Libya: Col Gaddafi has 'suicide plan' to blow up Tripoli

Source: The Telegraph

Col Muammar Gaddafi has a "suicidal plan" to blow up the capital Tripoli if it is taken by rebels, the Kremlin's special envoy to Libya said. 

In an unusually frank interview with Russian daily newspaper Izvestia, Mikhail Margelov, the Kremlin’s special representative for Africa, said Libya’s prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi had personally told him of the plan on a recent visit.

“The Libyan premier told me: if the rebels seize the city, we will cover it with missiles and blow it up,” said Mr Margelov who was in Libya last month for talks with both the government and the rebels. 

“I imagine that the Gaddafi regime does have such a suicidal plan,” he added, saying that Col. Gaddafi still had plentiful supplies of missiles and ammunition. 
 

The Libyan regime had yet to fire a single surface-to-surface missile for example, he noted, and had “more than enough” stocks of rockets and explosives in reserve. Mr Margelov should know since the Kremlin has been one of the Libyan regime’s major arms suppliers over the years. 

But the regime may start to run short of tank shells and ammo for small arms, he conceded. The biggest problem it was likely to face however was dwindling supplies of petrol to keep its war machine going, Mr Margelov said.