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Three weeks after the fall of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, rebels are claiming they have located Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi. While a spokesperson for Tripoli’s new military council claimed that Gaddafi was surrounded within a 40 mile radius, others in the transitional government are unsure of his whereabouts. This morning, an audio recording of Gaddafi was broadcast on a Syria-based television station, taunting the rebels and referring to them as “intruders,” “mercenaries,” and “stray dogs.” Gaddafi’s wife and three of his children fled to Algeria last week while senior officials from his government escaped in convoys of pick-up trucks through Libya’s vast Sahara Desert into Niger. Among those fleeing the OPEC member nation are Nigerian Tuareg Fighters who were reportedly brought in by Gaddafi to put down the civilian uprising. Initial media reports on the conflict identified African mercenaries as providing ongoing military support for Gaddafi. Recently, this has been disputed by sources on the ground, however no concrete proof is available from the Gaddafi Loyalists or the Rebels to back up their contradictory accounts. The rebel-led National Transitional Council has imprisoned hundreds of Africans, and over 200 Nigerian citizens, on suspicion of being mercenaries. The majority of those arrested claim to be African migrant workers, victims of racial bias and a chaotic political situation. Meanwhile, a Human Rights Watch analysis of Libyan government documents confiscated in Tripoli shows a cozy relationship between Gaddafi, former President Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The documents may be proof that between 2003 and 2004, the CIA, Britain’s MI6, and the Libyan intelligence organization coordinated the capture and rendition of a man named Abdl Hakim Bel-haj, currently a commander with the Libyan rebel forces. Bel-haj claims he was tortured during interrogations in Libya.

GUEST: Naseer Aruri, Chancellor Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and also president of the Trans-Arab Research Institute