UNITED NATIONS (AFP) ― Moammar Gadhafi is a growing international terrorist threat while he remains free, the Libyan interim prime minister told the U.N. Security Council on Monday.
“Gadhafi’s battalions continue to kill innocent civilians in different regions of our country,” Mahmoud Jibril, number two in the National Transitional Council, said as he praised NATO’s airstrikes in Libya.
While NTC troops say they have Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte surrounded, Jibril said the deposed Libyan strongman has huge assets in “money and gold.”
“He and his sons are able to move freely and this could lead to greater destabilization until such time as Gadhafi and his acolytes are apprehended,” the Libyan leader told the 15-nation council.
“The simple fact that he is free and has at his disposal such wealth means that he is still able to destabilize the situation not only within my country but also in the Sahel and Sahara region,” Jibril told the council.
Jibril said that even outside Africa, Gadhafi “could return to his terrorist practices by providing arms” to militant groups.
The NTC leader said he was worried about the spread of Gadhafi-regime arms in Libya and neighboring countries. Niger and other countries have raised concerns about the arms and the possibility that they could be given to al-Qaida affiliated groups.
Collecting the arms will be a “main task” of the new government, which is also worried about reports of stockpiles of chemical weapons, Jibril said.
Jibril thanked the Security Council for passing its “historic” resolutions which allowed for sanctions against Gadhafi and the military action against Gadhafi targets.
He said resolutions 1970 and 1973 “clearly contributed to the protection of the lives of thousands of civilians.”
He said the action “represents an overwhelming victory for the rule of international ethics. This is a precedent which we hope will be followed by other initiatives to protect innocent civilians wherever they are,” added Jibril.
Libya’s interim leadership made its debut at the U.N. General Assembly last week after taking up the country’s U.N. seat from the Gadhafi regime.