NBC News reports that Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi is getting ready to leave the country:
Moammar Gadhafi is making preparations for a departure from Libya with his family for possible exile in Tunisia, U.S. officials have told NBC News, citing intelligence reports.
One official suggested it was possible that Gadhafi would leave within days, NBC News reported.
The information obtained by NBC News follows a series of optimistic statements this week from U.S. officials that Gadhafi would soon give up the five-month-old fight and and leave Libya.
In an on-camera forum at the National Defense University this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said, “I think the sense is that Gadhafi’s days are numbered.”
The officials could provide no further details as to conditions or precise timing for Gadhafi’s departure, NBC said, and the news report emphasized that there was no guarantee that Gadhafi would follow through on any plans to flee.
This report comes as rebels captured a town south of Tripoli:
Meanwhile, there have been blasts in Tripoli — near his compound.
The New York Times offers this slide show on the battle of Libya.
The Telegraph’s Con Coughlin says it’s time to prepare for what comes next:
Maintaining some degree of stability in Libya as it undergoes its painful transition from authoritarian rule to a more representative system of government is certainly one of the more pressing issues facing Nato planners. In Britain, where Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary, has been given responsibility for post-conflict planning in Libya, the Government’s priority is to prevent the country descending into a tribal bloodbath, with rival factions settling decades-old scores once the Mad Dog of the Middle East has been put out of his misery.
This remains a distinct possibility when you consider the bitter rivalries that have already surfaced between the various rebel factions. There now seems little doubt that a radical Islamist militia was responsible for the murder, two weeks ago, of General Abdel Fattah Younes, the rebels’ military commander, who had previously served as Gaddafi’s interior minister. Younes and two of his aides were shot, and their bodies mutilated, by Islamist militants whose deep hatred of the West resulted in them refusing to fight when Nato warplanes began bombing Gaddafi’s forces, on the grounds that they would not fight on the same side as “infidels”.
Concerns about Islamist attempts to infiltrate the rebel leadership have been circulating since the conflict began in March; Western intelligence officials based in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi have reported with alarm the growth of extremist influence within the rebels’ ranks in recent months. It’s a development that has seen the rebels adopt a more hard-line approach to international efforts to mediate a peaceful resolution to the conflict. During talks in Tunis earlier this week to explore the possibility of a peace settlement, one of the rebels threw his shoe at Tunisian officials in protest at the notion of doing a deal with Gaddafi.
AND:
On the plus side, Nato officials point out that there has been a sharp surge in rebel activity since the demise of Gen Younes, who had been accused of leaking the rebels’ war plans to his former employer. Whatever the truth about the murky circumstances of his death, the incident has nevertheless highlighted the serious divisions that exist within the rebel movement, between those who are relaxed about working with the West and others who bitterly oppose such co-operation.
These tensions certainly do not bode well for the time when, as now looks increasingly likely, Gaddafi’s detestable rule is brought to an end. As one of our senior officials told me this week, “It’s not going to look very pretty when Gaddafi finally goes. There are a lot of scores to be settled. Our job is to try to maintain some semblance of law and order to help the country get back on its feet.”
So it may soon be time to say: Good riddance.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.