Yesterday, Libyan revolutionaries “gave Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s recalcitrant loyalists a four-day deadline Tuesday to surrender,” the New York Times reported. Today, Qaddafi has responded, according to the Washington Post:
The spokesman for Moammar Gaddafi’s collapsing government on Wednesday rejected a rebel ultimatum to surrender or face an all-out military assault….
In response, Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim dismissed the council as an unlawful group and said Gaddafi’s son Saadi was willing to negotiate and form a transitional government in coordination with the rebels–something opposition leaders have made clear is unacceptable to them.
“No dignified, honorable nation would accept an ultimatum from armed gangs,” Ibrahim said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.
In response, Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim dismissed the council as an unlawful group and said Gaddafi’s son Saadi was willing to negotiate and form a transitional government in coordination with the rebels–something opposition leaders have made clear is unacceptable to them.
“No dignified, honorable nation would accept an ultimatum from armed gangs,” Ibrahim said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.
The revolutionaries promised that if their demands were not met by Qaddafi’s loyalists, they’d seek a military resolution. So if Qaddafi’s spokesman speaks for the tyrant’s loyalists, more blood will surely be shed in the days (and possibly weeks and months) ahead.
Meanwhile, the hunt for Qaddafi continues:
Libya’s new military commanders are using informants from among Muammar Gaddafi’s entourage to track down the fugitive former leader, while tightening the noose around his last strongholds to force them to surrender.
Hisham Buhagiar, a senior official in the military body behind Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council, is coordinating efforts to hunt Gaddafi, chased out of his Tripoli compound after a six-month uprising.
Buhagiar said he believed Gaddafi was either in the Bani Walid area, southeast of Tripoli, or in his hometown of Sirte, 450 km (265 miles) east of Tripoli.
Hisham Buhagiar, a senior official in the military body behind Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council, is coordinating efforts to hunt Gaddafi, chased out of his Tripoli compound after a six-month uprising.
Buhagiar said he believed Gaddafi was either in the Bani Walid area, southeast of Tripoli, or in his hometown of Sirte, 450 km (265 miles) east of Tripoli.
