Saif al-Islam Qaddafi was captured Nov. 18 in Libya's southern desert near the city of Sabha—reportedly in an attempt to escape to neighboring Niger. Libyan state TV reported that Saif al-Islam arrived uninjured at a base in the town of Zintan, 90 miles southwest of Tripoli, after being captured by Zintan fighters, part of a regional militia that recognizes the National Transitional Council (NTC). Saif al-Islam is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity, but many in Libya want him tried locally. The militia fighters have stated that it is up to the NTC to decide where Saif al-Islam will be tried, but that until the new Libyan government is formed they will hold him at Zintan. ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he will travel to Libya to discuss Saif al-Islam's fate. (Jurist, Nov. 19)

NTC forces based in the western city of Zawiya have for the past days been clashing with Wershifanna tribal fighters in the nearby Hashan area. Rumors maintain that Saif al-Islam Qaddafi is being harbored by the tribal fighters. AFP tells us Warfalla tribesmen are "thirsting for revenge" after their bastion Bani Walid was "looted and pillaged" by anti-Qaddafi fighters. The Washington Post in its Nov. 13 report of the clashes notes that fighting also broke out two weeks ago when fighters from the city of Misrata and the mountain town of Zintan attempted to "settle old scores" at Tripoli's central hospital. There have also been at least three shoot-outs between a local Tripoli brigade in the upscale Hay al-Andalus district and a group of Zintanis who have taken up residence in the plush Regatta compound where Qaddafi cronies lived. Zintan is in the Berber area of western Libya, but a very pessimistic National Post analysis of Oct. 29 notes that Zintan is also the name of an Arab tribe from the area, also called the Megrahi, which is allied with the Warfalla tribe in opposition to the NTC. As we have written, these tribes are traditional enemies of Qaddafi's own tribe, the Qadhadfa, and joined the rebellion against him, but seem to have suffered reprisals by NTC forces nonetheless.

Niger's military clashed Nov. 7 with a heavily armed convoy travelling though the desert from Libya. Thirteen of the convoy's gunmen were killed and several captured. Authorities said they believed the convoy is made up of fleeing Qaddafi loyalists escorted by local Tuareg fighters, and headed for Mali. A huge weapons cache, including machine guns and rockets, was seized in the clashes in the Arlit area. Northern Niger's Radio Nomad reported that local traffickers are selling Libyan arms to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). (BBC News, Nov. 9)

All war crimes allegations against NATO, National Transitional Council (NTC), and pro-Qaddafi forces committed during the recent conflict will be investigated "impartially and independently" according to a statement (PDF) by the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo. In his statement to the UN Security Council, Ocampo gave an update on the events in Libya regarding the ICC investigation. According to the statement, after obtaining the required documents confirming Moammar Qaddafi's death, the case against him (PDF) will likely be dropped. The statement continued by detailing the cases against Saif al-Islam Qaddafi (PDF), Moammar Qaddafi's son, and Abdullah al-Senussi (PDF), Libya's head of intelligence, and what is being done to secure their capture.

Two days after two Spanish aid workers and one Italian were abducted by suspected al-Qaeda militants at the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf in western Algeria, Spain on Nov. 1 called for a UN investigation to evaluate the security situation in the camps, and to probe possible corruption in the distribution of international aid there. "We have asked the United Nations to send a mission to Algeria to assess the security situation in the camps of Tindouf," Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez told reporter after talks in Rabat with her Moroccan counterpart Taieb Fassi Fihri. The camps are under the control of the Polisario Front, which seeks the independence of neighboring Western Sahara from Morocco. Algeria, which traditionally backs the Polisario Front, has reportedly deployed both ground and air forces in an "urgent" operation in the remote Saharan region to prevent the escape of the kidnappers. (Al-Arabiya, Oct. 25)

Abdurraheem el-Keib, a dual US-Libyan citizen, was elected prime minister of Libya by leaders of the National Transitional Council who voted in a televised event Oct. 31, dropping ballots into a transparent box. Keib, described favorably as a "technocrat" by the Washington Post, attended the University of Tripoli in 1973, earned his MS at the University of Southern California in 1976, and his Ph.d. at North Carolina State University in 1984. He has taught at the University of Alabama and the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Most recently, he served as chair of the Electrical Engineering Department at the UAE's Petroleum Institute before joining Libya's interim council in the spring. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the US Department of Energy (DoE), Southern Company Services (SC), and the Alabama Power Company (APCO). (AntiWar.com, Nov. 1; WP, Oct. 31; The Petroleum Institute)

The UN Security Council voted unanimously Oct. 27 to lift the no-fly zone over Libya, bringing to a close the seven-month international military action in the country. But the war on the ground may not be over. Following demands by Human Rights Watch, the NTC says it will investigate allegations of reprisal attacks against residents of Tawergha and Sirte—towns said to have supported Moammar Qaddafi and sheltered his forces. HRW reports that militias from Misrata are terrorizing the displaced residents of outlying Tawergha, accusing them of having collaborated in the Qaddafi forces' long and bloody siege of the city. The entire town of 30,000 people is abandoned—some of it ransacked and burned, according to HRW investigators. (CNN, HRW via AllAfrica.com, Oct. 30; WSJ, Oct. 28)

Swiss Federal Judicial Police on Oct. 19 arrested Algeria's former defense minister Khaled Nezzar for questioning by prosecutors on "suspicion of war crimes." Nezzar, 73, was detained while in Geneva for medical treatment. The Swiss group Track Impunity Always (TRIAL) said the investigation was prompted by complaints by two victims stemming from Algeria's 1990s civil war pitting Islamist extremists against government forces, in which some 100,000 were killed. "The winds of the Arab Spring have reached Switzerland," said TRIAL's director Philip Grant. However, TRIAL criticized the Swiss prosecutor for releasing Nezzar "on the basis of a promise to attend" future hearings. TRIAL said he should have been kept in protective custody as he presented a high flight risk. (El Watan, Algeria, Oct. 24; AFP, Reuters, Oct. 22)