TARHOUNA, Libya (AP) — Tribal elders from one of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s last strongholds were trying to persuade regime loyalists holed up there to lay down their arms, the elders said during talks Tuesday with rebel negotiators, hours after a large convoy of heavily armed Gadhafi soldiers crossed the desert into neighboring Niger.
The elders left the besieged town of Bani Walid to meet with rebels in a tiny mosque about 40 miles away.
“The revolutionaries have not come to humiliate anyone. We are all here to listen,” Abdullah Kenshil, the chief rebel negotiator, said at the start of the meeting. Then, in a message clearly intended for the hardcore Gadhafi loyalists in Bani Walid, some of whom may be fearing rebel retribution, he added: “I say we are not like the old regime. We don’t take revenge, and we don’t bear grudges.”
Gadhafi loyalists have been holed up in several towns, including Bani Walid, some 90 miles southeast of Tripoli. Thousands of rebel fighters have surrounded the town.
The four tribal elders at the meeting said rumors were circulating in Bani Walid that the rebels were going to rape the women of the town and kill the people.
“Bani Walid is split into two groups,” Moftah al-Rubassi said. “The first, and the majority, want peace. The second, these are people who have been implicated (as part of Col. Gadhafi’s regime), either by blood or money, and they are cowards.”
He said that quickly restoring the city’s basic services — it has had no water or electricity for many days — would assure residents of the rebels’ intentions. The rebels said that would happen as soon as possible.
Col. Gadhafi’s whereabouts are unknown, but speculation has centered on his hometown of Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha in the far south.
Gadhafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim was defiant in a Tuesday phone call to the Syrian TV station al-Rai, saying the ousted dictator was “in excellent health, planning and organizing for the defense of Libya.” Mr. Ibrahim, who the rebels believe was in Bani Walid, said both Col. Gadhafi and his sons remain in Libya.
“We are fighting and resisting for the sake of Libya and all Arabs,” he said. “We are still strong and capable of turning the tables on NATO,” he said, though the regime effectively collapsed more than a week ago.
Another rebel official, Khaled al-Zintani, said rebels had arrested Khalid Kaim, Col. Gadhafi’s deputy foreign minister, in Tripoli on Monday.
A video, posted on rebels’ Facebook pages, showed Mr. Kaim in a white robe sitting on a bed, with young men shouting at him.
“You are a dog!” yelled the rebels, some of them in military uniform. “But we will treat you in a good way,” one added.
He responded by saying, “I swear to God, I had good intentions.”
Late Monday, meanwhile, a large convoy of Gadhafi loyalists rolled into the central Niger town of Agadez, said Abdoulaye Harouna, the owner of the local newspaper. The convoy consisted of more than a dozen pickup trucks bristling with well-armed Libyan troops, said Mr. Harouna, who saw the arrival.
The convoy left Tuesday morning for Niger’s capital, Niamey, about 600 miles to the south.
At the head of the convoy, Mr. Harouna said, was Tuareg rebel leader Rissa ag Boula, a native of Niger who led a failed war of independence on behalf of ethnic Tuareg nomads a decade ago. He then sought refuge in Libya and was believed to be fighting on behalf of Col. Gadhafi.
It was not immediately clear if the convoy included any members of the Gadhafi family or other high-level members of his regime.
Col. Gadhafi is believed to have financed the Tuareg rebellion in the north of Niger. African nations where Tuaregs represent a significant slice of the population, such as Niger, have been among the last to recognize the rebels that ousted Col. Gadhafi.
Col. Gadhafi remains especially popular in towns such as Agadez, where a majority of the population is Tuareg.
Mr. Harouna said the pro-Gadhafi soldiers accompanying Mr. Boula were coming from the direction of Arlit.
The isolated desert that stretches north of Arlit borders both Libya and Algeria. Some members of Col. Gadhafi’s family, including his wife, his daughter Aisha and two of his sons, recently sought refuge in Algeria.
A rebel spokesman for Tripoli’s military council said the rebel leadership was aware of the convoy but had few details.
“It was not a large number of soldiers. We think it was a protection team of some sort,” Anis Sharif said.
A NATO official in Brussels said the alliance did not have any immediate information about the convoy.
NATO warplanes don’t normally patrol that far south in the Sahara, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with standing alliance policy.
Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration, an aid group that focuses on post-disaster displacement, said more than 1,200 migrants had taken refuge at an IOM transit center in the southern loyalist stronghold of Sabha.
The migrants, most of them from Chad but also including people from Niger, Nigeria and other countries, had fled to the transit center to escape increasing fighting between rebel and loyalist forces on the outskirts of town.
But with no electricity and little food or water, the situation for everyone in the town is becoming increasingly perilous.
“The migrants are very scared and threatened,” said Qasim Sufi, IOM’s chief of mission for Chad. Mr. Sufi said the organization had lost contact with the town for two weeks, but an urgent call Monday informed IOM officials of the migrants and asked for urgent evacuation.
Hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans worked in Col. Gadhafi’s Libya, doing everything from managing hotels to sweeping floors. But some also fought as pro-Gadhafi mercenaries, and many migrant workers have fled ahead of the rebels, fearing they would be mistaken for mercenaries.
Associated Press writers Dalatou Mamane in Niamey, Niger; Slobodan Lekic in Brussels; Frank Jordans in Geneva; Maggie Michael in Cairo; and Karin Laub in Tripoli, Libya, contributed to this report.
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