(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Muammar Gaddafi's second wife, two of his sons and his daughters have entered Algeria, according to the Algerian foreign ministry.
"The wife of Muammar Gaddafi, Safia, his daughter Aisha, and sons Hannibal and Mohammed, accompanied by their children, entered Algeria at 08:45am local time [0745GMT] through the Algeria-Libyan border," the ministry said in a statement on Monday published by the APS news agency.
However, it gave no information on the toppled Libyan leader, whose whereabouts has remained a mystery since fighters opposed to his government seized control of Tripoli, the Libyan capital, last week.
Algeria said their arrival had been reported to the United Nations and to the head of Libya's Transitional National Council [NTC], now widely recognised internationally as the country's legitimate government.
But an NTC spokesman accused Algeria, Libya's western neighbour, of an act of aggression and said the council would seek the extradition of Gaddafi's family members.
Ahmed Bani, a military spokesman for the council, said he was unsurprised to hear Algeria had welcomed Gaddafi relatives.
Throughout the six-month Libyan uprising, rebels have accused Algeria of providing Gaddafi with mercenaries to curb the revolution.
Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Tripoli, said: "There have been rumours over the last few days that family members had gone and that Gaddafi himself may have gone.
"The Algerian government has always got on really well with the Gaddafi regime. Algeria is one of the few countries that has not yet recognised the NTC."
Earlier, the Egyptian news agency MENA, quoting unidentified rebel fighters, had reported that six armoured Mercedes cars, possibly carrying Gaddafi's sons or other top regime figures, had crossed the border at the southwestern Libyan town of Ghadamis into Algeria.
Algeria's foreign ministry had denied that report.
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