Muammar Gaddafi said yesterday he is in a place where Nato bombs cannot reach him, after his government spokesman denied suggestions that the Libyan leader was wounded and on the run.
“I want to say to the Crusader cowards that I live in a place where I cannot be reached or killed; I live in the hearts of millions,” Colonel Gaddafi said in an audio message broadcast on state television.
He referred to an early-Thursday strike on his Bab al-Aziziya compound that “led to the martyrdom of three civilians, journalists”, meaning the recording, the authenticity of which could not be verified, was made since then.
And he thanked heads of state who had asked about his health after the Nato air strike.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini had said earlier that Col Gaddafi may be on the run and wounded.
Mr Frattini’s remarks, based on comments he said were made to him by Giovanni Martinelli, the Roman Catholic bishop of Tripoli, came as rebel leader Mahmud Jibril was headed for the White House to press for US recognition and aid.
Mr Frattini had earlier told Corriere della Sera daily: “I am of the view that (Col Gaddafi) has probably fled from Tripoli but not from the country.”
But Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told journalists in the capital that “the leader is in very good health, high morale, high spirits,” and “he is in Tripoli.”
Mr Frattini had also said international pressure was causing “the disintegration of the regime from the inside, which is what we wanted.”
He added that arms depots had been raided by rebels on the outskirts of Tripoli in the past few hours.
Meanwhile, Mr Ibrahim told the news conference in Tripoli that a Nato air strike had killed 11 imams who had gathered in Brega, putting the number of wounded people at 50, including five in critical condition.
A spokesman in Brussels said the Western military alliance had no information on the veracity of the claim.
At the news conference, an imam identified as Nureddin al-Mijrah called for “Muslims all around the world” to kill 1,000 people for each of the dead imams, naming acceptable targets as “France, Italy, Denmark, Britain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.”
With rebel forces claiming to be only 10 kilometres from Zliten, their next main military target on the road to Tripoli, insurgent leader Mahmud Jibril, who handles foreign affairs for the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC), was to hold talks with US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is meeting Mr Jibril in Paris today to discuss the conflict and prospects for transition, the French presidency said.
Officials would not say whether President Barack Obama would drop by, a practice sometimes used with guests for whom protocol does not dictate an official meeting.
The Libyan opposition, based in the eastern city of Benghazi, wants Washington to recognise the body as “the sole legitimate interlocutor of the Libyan people,” he said.