U.S., NATO officials say Gadhafi’s location, fate unknown

By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent

(CNN) — With nearly two weeks having passed since the last public appearances by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, there is growing speculation from the halls of the Pentagon all the way to NATO about his fate.

The last time Gadhafi was seen on Libyan TV was April 30, the same day an airstrike hit a Tripoli compound reportedly housing the Libyan strongman and his son. Libyan officials said at the time that his son was killed but Gadhafi had escaped.

Libyan government spokesman Musa Ibrahim said Wednesday that Gadhafi is “alive, well, and very healthy,” and admitted that after the leader had been targeted three times and his son was killed, the government was not hiding the fact that it wants to keep him safe.

But the lack of visibility from a man who normally doesn’t shy away from the camera is raising questions.

“I don’t know if we know his whereabouts or his health,” said Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan Wednesday, when asked by reporters about Gadhafi’s current location.

“We have no evidence about what Mr. Gadhafi’s doing right now,” Brig. Gen. Claudio Gabellini, the chief operations officer of NATO’s Operation Unified Protector, told reporters in Brussels. “And I tell you the truth, we’re not really interested in what he is doing. Our mandate is to protect civilians from the attacks and from the threat of attacks so we’re not looking after individuals.”

NATO took over the mission to protect Libyan civilians authorized by a United Nations resolution, and is using airstrikes to target installations that may be used to facilitate attacks against civilians.

Gabellini emphasized that NATO is targeting military objectives, not individuals.

A senior NATO official told CNN the alliance is asking itself the same questions, though, as each day passes, and they wonder whether it’s possible Gadhafi may have been killed in an airstrike.

“We just don’t know,” the official said.