Hisham Buhagiar, who is coordinating efforts to find Gaddafi, said reports indicated he may have been in the region of the southern village of Ghwat, some 300 km north of the border with Niger, three days ago.

"He's out of Bani Walid I think. The last tracks, he was in the Ghwat area. People saw the cars going in that direction .... We have it from many sources that he's trying to go further south, toward Chad or Niger," Buhagiar said in an interview on September 6.

French and Niger military sources said a convoy of up to 250 vehicles was escorted to the northern city of Agadez by the army of Niger, a poor and landlocked former French colony. It might, said a French military source, be joined by Gaddafi en route to adjacent Burkina Faso, which has offered him asylum.

The US said it believed the convoy was carrying senior members of Gaddafi's entourage and urged Niger to detain anyone liable for prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the uprising against the deposed Libyan leader.