Libya's new leaders set for Tripoli move

Libya's new leaders moved to restore order to Tripoli yesterday, instructing fighters from the provinces to go home as they prepared to transfer to the capital from their wartime base in Benghazi.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the world body was ready to assist in re-establishing security after the nearly seven-month uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, as Western governments that backed the rebels faced embarrassing questions about their previous complicity with his regime.
There was still no firm word on the whereabouts of the toppled strongman after he defiantly threatened to lead a protracted insurgency in audio tapes aired by Arab media on Thursday.
The victors extended until next weekend an ultimatum for the surrender of his remaining loyalists but moved troops towards Bani Walid, a desert town southeast of the capital where they suspect Gaddafi may have taken refuge.
"Starting Saturday, there will be a large number of security personnel and policemen who will go back to work," interim interior and security minister Ahmed Darrad told AFP.
"Now the revolutionaries of Tripoli are able to protect their own city."
Darrad said that fighters from the provinces who were instrumental in ousting Gaddafi from the capital had orders to return home in a move aimed at defusing potential tensions with Tripoli residents who endured the ravages of the regime in its dying days.
"We will go to Tripoli next week. Tripoli is our capital," NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil said.
Banks and some shops in the capital reopened yesterday, AFP correspondents reported. Traffic jams also made a comeback as the NTC fighters took down some of the roadblocks it had set up after their capture of Tripoli last month.
Bolstered by promises made at an international conference in Paris on Thursday of billions of dollars in cash from unfrozen assets of the Gaddafi regime, the NTC prepared to implement a roadmap for establishing democracy.
For the first eight months the NTC would lead Libya, during which a council of about 200 people would be directly elected to draft a constitution, NTC representative in Britain Guma al-Gamaty told the BBC on Friday.
The draft would be debated and then put to a referendum, he added, referring to plans drawn up in March and refined last month.
Within a year of the council being installed, parliamentary and presidential elections would be held.
The UN chief said that the world body would do all it could to assist Libya's new rulers in restoring order and establishing democracy.
"We are working to make sure that the United Nations can respond quickly to requests by the Libyan authorities," Ban said in Australia Saturday.
"This includes restoring public security and order and promoting rule of law, promoting inclusive political dialogue... and protecting human rights, particularly for vulnerable groups."
Documents seized from the homes and offices of Gaddafi officials threw an embarrassing light on the cooperation between Western intelligence agencies and the regime's security services over the past decade as London and Washington wooed Tripoli in their wars against al-Qaeda and nuclear proliferation.