Tripoli, 15 May:
Khamis Qaddafi is still alive and travels between Bani Walid and Tarhouna, according to an unnamed source at the . . .[restrict]Supreme Security Committee.
Of all the top members of the Qaddafi regime, the dictator’s 27 year old youngest son, was the one most frequently reported dead. The commander of the notorious 32nd Brigade was first said to have been slain on 13 March when an airforce pilot supposedly made a suicide attack of the Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli. The previous month the “Khamis” Brigade had crushed the initial revolt in Zawiyah with great savagery. After retaking the town, the mosque which had been a rebel command centre was razed to the ground and dozens of people executed summarily.
Khamis was killed again on 5 August in a NATO airstrike on Zlitan but five days later someone very like him was shown on state TV talking to people apparently wounded in that attack.
He was next reported dead on 22 August by Al Jazeera, which said that his body had been found with that of his cousin, feared security chief Mohammed Abdullah Senussi in Tarhouna. Senussi is now held by Mauritanian authorities while Libya, France and the International Criminal Court all demand his extradition.
The final report of Khamis’ death on 29 August, was denied the following day by state television. However on 15 October, the Syrian-based pro-Qaddafi TV station Arrai TV announced that Khamis had indeed died when his vehicle was destroyed near Tarhouna.
This final death has been widely accepted, in part because a British reporter’s notebook, which went missing on a Qaddafi regime trip from the Rixos Hotel, where most of the international press contingent were penned up, was found in the destroyed vehicle. Bizarrely the back of the notebook contained jottings, said to be in Khamis’ handwriting, outlining tactical plans to defend Zlitan from a rebel assault.
The assertion from the anonymous individual close to the Supreme Security Committee that Khamis is still alive, also included the information that he has been in constant touch with his brother Saadi Qaddafi, who is currently in the Niger capital Niamey. The two are supposed to be plotting to undermine security in Libya. The source also claimed that a number of Khamis’ associates had been arrested and that Libya security forces would intervene “at the right time.” [/restrict]
