Libya, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Closing In on Qaddafi's Hometown
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 15:18 | Ali Yenidunya in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2018 GMT: Al Arabiya, Sky News, and our earlier report seem to be all leaning on a single source that Khamis Qaddafi has been killed. Andy Carvin asks, and we echo, where is the body? Why the rush to bury him? Are there pictures? Video? DNA samples?
The outside world has been burned by these sorts of reports before. During the fall of Tripoli, there were multiple reports, from sources inside the NTC, that many of Qaddafi's sons were detained. Those reports turned out to be false, and the only reliable report, that Mohammed Qaddafi was captured, was undone by his escape.
So far, we remain skeptical.
1911 GMT: Al Jazeera provides us this update, details on the claimed killing of Qaddafi's son and military commander, Khamis Qaddafi:
Khamis Gaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi's son, was killed in a battle between Tarhoni and Bin Walid on Sunday, according to a rebel commander in Tripoli who spoke to Al Arabiya.
Senior rebel officer, Colonel Al-Mahdi Al-Haragi, in charge of the Tripoli Brigade of the rebel army, told the Reuters news agency he had confirmation that Khamis was badly wounded in the clash near Ben Walid and Tarhoni.
He was taken to a hospital but died of his wounds and was buried in the area, Al-Haragi told Reuters, without giving the timing.
No independent confirmation of the death was available.
1900 GMT: A very safe, very dry James Miller finally has internet access, and so is able to update the readers on two major developments in Libya...
The first development is that Algerian Foreign Minister is claiming that Muammar Qaddafi's wife, daughter, two of his sons, and their children have crossed over the border into Algeria:
The Egyptian news agency MENA, quoting unidentified rebel fighters, had reported from Tripoli over the weekend that six armored Mercedes sedans, possibly carrying Gadhafi's sons or other top regime figures, had crossed the border at the southwestern Libyan town of Ghadamis into Algeria. Algeria's Foreign Ministry had denied that report.
Ahmed Jibril, an aide to rebel National Transitional Council head Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, said if the report of Ghadafi relatives in Algeria is true, "we will demand that Algerian authorities hand them over to Libya to be tried before Libyan courts."