Gadhafi's daughter gives birth to a baby girl in Algeria theprov.in/oTQHWU More stories #Libya here theprov.in/hwFirS
Aisha, daughter of Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi, saluting the crowds gathered in her father's residence in Tripoli. According to the Algerian authorities Aisha gave birth to a baby girl at an undisclosed location in Algeria on August 30, 2011, the day after Algeria authorized the entry of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's wife and three children, including Aisha, for "strictly humanitarian reasons". Photograph by: Joseph Eid, AFP/Getty Images
ALGIERS - Moammar Gadhafi's daughter gave birth to a baby girl in Algeria Tuesday as Algiers said it decided to grant safe haven to the wife and three chidren of the ousted Libyan leader for "strictly humanitarian reasons".
Aisha gave birth very early this morning. She had a little girl. Mother and daughter are doing fine," said a government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Earlier Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani insisted that Aisha, her brothers Mohammed and Hannibal, as well as their mother Safiya, Gadhafi's second wife, were allowed into the country "for strictly humanitarian reasons."
"We have informed the Secretary General of the United Nations, the president of the (UN) Security Council and the president of the executive council of the NTC," he said in an e-mail sent to AFP.
Belani was commenting on a request issued by Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) for the return of the Gadhafi family members.
When the Libyan foreign ministry on Monday announced the arrival of the Gadhafi family, the rebels' justice minister Mohammed al-Allagya told AFP that the Algerian authorities would be asked to send them back to Libya.
The spokesman of the rebel government, Mahmud Shammam, said on Monday evening that the NTC had been told by Algeria of the family's arrival.
"We'd like those persons to come back," Shammam said, adding that Algeria had given them a "pass" to go to a third country.
"Saving Gadhafi's family is not an act we welcome and understand," he told a press conference in Tripoli late on Monday.
"We can assure our neighbours that we want better relations with them . . . but we are determined to arrest and try the Gadhafi family and Gadhafi himself," Shammam went on, saying the rebels guaranteed a "fair trial."
So far Algeria has not recognized the NTC and has adopted a stance of strict neutrality on the Libyan conflict, leading some among the rebels to accuse it of supporting the Gadhafi regime.
Pierre Vermeren, a French researcher at the African affairs centre in Bordeaux and expert n north African affairs, said ties were "more than cold because the Algerians do not recognize (the NTC) and for months there have been rumours of help by some parts within the Algerian army for the Gadhafi regime . . .
"While the Algerians welcomed the fall of (Zine El Abidine) Ben Ali (in Tunisia in January), they didn't seem content with the fall of Gadhafi.
"(Algerian President Abdelaziz) Bouteflika has said nothing," Vermeren pointed out.
With Gadhafi's whereabouts still a mystery, there has been speculation that he is hiding out among tribal supporters in his birthplace, the coastal town of Sirte.
Rebels say they are negotiating with civic and tribal leaders to try to broker Sirte's peaceful surrender.
Algeria has "since February been accused of supplying military aid to Gadhafi, particularly by providing planes to transport mercenaries," said Didier Le Saout, a north African expert at Paris university.
"Algeria will be the state in the region to have the worst relations with the new Libyan authorities."
The Algerian foreign ministry said nothing on the whereabouts of Gadhafi's other children, including Seif al-Islam, his most prominent son, whom the rebels claimed to have captured, together with Mohammed, earlier this month.
Seif al-Islam mysteriously resurfaced, free, days later.
But Italian news agency ANSA said Gadhafi's youngest son, Khamis, had "almost certainly" been killed on the way from Tripoli southwards to Bani Walid.
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