Libya: Gaddafi regime's US-UK spy links revealed

US and UK spy agencies built close ties with their Libyan counterparts during the so-called War on Terror, according to documents discovered at the office of Col Gaddafi's former spy chief.



The papers suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 and handed them to Tripoli.



The UK's MI6 also apparently gave the Gaddafi regime details of dissidents.



The documents have not been seen by the BBC and have not been independently verified.



Meanwhile, the head of Libya's interim governing body, the National Transitional Council, said its soldiers were laying siege to towns still held by Col Gaddafi's forces.



Mustafa Abdel Jalil said Sirte, Bani Walid, Jufrah and Sabha were being given humanitarian aid, but had one week to surrender.

'Protecting Americans'



Thousands of pieces of correspondence from US and UK officials were uncovered by reporters and activists in an office apparently used by Moussa Koussa, who served for years as Col Gaddafi's spy chief before becoming foreign minister.He defected in the early part of the rebellion, flying to the UK and then on to Qatar.



Rights groups have long accused him of involvement in atrocities, and had called on the UK to arrest him at the time.



Human Rights Watch, whose workers helped to discover the papers, accused the CIA of condoning torture.



"It wasn't just abducting suspected Islamic militants and handing them over to the Libyan intelligence," said Peter Bouckaert of HRW.



"The CIA also sent the questions they wanted Libyan intelligence to ask and, from the files, it's very clear they were present in some of the interrogations themselves," he said.



The papers outline the rendition of several suspects, including one that Human Rights Watch has identified as Abdel Hakim Belhaj, known in the documents as Abdullah al-Sadiq, who is now the military commander of the anti-Gaddafi forces in Tripoli.