Libya: Al-Qaeda behind unrest, Gaddafi tells Serbian TV

Belgrade, 28 Feb. (AKI) – Embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has blamed Al-Qaeda militants for the current unrest his country, but claimed these were “small groups of terrorists which would be "dealt with".

In a telephone statement to private Serbian television Pink, aired late on Sunday, Gaddafi also blamed the United Nations Security Council for approving sanctions and an arms embargo on Libya "on the basis of media reports”.

“It is unacceptable, it’s contrary to sound reasoning,” Gaddafi said. “If the Council wanted to learn something, it should have sent a commission to Libya to determine the truth and only after receiving its report vote on a resolution,” he added.

Under the circumstances, the sanctions were “null and void”, he said.

Pink television crew flew by a private plane to Tripoli on Friday and spent two days shooting footage showing “normal life” in the capital and people quietly drinking coffee in areas earlier reported by western media as being “razed to ground”.

The crew was accompanied by former Yugoslav president Zoran Lilic, who has portrayed himself as being a “close friend” of Gaddafi, but it was not clear whether he had actually met with the embattled leader.

It was also not clear whether Gaddafi’s telephone statement was taped in Tripoli, or by telephone from Belgrade, but he wasn’t shown in the Pink footage.

Blaming recent unrest in Libya on Al-Qaeda “terrorist bands”, Gaddafi said people had been killed in an exchange of fire between rebels and his forces.

“A very small number of individuals were killed on both sides as compared to reports abroad,” Gaddafi said.

The United Nations estimates at least 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in nearly two weeks of violence in which eastern cities have fallen to anti-government forces which now also control the coastal city of Zawiya just just 50 kilometres west of the capital, Tripoli. About 100,000 people have fled Libya over the past week, mainly into Tunisia, the UN estimates.

“At the moment, there are no incidents and Libya is completely calm, there is nothing unusual, there is no unrest,” he said. “The Libyan people are completely behind me."

"There is a small surrounded group and we will certainly solve it,” Gaddafi said, referring to the eastern Libyan cities now under the control of anti-government forces, allegedly with the support of Al-Qaeda.

US terrorist-tracking organisation SITE said Al- Qaeda's North African branch last Thursday posted message pledging its support for the uprising in Libya against Gaddafi's "oppressive" 41-year rule. The message said it deplored "the carnage and the cowardly massacres" allegely carried out by foreign mercenaries and heavy weaponry against Libyan protesters on behalf of Gaddafi .

Lilic said western media reporting on Libya events had been greatly distorting, comparing the reporting to the 1991-1995 war which followed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

But Iraqi-born former Belgrade student, Zawiji Dzafer Sahib, who has spent 20 years as political science professor in Libya, told Serbian news agency Beta that Gaddafi’s grip on power had its “good and bad sides”.

Sahib said the good side was relative prosperity and good living standards, while bad side was the Libyan strongman's autocratic rule. “Gaddafi doesn’t realise he is living in 21st century,” he said.

Sahib, who was evacuated with a group of Serbian workers from Libya last week, said the current crisis could subside "provided that foreign elements don’t pour oil onto the fire."

But the eastern part of the country, controlled by rebels, “is gone and I expect it will secede,” Sahib concluded.

The United has publicly backed anti-Gaddafi groups in eastern Libya.

Speaking on her way to a meeting of world foreign ministers in Geneva on Monday, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Washington was "reaching out to many different Libyans in the east".