Gaddafi bastion waits after talks fail

Anti-Gaddafi fighters were playing a waiting game Monday after an official said negotiations for the surrender of the town of Bani Walid had failed and would not resume.

China meanwhile denied a Canadian press report that it had offered huge stockpiles of arms to the ousted strongman during the final months of his regime and held secret talks on shipping them through Algeria and South Africa.

"I am leaving the military commander to resolve the problem," Abdullah Kenshil, the chief negotiator for Libya's new government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), said late Sunday.

The town southeast of Tripoli is one of the last strongholds of pro-Kadhafi fighters where at least one of the ousted despot's sons is reported to be hiding.

"We are waiting for orders to start the attack or to extend the deadline until Saturday," Abdulrazzak Naduri, second in command in the military council in Tarhuna, north of Bani Walid, told AFP.

"Things are quiet now. There are no clashes and there are parties who are trying to keep the talks going.

"We don't want any bloodshed and we hope to hear good news later during the day."

Kenshil said Sunday the supporters of toppled strongman Gaddafi inside the town had wanted to come out with their weapons but were rebuffed.

"They demanded that the revolutionaries enter Bani Walid without their weapons" to negotiate, he added, charging that it was a pretext for an ambush.

Kenshil said Gaddafi himself, his sons and much of his family had been in Bani Walid, without specifying when. Some had left but two of Gaddafi's sons, Saadi and Mutassim, were still believed to be there.
Negotiations began several days ago through tribal intermediaries with the hope of taking Bani Walid without bloodshed.

Saadi Gaddafi said the talks' failure was the fault of his high-profile brother Seif Al-Islam, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court along with their father for suspected crimes against humanity during the uprising.

Saadi told CNN in a telephone interview that an "aggressive" speech broadcast by his brother a few days ago had led to the breakdown of the negotiations.

Asked about his location, Saadi said he was "a little bit outside" Bani Walid but had been moving around, CNN reported late on Sunday. He said he had not seen his father or brother for two months.
 
Saadi said he is "neutral" but remains "ready to help negotiate a ceasefire," CNN added.

"Saadi is looking after number one which is a good sign. It means cracks are appearing," Jalal Al-Gallal, an NTC spokesman, told AFP.

The anti-Gaddafi fighters had set a deadline of 0800 GMT Sunday for Bani Walid's surrender, although the NTC last week announced an overall truce until September 10 in a bid to negotiate the surrender of the remaining strongholds of Gaddafi forces.

Those include a strip of Mediterranean coast around his hometown of Sirte and the southern oases of Sabha and Al-Jufra as well as Bani Walid.

Nato said on Monday that its aircraft had hit 13 targets in and around Sirte, a command and control node near Sabha and six targets in Hun in the Al-Jufra oasis.

Beijing meanwhile denied reports by Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper that it had offered huge stockpiles of arms to Gaddafi during the final months of his regime in breach of UN sanctions.

The foreign ministry admitted that Libyan officials had visited China in July for talks with "interested companies" but insisted that no contracts had been signed or exports made.

Meanwhile, a senior commander in the new regime demanded an apology from Britain and the United States after seized documents suggested both countries were complicit in a plan that led to his detention and torture.

Files unearthed from Gaddafi's intelligence archives documented the capture by the CIA of Abdelhakim Belhaj in Bangkok in 2004 and his forcible repatriation to Libya, where he had fought the old regime.
 

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