Washington: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is on the run, his capital all but fallen to rebels, his hometown under siege. Now comes another difficult task for the rebels and the civilian government they are trying to install: capturing Gaddafi before the fugitive dictator is able to mount a revenge assault from hiding or inspire an insurgency that could drag on for years.
Gaddafi's wife and three of his children fled Libya to neighbouring Algeria on Monday. But the Obama administration said it has no indication that Gaddafi has left the country.
As US forces learnt in the massive, months long manhunt for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, intelligence will be key to finding him.
Thanks to NATO and its small cadre of military advisers on the ground in Libya, the rebels will be able to draw on electronic clues known as signals intelligence, ranging from images from drones, spy planes and satellites to stolen transmissions from radio and phones an advantage US troops did not have in 2003 in Iraq, when the use of such equipment was in its infancy, and the intelligence not well shared with those on the ground.
Greed also helps. Multimillion-dollar rewards led to the capture or killing of many of what the military calls "high value targets" in Iraq, including Saddam's sons Odai and Qusai in 2003.
A tipster in search of a reward revealed their whereabouts to the CIA, and the Army's Delta Force pounced, ultimately killing the sons in a protracted firefight in northern Iraq.
A Libyan businessman reportedly has offered a $2 million reward for Gaddafi.
But the key to capturing Saddam turned out to be gumshoe detective work mainly by US special operations forces, with information gathered largely from captured suspects.
Through the interrogations, the US was able to map the tribal network protecting the deposed Iraqi leader.
That effort was backed by nearly 200,000 conventional troops who helped secure a country stretching over nearly 170,000 square miles.
The Libyan rebels are being aided by small CIA teams, including former US special operators on contract to the intelligence agency, as well as a small number of advisers from British and French special operations teams, according to three former US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.
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