Int'l Criminal Court will investigate Qaddafis

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says he will investigate Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and his inner circle, including some of his sons, for possible crimes against humanity in the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Gadhafi's security forces are alleged to have attacked peaceful demonstrators in several towns and cities across Libya since Feb. 15, and identified Gadhafi and several commanders and regime officials as having formal or de facto command over forces that may have committed crimes.

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Moreno-Ocampo vowed Thursday there would be "no impunity in Libya."

The prosecution office has acted with unprecedented haste to launch an investigation, partly to warn Libyan officials against continuing the deliberate slaughter of civilians.

He said the court was using the opportunity "to put them on notice: If forces under their command commit crimes, they could be criminally responsible."

He also warned that leaders of Libya's opposition could be investigated if allegations are raised against them. "We will be impartial," he said.

According to a Libyan human rights group, at least 6,000 people have died in Qaddafi's brutal crackdown.

Violence and chaos in Libya have triggered an exodus of more than 180,000 refugees to Tunisia and Egypt, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

Egypt launched emergency airlifts and sent ships to handle the chaotic exodus. U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told The Associated Press that 77,320 people have crossed from Libya into Egypt, the vast majority of them Egyptians, and a similar number have crossed from Libya into Tunisia - with about 30,000 more waiting at that border.

Officials say the situation has been made even more volatile by humanitarian aid workers being blocked from reaching western Libya, patients reportedly being executed in hospitals, or shot by gunmen hiding in ambulances. Flemming said Muammar Qaddafi's forces appear to be targeting Egyptians and Tunisians, apparently because he believes they are the main trigger of the uprising against his regime.

"(There are) many, many terrified refugees" in the Libyan capital Tripoli who are too afraid to move for fear they will be killed, Fleming told AP.

The international charity Save the Children estimated that 1 million children in western Libya were in harm's way as Qaddafi's forces fight protesters for control of key towns and cities, including the capital, Tripoli.