If multiple reports are accurate, the recent wave of protests in the Middle East have claimed one more domino--longtime Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddaffi. Both Reuters and the Daily Mail quote UK Foreign Secretary William Hague as saying that Qadaffi has fled to Venezuela.
Reuters says that Hague made the remark at an EU foreign ministers' meeting.
"You asked me earlier about whether Colonel Gaddafi is in Venezuela," he told reporters on the sidelines of a European Union foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.
"I have no information that says he is, but I have seen some information that suggests he is on his way there at the moment."
The Daily Mail says this comes as the dictator is quickly running out of friends.
Even Gaddafi's own Libyan diplomats at the UN are calling for him to step down. Deputy Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi said that if the dictator does not relinquish power, 'the Libyan people will get rid of him'.
They were joined by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who condemned the violence by government forces.
Libyan fighter pilots also fled to Malta after being told to fire on civilians and border guards at the boundary with Egypt have reportedly abandoned their posts.
Simply staggering if true. If Qadaffi has fled, he would be the third Middle Eastern strongman to be run out of office by his own people, after Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali.
Apologies for the post-and-run diary--this just broke.