Libya refuses to deny claims that oil minister has fled country

Shukri Ghanem, the regime’s second high-profile defection, is believed to have contacted officials in Tunis The Libyan government is refusing to deny claims that the oil minister has fled the country in the second high profile defection from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime since the two month old air campaign began. Shukri Ghanem, who had been oil minister since 2006 and was prime minister for three years prior, is believed to have contacted officials in Tunis after arriving there on Monday. Libyan officials said they had been trying unsuccessfully to contact Ghanem for the past 24 hours. He is believed to have crossed the land border into Tunisia and shortly afterwards made clear his intention to defect. “He is in Tunisia, but we don’t know what he is doing there,” said government spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim. Another official said Ghanem was on a “diplomatic mission” to bring about a ceasefire. However, a spokesman for the interim Transitional National Council in Benghazi said he had contacted the group in recent weeks and was looking for a way to flee. Ghanem has been regarded as a trusted figure within the Gaddafi regime, although he has differed with colleagues on oil policy. Former chief regime henchman, Moussa Koussa was the last senior figure to defect to Britain in late-March. He has since been extensively debriefed by MI6 officials and, along with other former Gaddafi loyalists, has been instrumental in planning for Nato air operations that are increasingly destroying the power base of the Gaddafi regime. Ghanem had been seen since the start of the violent anti-government uprising in February as a likely candidate to switch allegiances. He had indicated during interviews that he believed change in Libya was necessary, however he had stopped short of calling for Gaddafi to leave. His apparent defection came hours after the international criminal court chief prosecutor called for the arrest of the veteran dictator, his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief, Abdullah Senussi for mass murder. An escalation of the air campaign followed soon after the announcement. In the early hours, Nato bombs set fire to two buildings in Tripoli that British military officials said were secret police compounds. The submarine HMS Triumph fired Tomahawk cruise missiles and Tornado jets dropped bombs on a number of targets in Libya’s capital. Tomahawks’ electronic systems can distinguish between different buildings and are therefore suitable against urban targets, according to defence officials. Danish planes also attacked Tripoli in a series of attacks British defence officials made clear were also designed to signal that Nato was determined to extend its range of targets in a military campaign which, after almost two months, shows little sign of leading to the collapse of the regime. Major General John Lorimer, chief military spokesman at the Ministry of Defence, said the bombed targets “lay at the heart of the apparatus used by the regime to brutalise the civilian population”. He added: “One of the intelligence facilities which was hit is known to play a significant role in the collection of information by Colonel Gaddafi’s secret police, while the other was a headquarter for the external security organisation, commanded by Abdullah Senussi.” Senussi, the intelligence chief, along with the Libyan leader and his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, was accused on Monday of crimes against humanity by the ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who called for their arrest for orchestrating a campaign of mass murder. British targets on Monday night included the executive protection force, which Lorimer described as “the bodyguard for the inner circle of the colonel’s regime … entrusted with other sensitive tasks”. He said vehicles at the training base were identified as having been used in the violent suppression of public demonstrations in Tripoli on 4 March. The latest Nato strikes came days after General Sir David Richards, Britain’s chief of defence staff, called on member countries to increase their range of targets to include the regime’s infrastructure, command and control centres, and communications networks. The defence secretary, Liam Fox, told the Commons on Monday that Nato bombing strikes would not end until Gaddafi stopped “slaughtering” his own people. There are 23 RAF aircraft and two Royal Navy warships committed to Operation Ellamy, the MoD’s codename for operations in Libya. A Libyan government diplomatic mission arrived in Moscow on Monday in a bid to broker a ceasefire. Russia has remained a staunch opponent of military action and has challenged the campaign’s effectiveness. In recent days, Transitional National Council officials, including two former Gaddafi ministers who defected to the rebels in the days following the uprising, have been touring Europe and the US in a bid to build international recognition for an alternative government which they claim now represents all Libyans. Concerns have been raised in Nato that a loyalist rump of officials who have stood by Gaddafi for most of his 42 year rule, could stymie attempts to change the regime and turn the Nato air campaign into a stalemate. Such a result is seen as likely to further dampen the so-called Arab spring, which led to the rapid toppling of decades-old dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, but has sparked deadly street violence in Libya, Yemen and Syria and fresh sectarian enmity in Bahrain. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Africa Martin Chulov Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 17, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.