Libya's national football team defects

CAIRO - Players and coaches from Libya's national soccer team have announced their support for the fight to end Muammar Qadaffi's 42 years in power, a rebel spokesman said Saturday.

Seventeen players from the team defected while they were in the West African nation of Mali for a match and later traveled to Tunisia, said Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, spokesman of the rebel leadership in the eastern city of Benghazi.

"We welcome this from the national team and our youth," Ghoga said. "This case shows that demands of the youth for freedom and anyone who has the chance to announce their defection and support for the rebels would do so."

Four of the players are from Tripoli's most popular team, al-Ahly, where one of Qadaffi's sons, al-Saadi, once played, said Ghoga. Al-Saadi now heads Libya's Football Federation.

The players crossed into rebel-held territory in Libya's western mountains. They visited with residents in the town of Zintan on Saturday, said Gomaa Ibrahim, a spokesman for rebel fighters in that area.

In a video posted Saturday on a rebel Facebook page under the title "the national team announces its defection," several of the men said they are visiting rebels in the western Nafusa mountains to show support. The speakers did not identify themselves by name.

One of them said they are "announcing - not from now but from the beginning of the revolution - that we are joining it."

"This is miraculous revolution that confronted the aggression with strong faith," he said.

Another said: "God willing, Tripoli will be liberated by this mountain. This is a message to the agents to abandon their weapons because Libya will be free, sooner or later."