@hlk01kristin
Attack on Gaddafi bastion startstheaustralian.com.au/news/world/att… #libya #baniwalid <- they are still talking
FIGHTERS for Libya's new rulers began an assault on a bastion of Muammar Gaddafi yesterday, as secret files shed light on his fallen regime's links to US and British spy agencies.
"We are preparing to enter Bani Walid and we will fight," National Transitional Council spokesman Mahmud Abdel Aziz said in Shishan, north of Bani Walid.
A dozen vehicles, including utes mounted with heavy machineguns, were seen heading further south towards Bani Walid while a commander, Ossama Ghazi, also set off yesterday, saying: "There is fighting."
Abdel Aziz said he expected Bani Walid to "fall within hours".
Earlier, the deputy chief of the military council of the town of Tarhuna, further north, said fighters for Libya's new leaders had given forces loyal to Gaddafi in Bani Walid until 6pm last night (AEST) to surrender.
Abdulrazzak Naduri said the ousted dictator 's son, Saadi Gaddafi, was still in Bani Walid, along with other regime cronies, while prominent son Saif al-Islam had fled the town.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi regime intelligence files appear to document deep co-operation between Western spy agencies, including the shipping of terrorist suspects for regime interrogation.
The cache of documents, originally obtained by Human Rights Watch from a Libyan security archive, includes blunt details about the secret 2004 seizure from Malaysia of an Islamic militant, who now commands the revolutionary forces in Tripoli.
The letters include an apparent CIA memo informing the Libyan authorities about the journey of "Abdullah al-Sadiq" and his pregnant wife from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, where the US would "take control" of the pair and hand them over to the regime.
Sadiq, named as a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is said to be the nom de guerre of Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, who now leads the militia of Libya's new rulers in Tripoli.
The documents show how the CIA, under the administration of US president George W. Bush, brought other terrorist suspects to Libya and suggested questions that Libyan interrogators should ask them.
British Security Service MI5 asked Gaddafi's secret services for regular updates on what terrorist suspects were revealing under interrogation in Libyan prisons, where torture was routine.
MI5 also agreed to trade information with Libyan spymasters on 50 British-based Libyans judged to be a threat to Gaddafi's regime. The disclosures come from secret intelligence documents left in the ruins of the British embassy in Tripoli.
They include an MI5 paper marked "UK/Libya Eyes Only Secret", which shows the service provided Gaddafi's spies with a trove of intelligence about Libyan dissidents in London, Cardiff, Birmingham and Manchester.
Other documents in the abandoned offices of British and Libyan officials reveal that the Ministry of Defence invited the dictator's sons Saadi and Khamis Gaddafi to a combat display at SAS headquarters in Hereford and a dinner at the Cavalry and Guards Club in Mayfair.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair helped Saif Gaddafi with his PhD thesis, beginning a personal letter with the words "Dear Engineer Saif", the files reveal.
The MI5 paper for Gaddafi's security services contains detailed information about members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militant dissident outfit with cells in Britain.
The document, prepared ahead of an MI5 visit to Tripoli in 2005, requested that Libyan intelligence should provide access to detainees held by secret police and to "timely debriefs" of interrogations.
It added: "The more timely (the) information, the better . . . Such intelligence is most valuable when it is current. It is notable that LIFG members in the UK become aware of the detention of members overseas within a relatively short period."
The documents also reveal that the Gaddafi regime warned British officials that there would be "dire consequences" for relations between Britain and Libya if Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi died in his Scottish jail cell.
In one file, seen by The Mail on Sunday, senior Foreign Office official Robert Dixon wrote to then foreign secretary David Miliband in January 2009 that Gaddafi wanted Megrahi to return to Libya "at all costs".
"Libyan officials and ministers have warned of dire consequences for the UK-Libya relationship and UK commercial operations in Libya in the event of Megrahi's death in custody," he wrote.
He added: "We believe Libya might seek to exact vengeance."
