The Gaddafi escape route

Dar es Salaam. Rebel forces may be on the verge of taking over the whole of Libya, but Col Muammar Gaddafi’s elusiveness and the way he is said to have escaped from Tripoli convinces many he will be around for quite some time.

Although they believe there is no way he can rule Libya again, those arguing that he should not be counted out yet had their conviction strengthened by the statements he made on Thursday to mark 42 years of his rule.

The 69-year old leader warned from hiding that tribes loyal to him were well-armed and preparing for battle, hours after rebels, hoping for a peaceful surrender, extended the deadline for loyalist forces to give up in the long-time Libyan leader's hometown. Gaddafi's audio statement, broadcast by Syrian-based Al-Rai TV, came as the rebels said they were closing in on the former dictator. Some analysts say eliminating his threat will take time because he has the infrastructure, will and human support to facilitate his hiding and insurgency.

According to them, it is the network of tunnels across the capital and some areas in the country as well as a sophisticated system of bunkers that will support the message he sent out on Thursday—guerrilla warfare. "Let it be a long battle. We will fight from place to place, from town to town, from valley to valley, from mountain to mountain," Gaddafi said.

"If Libya goes up in flames, who will be able to govern it? Let it burn." He spoke from hiding on the anniversary of the coup that brought him to power in 1969.

As rebel forces continue to hunt for him, speculation is rife that Libya’s Great Man-Made River—a vast underground irrigation system built by the regime— could have aided the dictator’s escape from Tripoli. The world’s largest irrigation project, whose construction began in 1984, is a network of four metre-wide pipes that takes water from beneath Sahara desert to the coast, serving 70 per cent of Libyans.

Besides using the river infrastructure to escape, he is expected to use it to destablise Libya, for that was the other reason of hugely investing in it. There are even reports that the tunnels and bunkers are strategic arsenals for the deposed leader, which he uses as hideouts even for chemical weapons.

“Even after rebels stormed into the capital and overwhelmed his residence, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi had plenty of places to hide,” noted Mr Liacyr Ribeiro, the Brazilian doctor who performed plastic surgery on Gaddafi in 1995. Claiming to be among the few who claim firsthand knowledge of what he has up his sleeve, Dr Ribeiro said he was escorted underground past midnight to several bunkers, which "had two fully equipped and very modern operating rooms, a gym and a swimming pool".

Gaddafi is known to have had deep bunkers under his Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli. Some former officials say the compound was connected by long tunnels to far-flung parts of Tripoli in a hidden network that would provide a quick escape route.

Few have seen the tunnels and it is not certain they exist. But the reported "underground city" fits in with the aura that Gaddafi cultivated—a mix of subterfuge, rumour and myth that kept Libya's people guessing and his opponents confused.

That aura—plus a healthy dose of brutal retaliation—helped him survive dozens of assassination attempts and would-be coups during his decades in power. During the six-month-old uprising against him, Gaddafi often showed an almost wraithlike elusiveness, making sudden appearances in public then vanishing.

"There are so many rat holes in Tripoli,” said Col Ahmed Bani, a rebel military spokesman, noting that as long as Gaddafi remains at large, he holds the potential to strike back. “We are searching for him in the holes.”

Two major cities also remain in the hands of Gaddafi—his hometown Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast east of Tripoli, and Sebha, deep in the desert 650 kilometres south of Tripoli. Sebha is site of a significant military and air force base and, if Gaddafi can reach it, would provide him the option of easy desert escape routes into neighbouring Niger and Chad. Mr Omar Hussein, who served in the Tripoli police force until he joined the rebels, said it was widely believed among residents of the capital that Bab al-Aziziya sits atop “an underground city”.


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