THE GUARDIAN: Heads of external security and military intelligence will play a significant role in shaping post-revolution Libya, experts sayIn the Libyan capital, Tripoli, international journalists have taken to playing a kind of parlour game.
They try to calculate which officials and members of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's family are important in a regime that is so opaque at times as to be – in practical terms – impenetrable.
Of Gaddafi's sons, is it Saif al-Islam, the most visible and accessible to the world, who invited in the international media? Or Saadi, a businessman? Is it Khamis, the most active on the battlefield – and the most hardline?
It is speculation that has only increased with the defection to the UK of Moussa Koussa, Libya's foreign minister and former intelligence chief. Even before his flight to Britain questions were being asked. Had Koussa been sidelined in the last two years since taking over at the foreign ministry? And if he had been sidelined, by whom? And what does it mean?
What seems beyond doubt is that Koussa has long represented the old guard which for decades was close to Gaddafi, but which – if the Tripoli rumour mill is to be believed – has recently been pushed aside by Gaddafi's competing sons.
Others suggest that, ironically, Koussa may have become tainted in Gaddafi circles by virtue of his success in opening up contacts with western intelligence agencies, with whom he negotiated Libya's transformation from pariah status in the last decade. » | Peter Beaumont | Thursday, March 31, 2011
