Qaddafi's Son Seif al-Islam, Said to Be Captured in Libya
TRIPOLI, Libya Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam, the only wanted member of the ousted ruling family to remain at larg, was captured as he traveled with aides in a convoy in Libya's southern desert, Libyan officials said Saturday. Thunderous celebratory gunfire shook the Libyan capital as the news spread.
A spokesman for the Libyan fighters who captured him said Seif al-Islam, who has been charged by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, was detained about 30 miles west of the town of Obari with two aides as he was trying to flee to neighboring Niger.
The link has an accompanying picture confirming his capture.
Saif al Islam was at once the 'friendly Westernized face' of the Gaddafi regime, yet also one of its most erratic and brutally sadistic. Indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity along with his father and ex-Libya intelligence chief Abdullah el-Sennussi (who remains at large.) The indictment charges he was directly involved in organizing attacks on civilians and the hiring of foreign mercenaries from Eastern Europe and elsewhere. It is alleged he helped plan for the Libyan crackdown even before major protests had broken out...knowing that what had happened.
Perhaps more than Muammar, Saif was a reason why Libya did not play out with relative peace like Tunisia or Egypt.
With Saif's capture, the last major heir to the Gaddafi regime has been brought to justice. Muammar's equally brutal sons Mutassim (national security advisor, heir apparent) and Khamis (Russian-trained officer commanding the elite 32nd Brigade) are both dead, as is his youngest son Saif al Arab...killed in a Norwegian airstrike on April 30. His more decadent and less government-involved sons Muhammad, Hannibal, and Saadi have all been exiled.
Reading between the lines, it does appear that there was international coordination in the hunt for Saif. Most notably was several days ago when the Nigerien military successfully interdicted a convoy of heavily armed apparent Gaddafi loyalists, killing or capturing over two dozen militants. An operation so successful I'm guessing it was only possible because of good intelligence and pre-planning. That may have been a scouting party for Saif trying to escape to Niger.
Even more than Muammar, since the start of the uprising Saif had been the source of the regime's most bloodthirsty threats against both the Libyan people, and threats of terrorism against the West. There was even a rumor several years ago (back when he was still officially "our friend") that Saif had links to elements of the Iraqi insurgency.
In aiding his capture, we rid ourselves of the one remaining figure of the Gaddafi regime who would likely lash out against the region and the West in revenge. We've nipped in the bud a potential terrorist threat before it could take hold in the Saharan Desert.
Hopefully unlike what happened to Gaddafi, the NTC forces are now cool-headed and disciplined enough to keep him safe so that he can face a proper trial, either in the Hague or in Libya with international monitors. I think of when Israel gave a free, fair, and public trial to Adolf Eichmann. It was a powerful signal to the world that the Jewish state was committed to justice and democracy, not revenge...and gave the West a reason to at once support and defend Israel, and keep at arm's length the right-wing fascist regimes of Franco's Spain, Pinochet's Chile, Peron's Argentina that gave refuge to Nazi war criminals.