AGADEZ (AFP) – A 200-vehicle convoy with Libya’s toppled leader Muammar Gaddafi rumoured aboard has crossed into Niger and is heading towards the capital Niamey on Tuesday, officials told AFP.

The convoy entered the Sahelian country late Monday and drove through the city of Agadez, a stronghold of the former Tuareg rebellion the ousted Libyan leader once supported, a local military source said on condition of anonymity.

“I saw an exceptionally large and rare convoy of several dozen vehicles enter Agadez from Arlit… and go towards Niamey,” the source said, amid speculation that Gaddafi may be in it.

“There are persistent rumours that Muammar Gaddafi or one of his sons are travelling in the convoy,” the source said, adding that the convoy included civilian and military vehicles.

The new Libyan leadership in Tripoli simply confirmed it knew of a convoy crossing into Niger.

“We can confirm that around 200 cars crossed from Libya to Niger, but we can’t confirm who was in this convoy,” Jalal al-Gallal, spokesman for the National Transitional Council in the Libyan capital, told AFP.

He added however that “these types of convoys usually carry Gaddafi or one of his sons.”

The nearest border to Arlit, a mining town north of Agadez, is with Algeria, suggesting the convoy may have left Libya through eastern Algeria before entering northeastern Niger.

A journalist from a private radio station in Agadez said he saw “a convoy of several dozen vehicles crossing the city and heading towards Niamey.”

The journalist said several people reported seeing in the convoy Rhissa Ag Boula, a figurehead Tuareg rebel with old ties to Muammar Gaddafi. The rebel promptly denied being in the convoy.

“I’m not in a convoy, I’m in Niamey,” Ag Boula told AFP on the phone.

Ag Boula spent time in Libya following the 2009 deal brokered by Muammar Gaddafi to end Niger’s Tuareg rebellion.

On Monday, a government official also speaking on condition of anonymity, said another smaller convoy of 11 high-profile Libyans had arrived in Niger.

“Moamer Kadhafi was not part of the delegation that arrived in Niger, which consisted of three Nigeriens: Agaly Alambo and two of his brothers and 11 Libyans, among them Mansour Daw,” the government source said.

Daw was  Gaddafii’s feared head of internal intelligence and Alambo a historical leader in Niger’s Tuareg rebellion with close ties to Muammar Gaddafi.

“The 11 Libyans will be housed in Niamey and we have taken measures to this effect,” a security official added.

When Western powers backed Libya’s own rebel movement earlier this year, Alambo recruited hundreds of former rebels from Niger to fight alongside Kadhafi, whom many Tuaregs across the region see as their champion.

Last week, a Tuareg source said that people close to Kadhafi had arrived in Agadez in April with suitcases full of money to recruit “hundreds” of young people.

The source said about 1,500 Tuareg ex-rebels had fought for Kadhafi.

But since the fall of Tripoli to fighters loyal to Libya’s National Transitional Council, hundreds of Tuareg fighters have returned to Niger, while about 500 withdrew to Sirte, Kadhafi’s hometown.

Niger last month formally recognised the NTC as its neighbour’s only legal authority and urged the new leaders to safeguard the security of foreigners living in Libya.

Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou, elected in March, was considered an ally of Kadhafi and the two last met in Tripoli in February.

Tuaregs are also present in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, whose regimes have over the years been among the main west African beneficiaries of Kadhafi’s largesse.