TRIPOLI: British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will travel to Libya Thursday, in what would be the first visits by foreign heads of state since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, the interim government said.
The visit would give Cameron and Sarkozy, who pushed Western powers to help rebels in their uprising against Gadhafi, a chance to tout the success of a NATO air campaign in which their armed forces played a key part.
“They are coming tomorrow. First to Tripoli and then to Benghazi,” NTC vice chairman and official spokesman, Abdel Hafiz Ghoga told Reuters.

The two will meet chairman of the ruling National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, in Tripoli before travelling to Benghazi, the cradle of the uprising, NTC sources said. Neither Downing Street or the Elysee presidential palace have confirmed the visit.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is also scheduled to visit Libya Thursday as part of a North African tour. Egypt’s foreign minister Mohammad Kamel Amr is also expected in Tripoli.

Jeffrey Feltma, the United States’ top Middle East diplomat, visited the capital Wednesday and praised efforts to assert control of armed groups three weeks after Gadhafi was overthrown. Washington has taken a back seat to France and Britain in the NATO-led airstrikes that helped the ragtag rebel coalition take Tripoli last month.
However, Feltman assured interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil of continued NATO support and played down fears of a hostile Islamist takeover.

Feltman said Washington remained committed to NATO and Gulf Arab air operations to thwart any threats to civilians, as Gaddafi’s fugitive spokesman renewed claims that the ousted strongman was still in the country and rallying his forces for a fightback in several stubborn loyalist bastions.

Feltman also praised Abdel Jalil’s NTC for progress toward bringing the army, police and a host of local and partisan militias under its control.
Foreign powers are worried about the risk of anarchy after 42 years of Gadhafi’s eccentric personal rule at odds with much of the world.

The EU demanded Wednesday an end to arbitrary killings and detentions by both sides, and especially to attacks on sub-Saharan Africans and black Libyans, who have been widely accused of having fought for Gadhafi.
Feltman, an assistant secretary of state, said: “We remain encouraged by growing command and control over security and police forces. We understand that this is a difficult task.

“Libya’s interim leadership is solidifying the steps and integrating militias under one civilian authority.”
Asked about the strength of Islamist groups in the rebel coalition which overthrew Gadhafi last month, he said: “We are not concerned that one group will be able to dominate the aftermath of what has been a shared struggle.”

He also said he expected the new rulers in Tripoli to “share concerns about terrorism” with Washington. Some senior Islamists among the rebel forces have in the past been allied with enemies of the United States, though they have since welcomed cooperation with the Western military alliance. NTC deputy chairman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga told Reuters in Benghazi that the chairman, Abdel Jalil, and the NTC would remain based in their eastern stronghold, rather than in the capital in the west, at least until the “liberation” of those cities remaining in the hands of Gadhafi’s supporters.

The declaration of liberation, which some NTC officials have said might also be dependent on Gadhafi being found or killed, is a key signal to start a timetable for drawing up a new constitution and elections. There is already much debate within Libya about how such political decisions are to be made.
Gadhafi has not been seen in public since June. His spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, speaking on a satellite phone from an undisclosed location, told Reuters the 69-year-old leader was still in Libya, in good spirits and ready to fight back.

“The leader is in good health, in high morale … of course he is in Libya,” said Ibrahim, who declined to give his own location. “The fight is as far away from the end as the world can imagine. We are still very powerful, our army is still powerful, we have thousands upon thousands of volunteers.”
While his opponents would scoff at the idea of a successful Gadhafi comeback, they have been concerned at the difficulties they have had in taking the final bastions of his support.

Interim government forces are besieging one of those last bastions, Bani Walid, 180 km south of Tripoli, along with Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast and Sabha, deep in the southern desert.
After a week of fighting NTC forces at Bani Walid have been urging people to leave before they try to storm the town. Scores of cars packed with families left Bani Walid Wednesday as NTC forces broadcast messages telling them to go and handed out free petrol to help them evacuate.

“There is a lot of random shooting. It is much safer for my children to leave. Gadhafi militia men do not want to negotiate,” Fathalla al-Hammali, 42, said, driving away from the town with his three young children.
Daw Saleheen, who is heading regional forces battling for control of Bani Walid, said he was ready to use heavy weapons against an estimated 1,200 loyalists, who had placed rockets and mortars on civilian homes as well as dozens of 200 snipers.

“We know all their positions,” Saleheen told reporters on the northern outskirts of his home town. “We have sent a message to all civilians that if they can they must leave now.” Independent information from the town is limited to comments from refugees. Previous deadlines set by the NTC forces have passed with little change in the stalemate.
Gadhafi’s whereabouts are unknown. His wife and three of his children fled across the desert to Algeria. Another son, Saadi, who once played professional soccer, has joined some other high-level loyalists in Niger, further to the south.

A Niger government source said Tuesday that Saadi had been transferred from the northern desert town of Agadez to the capital Niamey late Tuesday: “He is in a secure place. Like the others he is here on humanitarian grounds. He is not being sought after. He is under surveillance, not imprisoned.”
Gadhafi and another son, Seif al-Islam, long the heir apparent, are wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, though NTC officials have said Libyans would like to try them first.