Muammar Qaddafi is suffering from an incurable illness, according to the respectable Arab newspaper A-sharq Al-Awsat, but it could be an excuse for him to leave Libya without disgrace.
The London-based newspaper reported Tuesday that sources said his illness is incurable, at least in Libya, and that he needs urgent treatment outside the country.
A-sharq Al-Awsat stated that Qaddafi sent his senior aide Bashir Saleh to Mali and Djerba for secret talks with French and British officials on how to get him out of Libya. His supposed illness was cited as the reason he recently has spoken to the public only by telephone, but a close associate of the family refused to comment on the report.
Qaddafi is known to be extremely eccentric as well as clever and practical. He has said he never will leave Libya, but if he sees that his regime cannot stand up to the opposition, he might be feigning an illness as way to leave honorably and possibly take with him his vast wealth.
The report, plus independent reports of secret talks in Tunisia and Mali, further substantiates analyses that the bloody and long drawn-out uprising is about to end.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday, "I think the sense is that Qaddafi's days are numbered," citing reports that NATO-backed Libyan rebels have cut off Tripoli.
The war between Qaddafi’s army and rebels has been a see-saw struggle, but if the opposition can retina its positions around the capital, Qaddafi might want to forestall a battle that he is not sure he can win.
Qaddafi's aides Tuesday night talked with United Nations officials, who are trying to negotiate an end to the war. The opposition Transitional National Council denied the report, but no denial was issued by Qaddafi’s aides.
Abdel-Elah al-Khatib, the former Jordanian foreign minister appointed by the United Nations to try to use diplomacy to end the war, said he met separately with rebels and officials from the regime and might meet a senior diplomat of Venezuela in Djerba.
A Spanish offer for asylum for Qaddafi was rejected, but the dictator might be more interested in refuge in a Latin American country, such as Venezuela, whose president Hugo Chavez is a close friend an ally of the Libyan dictator.