Rory McCarthy in Islamabad Monday December 2, 2002 The Guardian

The son of Colonel Muammar Gadafy delivered an unexpected rebuff to the west last night when he warned that Libya should drop its support for the American-led war on terrorism.

Saif-ul Islam Gadafy, who is seen as the Libyan leader's heir apparent, said Tripoli should no longer pass on crucial intelligence reports about al-Qaida to the US and Britain. The price of a war against Osama bin Laden's network was too high, he said.

"The only thing we will get is the enmity of al-Qaida and that is it," Mr Gadafy, 30, told the Guardian in Islamabad. "It is not our war. It is some thing between al-Qaida and America."

His words mark a significant shift in policy for a country whose secular regime made it one of al-Qaida's earliest foes.

The new warning comes despite repeated efforts from Tripoli, most led by the younger Gadafy, to end years of isolation and to improve ties with the US and Britain.

Mr Gadafy, who is visiting Pakistan as the head of his large Libyan charity, also said he had received a fresh message from al-Qaida which indicated that Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were still alive.

"Yes, yes, he is alive. That is sure. I think they are in high morale and they will carry on attacks," he said. Bin Laden was still in or close to Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said, although many of his "close circle" of followers had fled to other countries in the Middle East and Asia.

He declined to say how he had got the message but said terrorist chiefs had asked him to help the families of many al-Qaida figures go home.

In the past year, Libya has flown 65 people from Afghanistan to Tripoli, mostly families of Arabs who were living in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Such repatriations would continue, Mr Gadafy said.

In March 1998, Libya became the first to issue an Interpol arrest warrant for Bin Laden, five months before the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which left 224 dead. In the months after September 11, Libyan agents continued to pass on reports about al-Qaida activities.

But now Tripoli appears increasingly frustrated that its cooperation has done little to thaw ties with the west. The government fears that Libya, too, could fall victim to a terrorist atack after dozens of suspected al-Qaida attacks in nearby countries including Tunisia, Yemen, and Kenya.

"There is no reason to help the Americans in this war against al-Qaida because then you will be dragged into that war and you will pay a price for nothing," Mr Gadafy said. "Any country which will help the Americans in their war against al-Qaida it will be a target for those people."

Mr Gadafy said he thought a war with Iraq would be a "disaster" that would destabilise regimes in the Middle East. Iraq was one of the "pillars in the region," he said.

Libya maintains strong ties with Iraq.

Mr Gadafy said that Libya still wanted to improve its ties with the west and was prepared to pay damages to the victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, in which 270 people died.

However, he said that accepting responsibility for the bombing was something "we cannot swallow easily".

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2002