Did Gadhafi Strike a Deal With Rebels or Is He Playing Games?

Libya's opposition National Council said today that rebels have given Col. Moammar Gadhafi 72 hours to leave the country as part of murky and unconfirmed secret talks between the embattled strongman and the opposition.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil of the self-styled National Council told Al-Jazeera television that people close to Gadhafi's regime had approached the rebels a few days ago about a possible exit deal for Gadhafi and his family.

But Mohamed Eljahmi, a Libyan-American activist in contact with opposition leaders, told AOL News not to believe any deal proposed by Gadhafi, whose warplanes bombarded the oil-rich town of Ras Lanouf today and wrested back control of Zawiya.

"This is a story planted by Gadhafi to confuse the issue, to make world leaders think he wants to leave and buy himself a lot of time while he bombs Libya," said Eljahmi, whose family members are longtime Libyan dissidents.

"Gadhafi is playing games while he tries to reclaim the cities now held by the rebels."

Jalil said rebels will guarantee that Gadhafi and his family could leave the country without facing prosecution as long as all combat stopped immediately and he left within 72 hours.

But Mark Ellis of the International Bar Association said today that because the UN Security Council referred the Gadhafi family to the International Criminal Court, opposition leaders could not guarantee him immunity from prosecution.

The most important stipulation is that Gadhafi has to immediately concede he is not the ruler of Libya, Amal Bugaigis, a member of the opposition group the February 17 Coalition, told CNN.

The opposition's claims were among many conflicting reports about an alleged deal proposed by Gadhafi, on a day when a witness told The Associated Press that Gadhafi's tanks were roaming Zawiya, 30 miles west of Tripoli, and firing randomly at homes.

If true, the proposed exit deal comes as Western powers seem to be within days, if not hours, of enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya.

The U.S. and NATO allies increased the number of surveillance flights Monday over Libya; Britain and France said they have begun drafting a U.N. resolution that could establish a no-fly zone.

However, a Libyan Foreign Ministry official dismissed the report that Gadhafi had offered a deal as "absolute nonsense," Reuters reported.

Musa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, disputed the claim, saying reports of negotiations with the opposition are "lies."

Al-Arabiya Television quoted a spokesman from the Foreign Ministry who also denied having talks with the rebels.

But some Libyan political experts said that Gadhafi may have reached out to the rebels and pretended to offer a deal just to confuse and divide them.

Tarik Yousef, of the Dubai School of Government, told Al-Jazeera today that the alleged deal smacked of a "classic Gadhafi move."

"It sounds like typical Gadhafi strategy to either find out more information about what's going on with the opposition or to try to confuse them and divide them," Yousef said.

Gadhafi has offered another type of deal to the European Union, telling EU officials to send fact-finding teams down to Libya to investigate what Gadhafi said are lies and distortions about human rights abuses.

The Wall Street Journal quoted an anonymous source who said that "reform-minded" officials in Gadhafi's regime were lobbying for the exit plan.

The source said the plan involves Gadhafi ceding power to a "council of technocrats" who would lead a transitional government based on democratic modern institutions.

The source told the Journal that "more than 60 percent" of officials within Gadhafi's regime support a change in government.