TRIPOLI, Libya—Libya’s acting prime minister said on Wednesday ousted leader Muammar Qaddafi is believed to be recruiting fighters from other African countries and preparing for a possible insurgency, hoping to destabilize Libya’s new regime.
The comments by Mahmoud Jibril reflected fears that Qaddafi will be able to use friendly relations with neighboring countries cultivated during his more than four decades in power to help him launch a bid to return to power.
“Reports have shown that 68 vehicles with at least eight fighters each crossed the Libyan borders to Mali and Qaddafi is hiding in the southern desert,” Jibril told reporters.
He said Qaddafi had made a deal with the Hamada tribe, which roams the borders between Chad, Sudan and Libya, to provide 12,000 fighters “to enter Libya and start the fight.”
Suggesting that the US also was concerned about the possibility, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said during a visit to Tripoli on Tuesday that she hoped Qaddafi would be captured or killed.
Qaddafi loyalists have already put up fierce resistance in several areas, preventing Libya’s new leaders from declaring full victory nearly two months after revolutionary forces seized Tripoli and have seized many other parts of the oil-rich North African nation.
Revolutionary fighters gained control of one stronghold, Bani Walid, this week. In the other loyalist bastion of Sirte, anti-Qaddafi commanders said they have squeezed Qaddafi’s forces into a residential area of about 700 square meters but were still coming under heavy fire from surrounding buildings. Deputy Defense Minister Fawzi Abu Katif told The Associated Press that authorities still believe Qaddafi’s son Muatassim is among the ex-regime figures holed up in the diminishing area. Libyan revolutionary forces fought building by building against the final pocket of resistance in Qaddafi’s hometown—the last major city in Libya to have been under the control of forces loyal to the fugitive leader.
But while Libya’s transitional leadership worked to consolidate control over the entire country, the country’s acting prime minister warned in a newspaper interview that Qaddafi can still cause trouble from his hiding place.
