BENGHAZI, Libya, (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi’s son has made a bid to divide the fractious Libyan rebellion, telling a newspaper he was forging an alliance with Islamist rebels against their liberal allies.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s comments, in an interview with the New York Times, were a sign that the Libyan leader’s camp hopes to exploit divisions among the rebels revealed by the assassination of their military commander last week.
The newspaper quoted an Islamist rebel leader who confirmed contact with Gaddafi’s son. However, he pledged continued support for the opposition and denied a split with the liberal wing of the six-month-old rebellion.
The rebels scored a victory on Thursday, bringing a ship with a seized cargo of government-owned fuel into their port.
The docking of the Cartagena, a tanker carrying at least 30,000 tonnes of gasoline — a scarce commodity in government territory — boosted an insurgency which has broad international military and diplomatic backing but is struggling to oust Gaddafi in his 41st year as leader of the 60-year-old state.
Gaddafi has so far remained in control of the capital Tripoli despite severe fuel shortages and rebel advances on three fronts, backed since March by Western air strikes.
He has defied hopes in Western states of a swift exit, forcing them to await progress on political and military fronts.
The rebels face their own problems, from stalling battlefield momentum to internal splits, exposed starkly last week when military chief Abdel Fattah Younes was killed in circumstances that have yet to be fully explained.
Rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces have exchanged fire in the towns of Zlitan and Brega to the east of Tripoli, and a rebel offensive in the Western Mountains appeared to have stalled.
But a report from south of Tripoli suggested the revolt was spreading. According to a local resident of Msalata, 110 km (70 miles) from the capital, three Libyans were killed on Wednesday in a town until now unscathed by civil war violence.