loyalist al-Orouba TV channel. “I tell the Libyan people to stand hand-in-hand against Nato,” she said. “I tell the Libyan people not to fear the armed forces. The leader is in the right.”

Despite mass defections in Tripoli and around the world, the dictator was also still being supported by a handful of others outside his immediate family, most vocally by Moussa Ibrahim, the smooth-talking information minister. On Wednesday Ibrahim was not giving speeches from a podium in the Rixos hotel but down a crackling phone line to Syrian TV, insisting the regime could continue fighting for the capital “not only for months but for years”.

He added: “Tripoli is not all of Libya. We still have tens of cities under our control. All of them are liberated cities and are all still fighting. Our main mission now is to free Tripoli, then free the whole of the country.”

Abdullah al-Senussi, Gaddafi’s longtime right-hand man and brother-in-law, also appeared to have evaded capture, although he has not been seen in public since speaking to journalists at the Rixos on Sunday, when he stood up for the regime as vehemently as ever. Along with Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam, he is wanted by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity.

Other pro-regime figures have not been so good at hiding. Rebels said they have Hala Misrati, a presenter on state television who appeared on screen at the weekend brandishing a pistol and vowing to protect the station. Video footage was posted on the internet on Wednesday purporting to show him remonstrating with a captor and shouting at the camera. Its authenticity could not be confirmed.

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