WESTERN allies are joining the rebel-led manhunt for Muammar Gaddafi, repositioning spies and targeting surveillance equipment amid fears the fugitive strongman will escape dressed as a woman and hide until Western forces leave Libya.
Rebel officials said yesterday they doubted Gaddafi had left Tripoli. Mahmoud Nacua, the rebel envoy in London, said he believed Gaddafi was at the farm of a friend on the outskirts of the capital. In exile in Cairo, one of his former henchmen said the absolute power Gaddafi had wielded for almost 42 years had affected his mind. "Gaddafi is delusional because he thinks he can disappear in Libya and, when NATO leaves, he believes he can gather his supporters," said Abdel Salam Jalloud, who helped Gaddafi to seize power in 1969 and who fled just before Tripoli fell to the rebel onslaught.
"The rebels must open the roads. After they open the roads, he may dress in woman's clothes and leave Tripoli for the Algerian border or Chad. He is drunk with power."
Opening the roads may also allow him to escape to his last remaining redoubts in the desert. Loyalist forces still hold the city of Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace in the east of the country, while his troops were still in control of the southern garrison of Sebha, on the road to Chad.
He is believed to have used the southern route to bring in ammunition, weapons and mercenaries, and he and his sons might attempt a desert insurgency from the south, destabilising any new government and trying to provoke feuds between Libya's tribes.
The CIA and other spy services were putting their muscle behind the effort to safeguard mustard gas and other chemical weapons agents the regime had stockpiled at sites around the country, officials said. US intelligence agencies say they believe Gaddafi slipped out of his main security compound in Tripoli ahead of the rebel advance into the capital this week. But officials believed they had identified several possible sites where Gaddafi could be hiding.
The hunt for Gaddafi has become a top priority because of concerns that the six-month conflict will not end as long as the man who ruled the country for 42 years remains at large and can threaten a comeback.
"Clearly, locating Gaddafi is important for closure, so it will be one of several key collection priorities in this next phase of the conflict," a US official said.
CIA operatives on the ground in Libya have been supporting the NATO air campaign, as well as the rebel leadership, the National Transitional Council. Those intelligence operations are supplemented with other collection methods, including satellites and unmanned surveillance aircraft.
Should Gaddafi's location be pinpointed, the response could take any number of forms depending on the situation, said US officials. Among the options: the position could be bombed from the air, the CIA could send its own operatives, or special forces from Britain and France could move in. The US lacks military personnel on the ground in Libya, and President Barack Obama has made clear that situation will not change. As well as chemical-weapons agents, Tripoli also maintains control of ageing Scud missiles, US officials said, as well as 1000 tonnes of yellowcake uranium and conventional weapons that Gaddafi had, in the past, provided to militants in Africa.
The Obama administration considers securing those weapons and materials a priority now that Gaddafi appears to have lost his grip on power.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the US had been monitoring the known missile and chemical-agent storage facilities since the start of the conflict.
"We believe that these known missile and chemical agent storage facilities remain secure, and we've not seen any activity . . . to give us concern that they have been compromised," she said.
Taking lessons from the chaos that followed the 2003 toppling of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the West has been advising the Libyan rebel council on detailed plans to prevent revenge killings and looting of, among other things, weapons depots and chemical storage facilities.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the US was concerned about Gaddafi's weapons falling into the wrong hands. The administration, he said, was consulting with the rebel leadership about those concerns.
US intelligence agencies worry that al-Qa'ida-affiliated militants operating in North Africa could take advantage of the post-Gaddafi chaos to try to secure new weapons to use against Western targets. They also fear that Gaddafi, in desperation, will use the weapons himself or sell them to the US's enemies.
With the rebels solidifying their hold on Tripoli, the US believes, Gaddafi is quickly losing day-to-day command and control of his forces.
"The whole Gaddafi apparatus is crumbling," an Obama administration official said.
"Right now, Gaddafi's No 1 concern is probably self-preservation," another US official said.
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