BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger — Moammar Gadhafi was last tracked heading for Libya's southern border, the man leading the hunt for the deposed leader told Reuters.
The news came after French and Niger military sources said scores of vehicles carrying pro-Gadhafi forces had crossed into Niger.
Hisham Buhagiar, who is coordinating efforts to find Gadhafi, said reports indicated the ousted Libyan leader may have been in the region of the southern village of Ghwat, some 186 miles north of the border with Niger, three days ago.
"He's out of Bani Walid I think. The last tracks, he was in the Ghwat area. People saw the cars going in that direction ... We have it from many sources that he's trying to go further south, toward Chad or Niger," Buhagiar said in an interview Tuesday.
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French and Niger military sources said earlier that a convoy of up to 250 vehicles was escorted to the northern city of Agadez by the army of Niger, a poor and landlocked former French colony.
It might, said a French military source, be joined by Gadhafi en route to adjacent Burkina Faso, which has offered him asylum.
Story: Gadhafi 'on the run,' US defense chief reports
The United States said it believed the convoy was carrying senior members of Gadhafi's entourage and urged Niger to detain anyone liable for prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the uprising against the deposed Libyan leader.
Shashank Joshi, a doctoral student of international relations at Harvard University and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in the U.K., listed possible outcomes in a phone interview with msnbc.com.
"If (Gadhafi) goes to Burkina Faso that would be wonderful, that would neutralize everything … but if he's tried in Libya in a humane process (it) would be the best of all … Second would be, if he’s captured and killed, it would provide a moment of catharsis," he said.
Joshi said perhaps the worst possible scenarios were if Gadhafi was able to use northern Niger as a base of operations or stayed on the loose in Libya.
Regardless of what Gadhafi does, the NTC needs to start acting like a government, Joshi said. "What is critical is getting the machinery of government moving again," he added.
In Niger's capital, Niamey, Massoudou Hassoumi, a spokesman for Niger's president, said that Gadhafi's security chief had crossed the desert into Niger on Monday accompanied by a major Tuareg rebel.
The government of Niger dispatched a military convoy to escort Mansour Dao, the former commander of Libya's Revolutionary Guards who is a cousin of Gadhafi as well as a member of his inner circle, to Niamey.
Dao is the only senior Libyan figure to have crossed into Niger, said Hassoumi, who denied reports that Gadhafi or any member of his immediate family were in the convoy.
Hassoumi said the group of nine people also included several pro-Gadhafi businessmen, as well as Agaly ag Alambo, a Tuareg rebel leader from Niger who led a failed uprising in the country's north before crossing into Libya, where he was believed to be fighting for Gadhafi.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday that Gadhafi was "on the run" and was asked later on the Charlie Rose show if he thought Gadhafi was still in Libya.
"You know, I don't know. I think he's been taking a lot of steps to make sure that in the end he could try to get out if he had to, but as to where, when, and how that'll take place, we just don't know," he said.
Gadhafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said he had not left the country.
"He is in Libya. He is safe, he is very healthy, in high morale," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Looted gold, cash
Anti-Gadhafi forces that overthrew the long-serving ruler two weeks ago said they also thought about a dozen other vehicles that crossed the border may have carried gold and cash apparently looted from a branch of Libya's central bank in Gadhafi's home town.
France, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as Libya's new rulers and NATO, all denied knowing where Gadhafi was or of any deal to let him go abroad or find refuge from Libyans and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which wants to put him on trial for war crimes.
"To my knowledge, there have not been hundreds of vehicles that crossed into Niger," Niger's Interior Minister Abdou Labo told a news conference.
Video: Convoy of Gadhafi loyalists flee Libya (on this page)
He did confirm reports that Dao had been allowed to enter the country. He said this was on humanitarian grounds and that Dao was the only Libyan official received.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said it was for Libyans to decide the venue for any trial, but that Gadhafi must not slip away quietly. "He will have to face justice for all the crimes he has committed in the past 42 years," he said.
The U.S. State Department urged Niger to arrest any Gadhafi officials entering the country.
A French military source said the 69-year-old Gadhafi and his son Seif al-Islam might join the convoy later to head for Burkina Faso.
Burkina Faso dismissed this, saying the former Libyan ruler had not requested exile and that there was no sign he was making his way to the West African state.
"We are not aware of his presence in Burkina...but if he arrives at our border we have our procedures," Burkina Faso Communication Minister Alain Edouard Traore told Reuters Television.
Video: Libyan rebels wary of attacking (on this page)
Burkina Faso, once a French colony and a recipient of large amounts of Libyan aid, offered Gadhafi sanctuary last month but has also recognized the NTC as Libya's government.
President Blaise Compaore, like Gadhafi, took power in a military coup and has run the country for 24 years.
Scouring the desert
NATO warplanes and spy satellites have been scouring Libya's deserts for months, raising the likelihood that any large convoy would have been spotted. But a spokesman for the Western alliance said it was not hunting Gadhafi and his cronies.
"Our mission is to protect the civilian population in Libya, not to track and target thousands of fleeing former regime leaders, mercenaries, military commanders and internally displaced people," Colonel Roland Lavoie said in a statement.
Niger's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Adani Illo, told Reuters that surveillance over thousands of miles of desert was tough.
"The desert zone is vast and the frontier is porous," he said. "If a convoy of 200 to 250 vehicles went through, it is like a drop of water in an ocean."
Gadhafi has broadcast defiant messages since he was forced into hiding two weeks ago, and has vowed to die fighting on his own soil. But he also has long friendships with his poor African neighbors, with which he shared some of Libya's oil wealth.
The sources said the convoy, probably including officers from army units based in the south of Libya, may have looped through Algeria rather than cross the Libya-Niger frontier. Algeria last week took in Gadhafi's wife, daughter and two other sons, angering the interim council now ruling Libya.
NTC officials said Seif al-Islam may have escaped south into the desert, toward the southern, pro-Gadhafi bastion of Sabha and perhaps on to Niger. Tracking him would be hard; 800 miles of sand separate Sabha from Agadez, with a further 466 miles of road to travel to Niamey.
Reuters, msnbc.com's Brinley Bruton and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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