Top Gaddafi loyalists flee to Niger in desert trek

Convoys of Muammar Gaddafi loyalists, including his security chief, fled across the Sahara Desert into neighboring Niger on Tuesday in a move that Libya's former rebels hoped could undermine the ousted leader's support in his last strongholds in the country and help lead to their surrender.

Still, efforts to negotiate the peaceful handover of one of the most crucial of those strongholds, the city of Bani Walid, proved difficult. (AP)