Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
TRIPOLI, Libya -- As the uprising grew against Moammar Gadhafi, secret reports from his vaunted intelligence service flowed back to Tripoli. Some were mundane how agents erased anti-regime graffiti. Others were more deadly a spy volunteered to poison rebel leaders' food and drink.
The reports grew more desperate as the Libyan rebellion veered into civil war: Military leaders in the western mountains were disregarding orders; troops in the city of Misrata ran out of ammunition, turning the situation into "every man for himself."
These reports and hundreds of other intelligence documents seen by The Associated Press in Tripoli trace how the tide shifted in the six-month uprising that ended Gadhafi's 42-year reign. They show how an authoritarian regime using all its means failed to quash an armed rebellion largely fueled by hatred of its tools of control.
The Arab-language documents read and photographed by an AP reporter during a visit to Tripoli's intelligence headquarters contain a mixture of military data and regime propaganda. Amid reports on rebels' movements, phone tap records and dispatches from Gadhafi's domestic agents are memos claiming that al-Qaida was behind the rebellion and that 4,000 U.S. troops were about to invade from Egypt.
The uprising began in mid-February when security forces used deadly fire to suppress anti-government protests in the eastern city of Benghazi. The opposition responded to the fierce crackdown by taking up arms, quickly seizing a large swath of eastern Libya and establishing a temporary administration.
The conflict changed to civil war as rebel forces grew, expelling government forces from of the western city of Misrata and seizing much of the western Nafusa mountain range. It was from there that they pushed to the coast, then stormed into the capital on Aug. 21, effectively ending Gadhafi's rule.
Throughout the war, Gadhafi's security offices in Tripoli directed efforts to quash the rebellion. Among those leading the charge was intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi, whose well-fortified compound received reports from around the country.
Early on, his office struggled to understand the situation in Benghazi, birthplace of the rebels' National Transitional Council.
One of the handwritten intelligence reports, written by a man who said he had "infiltrated" the rebel council, gave the names of five members, their background and the hotels they frequented. None of the material would be unfamiliar to a Benghazi resident.
The note concluded with an offer to kill the council members.
"I can carry out any suicide operation I'm given to assassinate members of the council or poison their food and water," it read.
The author is not identified. No council members have been killed by Gadhafi's regime.
Another report parroted stories spread by Libyan state media that the rebels were linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist group, that they lacked local support, and that they carried Viagra and condoms into battle so they could rape women.
The regime took these claims to the international community, especially after NATO began bombing Libyan military targets under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians.
One document discovered was a draft letter from Gadhafi to President Barack Obama.
"It is necessary to support Libya to get rid of the armed men of al-Qaida before all of north Africa falls into the hands of bin Laden," it said. It is unclear if the letter was ever sent.
The documents refer to the rebels as "insurgents," "saboteurs" "armed gangs" and "rats."
Reports from across Libya detail the government's actions to erase opposition symbols, such as replacing rebel flags with the green banners of the Gadhafi regime or painting over rebel graffiti.
Phone taps were common and sometimes detailed rebel capabilities and movements. One paper cited 30 calls intercepted in one week. Other records contained GPS coordinates of the callers.
The reports also showed how the regime was quick to believe its own disinformation. In one conversation log, an Egyptian man said 4,000 U.S. troops were in Cairo, waiting to enter Libya by land.
"Four thousand, some of them commandos," the Egyptian said. "It's unbelievable."
There were signs of paranoia. In one log, a man with a Gulf Arab accent advised that Gadhafi, his sons and associates "use their cellphone for no more than three minutes," out of fear that they, too, were being intercepted.
In April and May, bleak reports flowed back from the front lines. A report marked "secret" on the situation in the Nafusa mountains laid out a new military strategy while blasting commanders for failing to follow instructions.
TRIPOLI, Libya Libyan fighters have surrounded ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and it is only a matter of time until he is captured or killed, a spokesman for Tripoli's new military council said Wednesday.
The council's deputy defense minister said, however, that Libya's former rebels had no idea where Gadhafi was, and they were focusing on taking control of territory instead of tracking down the former leader.
Figures in Libya's new government have given a series of conflicting statements about Gadhafi's presumed whereabouts since the fall of the capital last month and many reports about his location have proven untrue.
Anis Sharif told The Associated Press that Gadhafi was still in Libya and had been tracked using advanced technology and human intelligence. Rebel forces have taken up positions on all sides of Gadhafi's presumed location, with none more than 40 miles (60 kilometers) away, he said, without providing details.
"He can't get out," said Sharif, who added the former rebels are preparing to either detain him or kill him. "We are just playing games with him," Sharif said.
NATO said that it had made a number of airstrikes around Sirte Gadhafi's hometown on Tuesday, hitting six tanks, six armored fighting vehicles and an ammunition storage facility, among other targets. They also targeted the Gadhafi loyalist strongholds of Hun, Sabha and Waddan.
Deputy Defense Minister Mohammad Tanaz told the AP that the former rebels don't know where Gadhafi is, and the fugitive could still be hiding in tunnels under Tripoli.
He said the manhunt was not a focus for his men.
"Our priority is to liberate all of Libya," he said.
Locating Gadhafi would help seal the new rulers' hold on the country. Convoys of Gadhafi loyalists, including his security chief, fled across the Sahara into Niger this week in a move that Libya's former rebels hoped could help lead to the surrender of his last strongholds.
In Niger's capital, Niamey, Massoudou Hassoumi, a spokesman for the president, said Gadhafi's security chief had crossed the desert into Niger on Monday.
Mansour Dao, the former commander of Libya's Revolutionary Guards who is a cousin of Gadhafi as well as a member of his inner circle, is the only senior Libyan figure to have crossed into Niger, said Hassoumi.
Hassoumi said the group of nine people also included several pro-Gadhafi businessmen, as well as Agaly ag Alambo, a Tuareg rebel leader from Niger who led a failed uprising in the country's north before crossing into Libya, where he was believed to be fighting for Gadhafi.
Since Tripoli's fall last month to Libyan rebels, there has been a movement of Gadhafi loyalists across the porous desert border that separates Libya from Niger. They include Tuareg fighters who are nationals of Niger and next-door neighbor Mali who fought on Gadhafi's behalf in the recent civil war.
Niger's foreign minister told Algeria's state news agency that several Libyan convoys had entered his country, but that none carried Gadhafi.
Algeria, which like Niger shares a border with Libya confirmed last week that the ousted leader's wife, his daughter, two of his sons, and several grandchildren had crossed into Algeria.
The West African nation of Burkina Faso, which borders Niger, offered Gadhafi asylum last month. On Tuesday, Burkina Faso distanced itself from Gadhafi, indicating he would be arrested if he went there.
TRIPOLI, Libya Khalid Saad worked for years as a loyal cog in Col. Muammar el-Qaddafis propaganda machine, arranging transportation to ferry foreign journalists to staged rallies, ensuring that they never left their hotels without official escorts and raising his own voice to cheer the Libyan leader.
The day that rebels took Tripoli, Mr. Saad immediately switched sides.
Now he works for the rebels provisional government, coordinating transportation for its officials and insisting that his previous support for Colonel Qaddafi was just business. My uncle and my son were soldiers for the revolution, he said in an interview. Everyone will be happy now. Everything is changed now. Everyone is free.
As the curtain falls on Colonel Qaddafis Tripoli, many of its supporting actors are rushing to pick up new roles with the rebels, the very same people they were obliged not long ago to refer to as the rats. Many Libyans say the ease with which former Qaddafi supporters have switched sides is a testament to the pervasive cynicism of the Qaddafi era, when dissent meant jail or death, job opportunities depended on political connections, and almost everyone learned to wear two faces to survive within the system.
That cynicism may now prove to be Tripolis saving grace. After months of a brutal crackdown and a bitter civil war, in a country with little history of unity where autonomous brigades of fighters still roam the capital, citizens have been unexpectedly willing to set aside their grievances against functionaries of the Qaddafi government. Everyone knows that almost everyone who stayed out of jail during four decades of Colonel Qaddafis rule was to some extent complicit.
Indeed, the thin veneer of support helps explain why the loyalist forces who had terrorized the city crumbled so swiftly when it became clear that the end was near, averting the expected blood bath. Though loyalists still hold out in pockets around the country, and there have been episodes of retaliatory violence and looting, Tripoli, the capital, changed hands and returned to peace in a matter of days.
The way the system worked, everyone had to be part of it all of us, said Adel Sennosi, a former official of Colonel Qaddafis Foreign Ministry who is now working for the provisional governments Foreign Ministry. If we say, Get rid of whoever was part of the system, we would have to get rid of the whole population, he said.
Now, he said, many of those former loyalists are more revolutionary than anyone else!
Rebel officials have said for months that they would try to avoid the mistakes made in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, when United States officials disbanded the military and barred all former members of the ruling Baath Party many of Iraqs most experienced professionals from working in any public-sector job.
Instead, the Libyan rebels said, they will seek retribution, in a courtroom, against only the most notorious Qaddafi government officials, those who oversaw torture or killings, egregiously enriched themselves or, in the case of the captured television host Hala Misrati, led the propaganda war on state television.
The rebel leaders pledged to welcome back most of the bureaucrats and other midlevel functionaries, and so far, former senior officials of Colonel Qaddafis government say the provisional government appears to be keeping its word. To underscore that point, the rebel leadership held a ceremony on Tuesday to hand control of a major natural gas plant to the same manager who was responsible for its security under Colonel Qaddafi.
There are very few instances of revenge, said Abdulmajeed el-Dursi, the former chief of the Qaddafi-era foreign media operation, sipping coffee at a cafe full of rebels and talking about opening a media services company.
WISHTATA, Libya Libyan fighters launched a two-pronged assault Friday on one of the last towns to resist the country's new rulers, clashing with Moammar Gadhafi's supporters inside Bani Walid as a week-long standoff dissolved into street-to-street battles, the former rebels said.
The former rebels had set a Saturday deadline for Bani Walid to surrender or face an offensive but decided to attack Friday evening after Gadhafi forces fired volleys of rockets at the fighters' positions around the town.
Abdullah Kenshil, the former rebels' chief negotiatior, said the former rebels were fighting gunmen positioned in houses in the town and the hills that overlooked it.
Anti-Gadhafi forces were moving in from the east and south, and the fighters deepest inside Bani Walid were clashing with Gadhafi's men about a mile (2 kilometers) from the center of the town, Kenshil said.
Before the reported Friday evening assault, Gadhafi holdouts in Bani Walid fired mortars and rockets toward the fighters' position in a desert dotted with green shrubs and white rocks, killing at least one and wounding several. Loud explosions were heard about six miles (10 kilometers) from the front line, followed by plumes of black smoke in the already hazy air. NATO planes circled above.
NATO says it is acting under a U.N. mandate to guarantee the safety of Libya's civilian population. Its bombing campaign has been crucial to the advance of Gadhafi's military opponents.
Daw Salaheen, the chief commander for the anti-Gadhafi forces' operation at Bani Walid, said his fighters responded with their own rocket fire, and advanced on the town.
"They are inside the city. They are fighting with snipers," Kenshil said. "They forced this on us and it was in self-defense."
He said three Gadhafi loyalists had been wounded and three killed, while the former rebels had one dead and four wounded. He said the former rebels had taken seven prisoners.
Kenshil said the former rebels believed that there were about 600 Gadhafi supporters in and around Bani Walid.
"Snipers are scattered over the hills and the rebels want to chase them," he said. "There is hand-to-hand combat. The population is afraid so we have to go and protect civilians."
Interpol said it had issued its top most-wanted alert for the arrest of Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and the country's ex-chief of military intelligence. The three are sought by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity, and there have been reports Seif al-Islam is in Bani Walid.
The elder Gadhafi hasn't been seen in public for months and went underground after anti-regime fighters swept into Tripoli on Aug. 21. As the National Transitional Council tries to establish its authority in Libya, speculation about Gadhafi's whereabouts has centered on his Mediterranean hometown of Sirte, southern Sabha, and Bani Walid, 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli. Gadhafi loyalists in all three towns have been given until Saturday to surrender, or face an all-out battle.
Officials in the National Transitional Council which is the closest thing to a government Libya has now but still has only shaky authority had set a Saturday deadline for the city of 100,000 to surrender. They have hoped to negotiate a peaceful entry into the city, but talks with local leaders have gone nowhere.
Before the former rebels announced their offensive, the dozens of fighters deployed at checkpoints outside the city were clearly impatient to move in.
Osama al-Fassi helped unload ammunition from the back of a large truck with a sense of urgency. The bearded man in sand-colored fatigues said that with Gadhafi loyalists rocketing the front line, he didn't attach much importance to the political leaders' plans on when to move.
"We in the field decide when we enter the city with force," he said as he loaded wooden boxes of Russian manufactured ammunition into a pick up truck that was headed to the front. The truck was quickly filled with RPGs still in plastic wrapping, small mortar rockets, and metal boxes of ammunition.
BRUSSELS (AP) -- Rebels fighting to topple Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi committed unlawful killings and torture, Amnesty International said in a report released on Tuesday.
The 100-plus page report, based on three months of investigation in Libya, draws no equivalency between the crimes of Gadhafi loyalists and those of the former rebels, who now hold power in Tripoli: The Gadhafi forces' crimes were greater, the list of them is longer, and they may have amounted to crimes against humanity, the report said.
But it said the crimes of the rebels were not insignificant.
"Members and supporters of the opposition, loosely structured under the leadership of the National Transitional Council (NTC) ... have also committed human rights abuses, in some cases amounting to war crimes, albeit on a smaller scale," the Amnesty report said.
It said opposition supporters "unlawfully killed" more than a dozen Gadhafi loyalists and security officials between April and early July. And just after the rebels took control of eastern Libya, the report said, angry groups of rebel supporters "shot, hanged and otherwise killed through lynching" dozens of captured soldiers and suspected mercenaries, with impunity.
Mohammed al-Alagi, justice minister for Libya's transitional authorities, said that describing the rebels' actions as war crimes is wrong.
"They are not the military, they are only ordinary people," al-Alagi said. While he aknowledged that rebels have made mistakes, he said they cannot be described as "war crimes at all."
In addition, the report said both sides stirred up racism and xenophobia, causing sub-Saharan Africans to be increasingly attacked, robbed and abused by ordinary Libyans.
"In February, there was this rumor about Gadhafi using black people as mercenaries; that's wrong," Nicolas Beger, director of the Amnesty International European Institutions office, told Associated Press Television News in Brussels on Monday. "But the NTC has not done a lot to curb that rumor and now there is a lot of retaliation against sub-Saharan Africans. Whether they were or they weren't involved with the Gadhafi forces, they are at real risk of being taken from their work or their homes or the street to be tortured or killed."
Beger also said abuses were continuing under the new government.
"We have even spoken to guards who admit that they use force," he said. "They say, 'Yeah we use force in order to get confessions, in order to force people to hand in their weapons.' So this really needs to be controlled. This is one of the priorities that the new authorities have to really get a clear act on."
The report also listed an extensive list of crimes allegedly committed by Gadhafi's regime. The loyalists killed and injured scores of unarmed protesters, made critics disappear, used illegal cluster bombs, launched artillery, mortar and rocket attacks against residential areas, and, without any legal proceedings, executed captives, the report said.
Libya: Rebels May Be Guilty Of War Crimes, Amnesty
BRUSSELS (AP) -- Rebels fighting to topple Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi committed unlawful killings and torture, Amnesty International said in a report released on Tuesday.
The 100-plus page report, based on three months of investigation in Libya, draws no equivalency between the crimes of Gadhafi loyalists and those of the former rebels, who now hold power in Tripoli: The Gadhafi forces' crimes were greater, the list of them is longer, and they may have amounted to crimes against humanity, the report said.
But it said the crimes of the rebels were not insignificant.
"Members and supporters of the opposition, loosely structured under the leadership of the National Transitional Council (NTC) ... have also committed human rights abuses, in some cases amounting to war crimes, albeit on a smaller scale," the Amnesty report said.
It said opposition supporters "unlawfully killed" more than a dozen Gadhafi loyalists and security officials between April and early July. And just after the rebels took control of eastern Libya, the report said, angry groups of rebel supporters "shot, hanged and otherwise killed through lynching" dozens of captured soldiers and suspected mercenaries, with impunity.
Mohammed al-Alagi, justice minister for Libya's transitional authorities, said that describing the rebels' actions as war crimes is wrong.
"They are not the military, they are only ordinary people," al-Alagi said. While he aknowledged that rebels have made mistakes, he said they cannot be described as "war crimes at all."
In addition, the report said both sides stirred up racism and xenophobia, causing sub-Saharan Africans to be increasingly attacked, robbed and abused by ordinary Libyans.
"In February, there was this rumor about Gadhafi using black people as mercenaries; that's wrong," Nicolas Beger, director of the Amnesty International European Institutions office, told Associated Press Television News in Brussels on Monday. "But the NTC has not done a lot to curb that rumor and now there is a lot of retaliation against sub-Saharan Africans. Whether they were or they weren't involved with the Gadhafi forces, they are at real risk of being taken from their work or their homes or the street to be tortured or killed."
Beger also said abuses were continuing under the new government.
"We have even spoken to guards who admit that they use force," he said. "They say, 'Yeah we use force in order to get confessions, in order to force people to hand in their weapons.' So this really needs to be controlled. This is one of the priorities that the new authorities have to really get a clear act on."
The report also listed an extensive list of crimes allegedly committed by Gadhafi's regime. The loyalists killed and injured scores of unarmed protesters, made critics disappear, used illegal cluster bombs, launched artillery, mortar and rocket attacks against residential areas, and, without any legal proceedings, executed captives, the report said.
Libya: Rebels May Be Guilty Of War Crimes, Amnesty
Most of us knew the vicious amongst Libyan rebels are recruits of Western imperialists with a long history of recruiting the miserable of nations and then using them to destablize nations. Whenever I think of the absurd attack on Libya and International Freedom Fighter, Muammar Gddafi, I am always consoled by the fact that our imperialists are in for the greatest surprise of their miserable lives.
Libya: Rebels May Be Guilty Of War Crimes, Amnesty
BRUSSELS (AP) -- Rebels fighting to topple Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi committed unlawful killings and torture, Amnesty International said in a report released on Tuesday.
The 100-plus page report, based on three months of investigation in Libya, draws no equivalency between the crimes of Gadhafi loyalists and those of the former rebels, who now hold power in Tripoli: The Gadhafi forces' crimes were greater, the list of them is longer, and they may have amounted to crimes against humanity, the report said.
But it said the crimes of the rebels were not insignificant.
"Members and supporters of the opposition, loosely structured under the leadership of the National Transitional Council (NTC) ... have also committed human rights abuses, in some cases amounting to war crimes, albeit on a smaller scale," the Amnesty report said.
It said opposition supporters "unlawfully killed" more than a dozen Gadhafi loyalists and security officials between April and early July. And just after the rebels took control of eastern Libya, the report said, angry groups of rebel supporters "shot, hanged and otherwise killed through lynching" dozens of captured soldiers and suspected mercenaries, with impunity.
Mohammed al-Alagi, justice minister for Libya's transitional authorities, said that describing the rebels' actions as war crimes is wrong.
"They are not the military, they are only ordinary people," al-Alagi said. While he aknowledged that rebels have made mistakes, he said they cannot be described as "war crimes at all."
In addition, the report said both sides stirred up racism and xenophobia, causing sub-Saharan Africans to be increasingly attacked, robbed and abused by ordinary Libyans.
"In February, there was this rumor about Gadhafi using black people as mercenaries; that's wrong," Nicolas Beger, director of the Amnesty International European Institutions office, told Associated Press Television News in Brussels on Monday. "But the NTC has not done a lot to curb that rumor and now there is a lot of retaliation against sub-Saharan Africans. Whether they were or they weren't involved with the Gadhafi forces, they are at real risk of being taken from their work or their homes or the street to be tortured or killed."
Beger also said abuses were continuing under the new government.
"We have even spoken to guards who admit that they use force," he said. "They say, 'Yeah we use force in order to get confessions, in order to force people to hand in their weapons.' So this really needs to be controlled. This is one of the priorities that the new authorities have to really get a clear act on."
The report also listed an extensive list of crimes allegedly committed by Gadhafi's regime. The loyalists killed and injured scores of unarmed protesters, made critics disappear, used illegal cluster bombs, launched artillery, mortar and rocket attacks against residential areas, and, without any legal proceedings, executed captives, the report said.
Libya: Rebels May Be Guilty Of War Crimes, Amnesty
Most of us knew the vicious amongst Libyan rebels are recruits of Western imperialists with a long history of recruiting the miserable of nations and then using them to destablize nations. Whenever I think of the absurd attack on Libya and International Freedom Fighter, Muammar Gddafi, I am always consoled by the fact that our imperialists are in for the greatest surprise of their miserable lives.
GENEVA -- The International Committee of the Red Cross says at least 13 mass graves have been found in Libya over the past three weeks.
The Geneva-based Red Cross says its staff assisted in the recovery of 125 bodies found at 12 different sites in and around Tripoli.
It says remains of 34 people were also recovered from a site in the Nafusa mountain village of Galaa in western Libya.
ICRC spokesman Steven Anderson said Wednesday that more mass graves are being found every week.
The aid group says it is helping ensure the remains are properly recovered so that the identities of the dead can be established and relatives informed.
It said it is not involved in collecting evidence that could be used in war crimes or other legal proceedings.
Human Rights Watch reports that it is likely the men were executed in early June before pro-Gaddafi forces fled the area. Bullet casings present at the site suggest that the men were shot with automatic gunfire before being buried.
WADI AL-HAMMAR, Libya The revolution's quest to unite Libya under its control has a formidable challenge standing in the way: A swath of territory where disciplined loyalists fighters stage precision attacks and withering shelling barrages to defend land that includes Moammar Gadhafi's hometown.
It's far too early to predict whether the pro-Gadhafi heartland wedged between the former rebel hub of Benghazi and the capital Tripoli could turn into a seat of resistance such as insurgent zones in Iraq or Afghanistan. But, for the moment, it carries the same interplay of firepower and zealotry, fueling attacks that have killed at least 80 anti-Gadhafi forces in recent days.
"Its cities are packed with weapons, missiles and ammunition depots," said Fadl-Allah Haroun, a commander of revolutionary units near Benghazi. "It is an unbelievable force."
Currently, former rebel fighters are assembling for an expected push into the well-defended loyalist stronghold of Bani Walid, on the western end of the 240-mile (400-kilometer) band of pro-Gadhafi territory. It includes the hunted leader's Mediterranean birthplace Sirte and stretches to near the oil port of Ras Lanouf which came under back-to-back attacks by loyalist forces on Monday that killed 15 guards.
The stiff resistance in Bani Walid, including by highly trained snipers, offers a glimpse of possibly much bigger fights ahead to try to dislodge Sirte and other places from loyalist hands.
Cities and towns throughout the Gadhafi belt are apparently awash with arms with larger weapons such as 152mm Howitzer canons now well hidden against NATO airstrikes that continue in the area, revolutionary commanders told The Associated Press. The pro-Gadhafi commandos also stage hit-and-run strikes from the desert to the south, suggesting that Libya's vast hinterlands and distant loyalist hubs such as Sabha could become rallying points for resistance fighters.
Outside Wadi Al-Hammar, a village on the coastal road about 55 miles (90 kilometers) east of Sirte, anti-Gadhafi forces have found armored vehicles hidden under tents and other weapons stashed in encampments of nomadic Bedouin tribesmen.
Al-Tayab Said, a revolutionary commander from Sabha, said loyalist fighters are trying to regroup and are using desert supply lines from Algeria.
"They are moving freely across the border," he said. "They get constant supply."
Other anti-Gadhafi leaders have noted the superior fighting tactics of the highly trained loyalists units compared with the civilian-heavy revolutionary brigades.
A battlefield report about a Mitsubishi pickup is now making the rounds as a cautionary tale.
On Saturday, pro-Gadhafi forces left the vehicle loaded with ammunition in a conspicuous hilltop in Wadi Al-Hammar. Revolutionary fighters rushed to claim the prize, but were picked off by hidden marksmen. At least 35 deaths were counted before the group managed to retreat to safety.
Dr. Ahmed Alsharif, who heads a field hospital in Nawfaliyah, said at least 80 anti-Gadhafi fighters have been killed since Saturday in or around the loyalist territory.
TRIPOLI, Libya In the emerging post-Qaddafi Libya, the most influential politician may well be Ali Sallabi, who has no formal title but commands broad respect as an Islamic scholar and populist orator who was instrumental in leading the mass uprising.
The most powerful military leader is now Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former leader of a hard-line group once believed to be aligned with Al Qaeda.
The growing influence of Islamists in Libya raises hard questions about the ultimate character of the government and society that will rise in place of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafis autocracy. The United States and Libyas new leaders say the Islamists, a well-organized group in a mostly moderate country, are sending signals that they are dedicated to democratic pluralism. They say there is no reason to doubt the Islamists sincerity.
But as in Egypt and Tunisia, the latest upheaval of the Arab Spring deposed a dictator who had suppressed hard-core Islamists, and there are some worrisome signs about what kind of government will follow. It is far from clear where Libya will end up on a spectrum of possibilities that range from the Turkish model of democratic pluralism to the muddle of Egypt to, in the worst case, the theocracy of Shiite Iran or Sunni models like the Taliban or even Al Qaeda.
Islamist militias in Libya receive weapons and financing directly from foreign benefactors like Qatar; a Muslim Brotherhood figure, Abel al-Rajazk Abu Hajar, leads the Tripoli Municipal Governing Council, where Islamists are reportedly in the majority; in eastern Libya, there has been no resolution of the assassination in July of the leader of the rebel military, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, suspected by some to be the work of Islamists.
Mr. Belhaj has become so much an insider lately that he is seeking to unseat Mahmoud Jibril, the American-trained economist who is the nominal prime minister of the interim government, after Mr. Jibril obliquely criticized the Islamists.
For an uprising that presented a liberal, Westernized face to the world, the growing sway of Islamists activists with fundamentalist Islamic views, who want a society governed by Islamic principles is being followed closely by the United States and its NATO allies.
I think its something that everybody is watching, said Jeffrey D. Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, visiting here on Wednesday. First of all the Libyan people themselves are talking about this. The highest-ranking American official to visit Libya since Colonel Qaddafis fall, Mr. Feltman was optimistic that Libya would take a moderate path.
Based on our discussions with Libyans so far, he said, we arent concerned that one group is going to be able to dominate the aftermath of what has been a shared struggle by the Libyan people.
Mr. Sallabi, in an interview, made it clear that he and his followers wanted to build a political party based on Islamic principles that would come to power through democratic elections. But if the party failed to attract widespread support, he said, so be it.
It is the peoples revolution, and all the people are Muslims, Islamists, Mr. Sallabi said. Secularists are our brothers and they are Libyans.
They have the right to offer their proposals and programs, he said, and if the Libyan people choose them I have no problem. We believe in democracy and the peaceful exchange of power.
Many Libyans say they are not worried. The Islamists are organized so they seem more influential than their real weight, said Usama Endar, a management consultant who was among the wealthy Tripolitans who helped finance the revolution. They dont have wide support, and when the dust settles, only those with large-scale appeal, without the tunnel vision of the Islamists, will win.
Yet an anti-Islamist, anti-Sallabi rally in Martyrs Square on Wednesday drew only a few dozen demonstrators.
Many, like Aref Nayed, coordinator of the Transitional National Councils stabilization team and a prominent religious scholar, say that the revolution had proved that Libyans would not accept anything but a democratic society, and that the Islamists would have to adapt to that.
SIRTE, Libya Libyan revolutionary forces escalated offensives Friday into two key strongholds of Moammar Gadhafi's rule, but met stiff resistance from snipers and loyalist gunners in Gadhafi's hometown and a mountain enclave where a pro-regime radio station urged followers to fight to the end.
The assault on Gadhafi's Mediterranean birthplace of Sirte and the strategic mountain town of Bani Walid appeared to be a coordinated campaign to break the back of regime holdouts. The attacks came as powerful revolutionary backers from the West and Muslim world urged on the anti-Gadhafi forces.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined Friday prayers in the heart of the capital Tripoli a day after the French and British leaders traveled to Libya. Supporters of Libya's interim government have stepped up calls to establish legitimacy and start rebuilding the country even as Gadhafi remains on the run and his followers try to hold their ground.
In Sirte the hub of a loyalist belt across Libya's central coast revolutionary units pressed their attack on two fronts with convoys that include vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft guns. Loyalist responded with sniper attacks and rocket barrages.
Smoke rise from parts of the city, where the green flags of Gadhafi's regime flew from mosques and buildings. The Misrata Military Council, which is coordinating the revolutionary offensive, said anti-Gadhafi forces had control of the old airport on the western edge of Sirte.
NATO warplanes swept overhead, but is was unclear whether there were fresh airstrikes to help the anti-Gadhadi advance.
The military alliance said it struck multiple rocket launchers, air missile systems, armored vehicles and a military storage facility in Sirte on Thursday when revolutionary units launched the offensive.
Abdel Salam, a fighter on the frontline near Sirte, said his side lost 11 men late Thursday when their bus drove over a roadside bomb. He said at least 18 fighters were detained by Gadhafi loyalists after they were ambushed at the entrance of Sirte.
"We reached inside Sirte and then retreated," Salam said before anti-Gadhafi forces mobilized a stronger offensive Friday.
About 150 miles (250 kilometers) to the west in Bani Walid, revolutionary fighters using pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons tried to break through strong defensive lines. Explosions and gunfire reverberated across the area.
One of the fighters, Hisham Nseir, said the frontline is "very heated and chaotic" and his troops were meeting with heavy resistance from Gadhafi's men.
Commander Abdullah Abu-Asara told The Associated Press that his men were just over a mile (two kilometers) from the heart of Bani Walid, which is ringed by mountains and only accessible through a valley that is watched over by pro-Gadhafi marksmen.
As the revolutionary forces advanced, the fighters erected the new Libyan flag over an abandoned electricity building and a military headquarters in the northern part of Bani Walid. Around the buildings lay a huge Gadhafi poster bent in half and torn billboards with pictures of the ousted dictator. The walls were still sprayed with graffiti reading, "Long live Moammar."
Anti-Gadhafi forces also took strategic mortar positions, firing shells at the central square in Bani Walid that include a Gadhafi residence built on the former site of an Ottoman-era fort.
"Today is the first day that we have completely taken over this part of Bani Walid," said fighter Abul-Asara. "We are staying here."
Inside the town about 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli a radio station believed linked to one of Gadhafi's main propagandist kept up a steady stream of appeals to fight and rants that demonized the revolutionaries as traitors against the country and Islam.
"Run from Bani Walid and you run straight to your graves," shouts one man over the radio.
Another portrayed the revolutionaries as trampling Muslim values.
"These revolutionaries are fighting to drink and do drugs all the time and be like the West, dance all night," the announcer claimed. "We are a traditional tribal society that refuses such things and must fight it."
On a third front, British warplanes conducted airstrikes Thursday in and around Sabha in Libya's southern desert, including a military vehicle depot used by pro-Gadhafi units.
Maj. Gen. Nick Pope, a British military spokesman, said a dozen missiles were fired on a "large concentration of former regime armored vehicles" that had been located by NATO surveillance.
As battles intensified, Libya's interim leadership has been pushing forward with efforts to form a new government.
Erdogan was greeted at the airport by Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the National Transitional Council, the closest thing Libya has to a government. He traveled to Libya as part of a tour of the Arab world, including Egypt and Tunisia, that is aimed at offering help for the countries and advancing his growing status as a regional leader.
He was expected to discuss how to resume investments in Libya, where Turkish contractors were involved in 214 building projects worth more than $15 billion before the rebellion that ousted Gadhafi.
Erdogan's tour comes as once-strong ties between Turkey and Israel are unraveling due to Israel's refusal to apologize for its raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed nine pro-Palestinian activists last year.
The Libyan rebels chuckle when they find a child-sized T-shirt featuring a cartoon of Osama bin Laden amid the surveillance files, tapes and photos in one of the buildings abandoned by Col. Muammar Gaddafi's internal security forces. Sporting thick, bushy beards in a fresh show of religiosity they say never would have been tolerated under the old regime, they have mixed feelings about the man on the T-shirt. "Fighting in the name of Islam is something that all Muslims respect," says Mukhtar Enhaysi, carefully. "But when [Bin Laden] makes explosions and commits acts of terrorism against civilians who have nothing to do with that, no one agrees with that."
Enhaysi's nuanced view is commonplace in a country whose citizens are suddenly free to express themselves, although the subtle Islamist current in the rebellion has worried some of its Western backers. Rebel forces in Tripoli are commanded by a former associate of Bin Laden, who the CIA had sent to Libya for questioning and torture by Gaddafi's regime. And the leader of the rebel Transitional National Council has called for a constitution guided by Islamic values, reflecting popular sentiment in a country whose people describe themselves as conservative, and who have endured 42 years of enforced albeit, many say, superficial secularism under Gaddafi, even as he tried to style himself as the nemesis of the West.
Interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told a cheering crowd in Tripoli's Martyr's Square this week that, "We seek a state of law, prosperity and one where Sharia [Islamic law] is the main source for legislation, and this requires many things and conditions," adding that "extremist ideology" would not be tolerated.
Indeed, for a citizenry that views itself as inherently more conservative than its Egyptian and Tunisian neighbors, it shouldn't be surprising that Libya's interim leaders are already emphasizing the Islamic character of their future government. But many say that Gaddafi's legacy and NATO's recent intervention has also paved the way for a different kind of Islamist than the type that Washington has long feared. "The fact that Gaddafi used [the West] as a common enemy, well, the saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' holds very true here," says one official in the National Transitional Council (NTC), speaking on condition of anonymity. "If you compound that with the fact that the Westerners were instrumental in their support [of the rebels] and in the demise of Gaddafi, you see that people are really quite friendly."
On Thursday, Britain's David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy became the first Western Heads of State to visit liberated Tripoli, where they were given a warm welcome by Libya's Transitional Authorities. "The Libyans will not forget the 19th of March, when the international community acted to protect Libya and pass a no-fly zone," Jalil said at a joint press conference. He promised a close friendship going forward. And it's kind of paradox that has become increasingly evident on Libya's streets in recent weeks. Across rebel-controlled territory, Libyans are becoming more expressively religious; holding Islamist group meetings and discussions on the management of mosque funding even as they verbalize an enthusiasm for NATO rare in the Arab world. To that end, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former jihadist rebel commander in Tripoli, has disavowed extremism and pledged tolerance toward other religions, despite recently discovered Libyan government documents that corroborate his story of rendition by the CIA. "I'm not motivated by revenge against those who did that," he told TIME. "We are very close to our European neighbors, and we want good relations with those countries, both economically and even in security." The idea of an Islamist-led democracy may jar with post-9/11 thinking in the West, but not necessarily in the Muslim world. "It's not something we're inventing," says the NTC official, citing Turkey and Qatar although the latter, despite its support for the rebellion, can't exactly be called a democracy.
"Generally, in the West, they confuse Islamist with Bin Laden," says Saleh Ibrahim, a Libyan journalist, exiting one of Tripoli's largest mosques following the Friday noon prayer. "I think a moderate government will be put in place that will reflect Islamic values, but it won't be extremist."
Most Libyans are Sunni Muslim, meaning there's little risk of sectarian conflict although tribal and regional schisms have been visible even within the rebellion. And there have been signs of a rift between "Islamists" and "secularists" in the NTC. The so-called secularists dominate its executive committee, and include the U.S.-educated acting Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril and Ali Tarhouni, the finance and oil minister who left his job as an economics professor in the U.S. to join the rebellion.
Time is putting lipstick on a pig and claiming it's a fashion model.
There is NOTHING "pro-western" about the Islamists.. In a year, the rulers of Libya will be indistinguishable from the Taliban.
TRIPOLI, Libya -- Facing little resistance, revolutionary fighters captured the airport and other locations in a southern desert city that is considered one of the last remaining strongholds of Moammar Gadhafi's forces, fighters said.
The capture of Sabha would be a major victory for Libya's new rulers, who have struggled to rout forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi a month after sweeping into Tripoli and forcing the ousted leader into hiding.
A push to capture Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte and the mountain enclave of Bani Walid have stalled as well-armed forces loyal to the fugitive leader have fought back fiercely with rockets and other heavy weaponry.
"Our flags are waving there over the airport and other parts of Sabha," Col. Ahmed Bani, the military spokesman for the transitional government, told reporters in Tripoli.
The airport is about four miles from the center of Sabha, 400 miles (650 kilometers) south of Tripoli.
Salam Kara, the Benghazi-based spokesman for Sabha's local council, said revolutionary forces also had seized an old fort as well as a convention center and a hospital inside the city.
TUNIS, Tunisia Tunisia's Interior Ministry says Libya's former prime minister under Moammar Gadhafi has been arrested.
Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi was arrested overnight in the southern town of Tameghza, near Tunisia's border with Algeria, according to ministry spokesman Hichem Meddeb.
Meddeb said Thursday two others were detained along with al-Mahmoudi after Tunisian officials found none had visas.
Gadhafi remains at large, and his whereabouts unknown. His supporters remain well-armed and fighting is still raging on three fronts in Libya.
Reporting from London and Tripoli, Libya Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization authorized a 90-day extension of the alliance's aerial mission over Libya on Wednesday, raising the prospect that U.S. and allied troops could be involved in the North African nation until Christmas.
But NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen emphasized that the alliance could call home its forces "at any time" if international authorities and the new Libyan government determine that NATO's help is no longer necessary.
"This decision sends a clear message to the Libyan people: We will be there for as long as necessary but not a day longer, while you take your future in your hands to ensure a safe transition to the new Libya," Rasmussen said.
He said the alliance had been "remarkably successful" in executing a United Nations mandate to protect civilians, despite criticism that NATO's warplanes and aerial bombing campaign routinely crossed the line into actively assisting revolutionary forces in their effort to topple Libya's longtime strongman, Moammar Kadafi.
NATO took over enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya in March, with an initial deadline for the mission at the end of June. A three-month extension was set to expire next week, but Wednesday's decision renewed the operation until the end of December.
NATO fighter jets have flown more than 20,000 sorties over Libya in the last six months, dropping thousands of bombs to take out Kadafi's command centers and military materiel. The alliance has reported no serious casualties in its air campaign, though Kadafi's government alleged that the bombing killed hundreds of civilians and NATO has acknowledged several mistaken bombings of rebel forces.
With the erstwhile rebels now preparing to form a government in Tripoli, Washington has sent its former ambassador back to the Libyan capital to reopen the U.S. Embassy, which was shut down for the duration of the battle between Kadafi and his foes for control of the oil-rich nation.
Ambassador Gene Cretz returned to Libya on Wednesday. Appointed to the post in 2007 by former President George W. Bush, Cretz became the first U.S. ambassador to Tripoli after decades of diplomatic estrangement between the two countries.
In July, Washington recognized the anti-Kadafi Transitional National Council, then based in the city of Benghazi, as Libya's legitimate governing authority.
Meanwhile, reports Wednesday indicated that Libya's new rulers were close to winning full control of the southern desert crossroads city of Sabha, long a stronghold of support for Kadafi and the site of recent clashes.
A government takeover of Sabha probably would restrict escape opportunities for Kadafi and any associates still in Libya. The Saharan city is on the route to several neighboring nations, including Niger, where many Kadafi aides, along with his son Saadi, have already sought refuge.
TRIPOLI, Libya The U.S. ambassador to Libya returned to Tripoli Wednesday to lead a newly reopened American Embassy in a post-Moammar Gadhafi era.
Ambassador Gene Cretz arrived in Tripoli, a day before plans to raise the U.S. flag over the embassy building in the Libyan capital. It was about eight months after he left for consultations in Washington in January after WikiLeaks posted his opinions of Gadhafi's personal life and habits in a classified 2009 diplomatic cable. At the time, the Obama administration was considering replacing him due in part to strains in ties caused by the blunt assessment.
Cretz returns to a country much changed since revolutionary forces seized control of Tripoli and forced the authoritarian leader into hiding after an uprising that began in mid-February.
Cretz was nominated to be the first U.S. ambassador to Libya in 36 years by President George W. Bush in July 2007 after a remarkable turnaround in U.S. relations with the North African nation.
The seismic shift in ties followed Gadhafi's 2003 renunciation of weapons of mass destruction and payment of compensation to the families of victims of 1980s terror attacks, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, blamed on Libyan agents.
Cretz had kept a relatively low profile in Libya until November, when WikiLeaks posted his assessments of Gadhafi's personal life and habits in a classified 2009 diplomatic cable.
The secret document said Gadhafi "appears to have an intense dislike or fear of staying on upper floors, reportedly prefers not to fly over water, and seems to enjoy horse racing and flamenco dancing." It also discussed Gadhafi's longtime reliance on a Ukrainian nurse named Galyna who the cable said had been described as a "voluptuous blonde."
President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that the ambassador would return, telling Libyans: "This is your chance. And today the world is saying, with one unmistakable voice, we will stand with you."
The United States, along with its NATO allies, launched the military air campaign that helped rout Gadhafi's forces after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution in March authorizing a no-fly zone and approving all necessary steps needed to protect civilians. NATO later took charge of the mission.
On Wednesday, NATO's decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, granted approval to extend the mission for another 90 days, an alliance official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because a formal statement had not yet been prepared. Without an extension, permission for the operation would have expired Sept. 27.
While many in the nation of 6 million people are enjoying newfound freedoms, well-armed Gadhafi loyalists are still fighting on three fronts, and Libya's new rulers are struggling to form a government.
The National Transitional Council, which led the rebellion and is the closest thing Libya has to a government, failed Sunday to seat a new Cabinet, dashing hopes a new government would be in place before the interim leadership left to represent Libya at the U.N. General Assembly this week.
In New York, the NTC's prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, said Tuesday he expected a new government to be formed "within a week, 10 days maximum from now."
He said most of the work has been done, but it was important to ensure national consensus on the issue. The current political difficulties were not unusual for a "country which was absent from ... any democratic culture," he said.
Gadhafi wielded near-total control over the North African nation for nearly 42 years. The uprising inspired by the successful ouster of autocratic leaders in Tunisia and Egypt spread from the eastern city of Benghazi in mid-February.
Armed fighters still loyal to the fugitive leader have repelled anti-Gadhafi forces in Sirte, the desert town of Bani Walid and the southern area of Sabha.
Government forces have made inroads against Gadhafi loyalists in Sabha, the last major city on a key road leading south to the border with Niger.
Abdel-Salam Sikayer, a spokesman for a local council in Sabha, said anti-Gadhafi forces largely have control over two neighborhoods and are fighting to overtake pockets of resistance. He said 28 people, including three children, had been killed in fighting over the past two days 18 on Tuesday and 10 on Monday.
