Libya will launch a joint bid with Tunisia to stage the 2010 World Cup soccer finals, Saadi Kadhafi, the son of the Libyan leader, said on Friday.

South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria are the other nations bidding for the World Cup which will definitely be held in Africa under the FIFA scheme to alternate the tournament from continent to continent.

The 30-year-old Kadhafi, on the books of Italian soccer club Perugia, is also bidding to become the president of the African Football Confederation.

Tunisia is organising the 2004 African Nations football finals in January.

Libya bought its way back into the international fold last month when it formally took responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie that killed 270 people.

It agreed to pay 2.7 billion dollars (2.5 billion euros) to families of the victims, in return for a series of diplomatic measures aimed at ending Libya's status as a supporter of terrorism.

Last week Libya agreed to pay compensation to relatives of the 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French airliner over the Sahara.

And a charity foundation headed by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son said it would pay compensation to the relatives of three victims killed in a 1986 nightclub bombing in Berlin used by US servicemen.

The blast at the La Belle nightclub, popular with US servicemen, killed two American soldiers and a Turkish woman and wounded more than 250 people.