Libya Clash: Gaddafi’s wife along with her sons 'Ran away’ to Algeria'

According to the Algerian authorities, the wife of Libyan leader Qaddafi along with her three children is in Algeria.

The foreign ministry said in a statement that Col Gaddafi's wife Safia, daughter Ayesha and sons Muhammad and Hannibal left Libya early on Monday. It said they had crossed the border between Libya and Algeria at 08:45 local time (07:45 GMT) on Monday. The first statement of such a move had already come from Libyan rebel headquarters two days ago, and that at the time, Algerian officials rejected that a convoy of six profoundly armored vehicles had crossed the border.

Algeria is an obvious safe heaven for the Gaddafi family as the two countries have a long border and the Algerian government has still not accepted the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), our correspondent says. "They have been welcomed on humanitarian grounds," Algeria's ambassador to the UN, Mourad Benmehidi, told the BBC World Service.

Algeria's UN ambassador said they were received on compassionate grounds.

In the mean time rebels said they had opened four mass graves in the current days. They were believed to get the corpses of army officers who denied fighting for Col Gaddafi.

The site is near the barracks of the army brigade headed by Col Gaddafi's son Khamis, who activists said may have been murdered in a fighting near Bani Walid. The reports came as Libyan rebels were attempted to defeat the pockets of resistance by Gaddafi loyalists, and planning to advance on Col Gaddafi's birthplace, Sirte. Col Gaddafi's own position is unknown. "The blessed rule of generosity in our culture is something that one has to keep in mind, particularly in the desert region where it's a duty to give help to anybody else."

The NTC spokesman Mahmoud Shamman said: "This would be an act of anger against the Libyan people and against the desires of the Libyan people.  "We will use all legal sources to hunt for the return of these offenders and to bring them to justice in Libya."  Muhammad and Hannibal are two of the sons with the least participation in politics.

Activists had earlier suggested that other sons may be in or close to the Gaddafi stronghold of Sirte.

On Monday, rebel Col Al-Mahdi Al-Haragi was referred as saying Khamis, who has led a frightened military unit accused for a bloodbath last week, had died after being badly injured in a fighting.  Ahmed Bani, Rebel military spokesman said bodies in a group devastated during the clash were burnt beyond respect, but seized soldiers said they were Khamis' bodyguards.

He also said Col Gaddafi's brother-in-law and the head of his intelligence services, Abdullah al-Sanussi, was "about surely killed" in the same conflict.

There were stories prior in the fighting that Khamis had been killed in an air strike, though those reports were later inquired. Alleges prior this month that activists had captured Col Gaddafi's most leading son, Saif al-Islam, turned out not to be true. Rebel fighters have been pushing towards Sirte, and initially capture the small town of Nofilia on their way to the city.

The rebels say they consider Col Gaddafi himself may still be in the Tripoli area.

In the mean time a leaked paper that shows to outline UN proposals for post-conflict Libya calls for up to 200 military observers and 190 UN police to assist in stabilizing the country.

The operation would follow a UN mission with a core staff of 61 civilians for an earlier three month period, according to the report on the website Inner City Press.

Any such strategy would be acted upon only if required by the Libyan transitional authorities and approved by the Security Council, it said.