See also New York Times, "Son Denies Rebels’ Claim That Qaddafi Is Cornered":
TRIPOLI, Libya — A top official of Libya’s transitional government said Wednesday that its fighters had cornered Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in a desert redoubt 150 miles from the capital and were exhorting him to give up, in what would bring a sense of finality to the prolonged uprising that routed him and his family from Tripoli a week ago.Maybe folks should hold off on this talk of a "transitional council." You gotta get that old council out before you can transition a new one.
But one of Colonel Qaddafi’s fugitive sons, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, threw a new if improbable taunt at the rebels even as they said they had closed in on his father, vowing in an audio statement that loyalists would never surrender and insisting that “victory will be near.”
“Our leadership is fine,” he said in the statement broadcast on the Al Rai television channel of Syria and other Arab broadcasting outlets. “We are drinking tea and coffee.”
Seif al-Islam gave no indication in the statement of his precise whereabouts except that he was in a Tripoli suburb, and it was not clear if his remarks had been prerecorded. But the statement itself raised the possibility of more fighting and underscored the ability of the Qaddafis to frustrate the alliance of rebel forces that has become the effective government of Libya.
