Algiers (ANTARA News/AFP) - Moamer Kadhafi`s daughter gave birth to a baby girl in Algeria Tuesday as Algiers said it decided to grant safe haven to the wife and three chidren of the ousted Libyan leader for "strictly humanitarian reasons".

Aisha gave birth very early this morning. She had a little girl. Mother and daughter are doing fine," said a government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Earlier Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani insisted that Aisha, her brothers Mohammed and Hannibal, as well as their mother Safiya, Kadhafi`s second wife, were allowed into the country "for strictly humanitarian reasons."

"We have informed the Secretary General of the United Nations, the president of the (UN) Security Council and the president of the executive council of the NTC," he said in an e-mail sent to AFP.

Belani was commenting on a request issued by Libya`s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) for the return of the Kadhafi family members.

When the Libyan foreign ministry on Monday announced the arrival of the Kadhafi family, the rebels` justice minister Mohammed al-Allagya told AFP that the Algerian authorities would be asked to send them back to Libya.

The spokesman of the rebel government, Mahmud Shammam, said on Monday evening that the NTC had been told by Algeria of the family`s arrival.

"We`d like those persons to come back," Shammam said, adding that Algeria had given them a "pass" to go to a third country.

"Saving Kadhafi`s family is not an act we welcome and understand," he told a press conference in Tripoli late on Monday.

"We can assure our neighbours that we want better relations with them ... but we are determined to arrest and try the Kadhafi family and Kadhafi himself," Shammam went on, saying the rebels guaranteed a "fair trial."

So far Algeria has not recognised the NTC and has adopted a stance of strict neutrality on the Libyan conflict, leading some among the rebels to accuse it of supporting the Kadhafi regime.

Pierre Vermeren, a French researcher at the African affairs centre in Bordeaux and expert n north African affairs, said ties were "more than cold because the Algerians do not recognise (the NTC) and for months there have been rumours of help by some parts within the Algerian army for the Kadhafi regime... ."

"While the Algerians welcomed the fall of (Zine El Abidine) Ben Ali (in Tunisia in January), they didn`t seem content with the fall of Kadhafi.

"(Algerian President Abdelaziz) Bouteflika has said nothing," Vermeren pointed out.

With Kadhafi`s whereabouts still a mystery, there has been speculation that he is hiding out among tribal supporters in his birthplace, the coastal town of Sirte.

Rebels say they are negotiating with civic and tribal leaders to try to broker Sirte`s peaceful surrender.

Algeria has "since February been accused of supplying military aid to Kadhafi, particularly by providing planes to transport mercenaries," said Didier Le Saout, a north African expert at Paris university.

"Algeria will be the state in the region to have the worst relations with the new Libyan authorities."

The Algerian foreign ministry said nothing on the whereabouts of Kadhafi`s other children, including Seif al-Islam, his most prominent son, whom the rebels claimed to have captured, together with Mohammed, earlier this month.

Seif al-Islam mysteriously resurfaced, free, days later.

But Italian news agency ANSA said Kadhafi`s youngest son, Khamis, had "almost certainly" been killed on the way from Tripoli southwards to Bani Walid. (by Beatrice Khadige/AFP)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
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