Informants and intercepts used in hunt for Qaddafi

Reuters:

Libya's new military commanders are using informants from among Muammar Gaddafi's entourage to track down the fugitive former leader, while tightening the noose around his last strongholds to force them to surrender.

Hisham Buhagiar, a senior official in the military body behind Libya's ruling National Transitional Council, is coordinating efforts to hunt Gaddafi, chased out of his Tripoli compound after a six-month uprising.

Buhagiar said he believed Gaddafi was either in the Bani Walid area, southeast of Tripoli, or in his hometown of Sirte, 450 km (265 miles) east of Tripoli.

"There are some groups who are looking for him and also trying to listen to his calls. Of course he doesn't use the phone, but we know the people around him who use the phones," he said.

"Usually we trace a lot of people who are not in the first inner circle with him, but the second or third circle. We're talking to them," said Buhagiar.

"Some of them know that the regime is falling, and they want to make sure they don't get hurt ... They want to strike deals. That's why we've created the white list. Everyone who helps us is on the white list."

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It is not a bad plan and it has the added benefit of making it more difficult for Qaddafi to communicate with his remaining forces or to try to arrange passage out of the country. How many people are willing to die for someone who has already lost control of the country? It is a question that the remaining entourage must answer.