@bnnNEWSLIVEWAR IN LIBYA
The Tuareg of one Libyan town are discovering there are serious consequences for the support some of them gave to Colonel Gaddafi.
"Really, Mr Justin, now we are in good condition. Believe me, I am too happy to see you. My God, now I feel shy."
The exuberant greetings are one of the great joys of travelling in Libya.
In this case, my old friend Mohammed Ali from the southern Libyan oasis town of Ghadames was particularly effusive, having heard that I had just been released by my Tuareg kidnappers after being held captive in the desert.
We had not seen each other in almost 13 years.
I had wanted to travel south from Tripoli to meet old friends from a desert expedition years before.
I had also wanted to look into stories I had been hearing about conflict breaking out in Ghadames between the town's mixed Arab-Berber population and the Tuareg.
Held hostageThe two populations have lived together, sometimes uneasily, for centuries.
Gaddafi's use of the Tuareg as local enforcers during the revolution had stirred up these divisions. Now that the town had risen up and expelled them, reprisals were in the air.
"The Tuareg can never come back here," one Ghadamsi told me in Tripoli. "Not after what they have done in the last six months."
I drove down with my friend Taher and his family, who have lived in Ghadames for generations. In the end, we never got there.
Our car was forced off the road just outside the oasis by 16 Tuareg armed with Kalashnikovs.
They hauled us out of the car, forced us onto the ground, tied our arms behind our backs, blindfolded us and drove us into the Sahara.
The following morning, they told us we were going to be killed unless Tuareg prisoners held in the town were released by noon.
The deadline came and went.
While I was being questioned, they said the Ghadamsis had robbed, set fire to and bulldozed their houses, killed the sheikh of the Tuareg and slaughtered all their animals.
Twenty-four hours after we were taken, Taher's wife and two-year-old son - together with an old man kidnapped two days earlier - were released with me. They kept hold of Tah
