Dubai/Brussels/Tripoli: A convoy of six armoured cars that could be carrying high Libyan officials, even fugitive leader Muammar Gaddafi, crossed from Libya into Algeria on Friday, Egypt's official news agency reported quoting a Libyan rebel source.
The unconfirmed MENA report said six armoured Mercedes had Friday morning entered Ghadames, quoting a Libyan military council source in the town on the border with Algeria.
The source was quoted as saying the column had been escorted by pro-government troops until it entered Algeria. Rebels had not been able to pursue the vehicles as they lacked munitions and equipment.
"We think they (the cars) were carrying high Libyan officials, possibly Gaddafi and his sons," the source said. Gaddafi has been on the run since the rebels took the Libyan capital Tripoli earlier this week.
An Algerian border official, meanwhile, said the reported crossing was unlikely as no such sighting had been reported by local residents, although he confirmed the border post of Debdeb in the Ghadames area was open.
Nato declined to confirm or deny the reported crossing "As a matter of policy, we do not comment on intelligence matters," Colonel Roland Lavoie, the spokesman of the Nato mission in Libya, told AFP in an email.
"Nato does not target individuals. We conduct operations in Libya in accordance with our United Nations mandate to protect civilians," he said.
Algeria declined to recognise the Libyan rebels' National Transitional Council on Friday, insisting it would adhere to the policy of "strict neutrality" adopted since the start of the conflict.
A foreign ministry statement sent to AFP was the first official comment from Algiers since the NTC took control of the capital in neighbouring Libya.
Acute shortages
Revolutionaries on Saturday denied that deposed leader Gaddafi had cut off Tripoli's water supply, which arrives from southern deserts, amid shortages in the capital, including at the main hospital.
"The water has not been cut off," National Transitional Council spokesman Mahmud Shammam told Agencies. "We have enough supplies of drinking water; we have some technical problems but we are addressing the situation."
Many Tripoli residents have complained that their water has been cut off since the capital fell to rebels on Tuesday, while rumours are rife that Gaddafi has poisoned the water in the city of around two million.
Nato keeps up pressure
NATO is keeping up pressure on Muammar Gaddafi's forces in the Libyan leader's hometown of Sirte, bombing 15 vehicles and four other ground targets in the last 24 hours, the alliance said Saturday.
As anti-regime fighters prepared to launch an offensive on the town, NATO said in its daily operational update that it had destroyed 11 vehicles mounted with weapons, three logistic military vehicles and one armoured fighting vehicle on Friday.
Gaddafi's whereabouts remain a mystery as anti-regime fighters hunt him down.
Warplanes bombard Gaddafi hometown
British warplanes bombed a bunker in Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte as anti-regime fighters grouped on Friday for another push on one of the last major regime holdouts, east of Tripoli.
As insurgent leaders moved from Benghazi to Tripoli to begin a political transition, the UN human rights chief warned against assassinating Gaddafi, whose whereabouts are unknown and who has a $1.7 million (Dh6.24 million) revolutionaries' bounty on his head.
Speculation that Gaddafi might have found refuge in the town, which lies 360 kilometres east of Tripoli, has not been confirmed. Nato said yesterday that its planes had hit 29 armed vehicles and a "command and control node" in the vicinity of Sirte.
African Union snub
Meanwhile, diplomats said the African Union will not explicitly recognise Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), in a setback for Libyan revolutionaries who have already been recognised by more than 40 countries as the legitimate government.
The AU's snub highlights the influence Gaddafi had on the AU, given that he was one of the continental group's main bankrollers and had provided lavish sums to several African leaders.
On Thursday, the NTC moved many of its top people from their Benghazi base just days after revolutionaries overran Tripoli, going on to capture Gaddafi's headquarters and vast swathes of the capital. NTC leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil was expected to arrive "as soon as the security situation permitted."
Meanwhile, NTC second-in-command Mahmoud Jibril said in Istanbul yesterday that it was essential that the West release all of Libya's frozen assets. "Salaries of civil servants need to be paid. Life needs to continue on its normal course," Jibril said a day after senior diplomats of the Libya Contact Group met in Istanbul and agreed to speed up release of some $2.5 billion in frozen Libyan assets by the middle of this week.
At the same time, the UN Security Council released $1.5 billion of seized Libyan assets to be used for emergency aid.
Amnesty International meanwhile reported grave human rights violations, saying pro-Gaddafi forces have raped children, and revolutionaries were holding African migrant workers as prisoners.
With input from Agencies
