A large convoy of civilian and military vehicles from Libya crossed into Niger but officials denied Tuesday that Libya's toppled leader Moammar Gadhafi was aboard.

The convoy entered the Sahelian country late Monday and drove through the city of Agadez, a stronghold of the former Tuareg rebellion Gadhafi once supported, a local military source said on condition of anonymity.

Moammar Gadhafi is in top health and planning his country's defense, his spokesman said, as new regime fighters voiced concern over civilians trapped in the besieged town of Bani Walid.

While anti-Gadhafi fighters were poised to strike at the loyalist oasis town at the slightest hint of provocation, Gadhafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim insisted that the toppled leader was busy planning to re-take his country.

NATO's mission in Libya has moved significantly closer to success and will end soon, the military alliance's secretary general said on Monday.

"Our operation to protect civilians has moved significantly closer to success, but we are not there yet," Rasmussen told a news conference, reiterating that air strikes will continue as long as civilians are under threat.

The BRICS group of emerging powers are determined not to allow a Libyan-style solution to the crisis in Syria, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday.

"If it's up to the BRICS, the Libyan scenario won't be repeated," Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as saying in a joint press conference with his Brazilian counterpart Antonio Patriota.

Negotiations for the surrender of Moammar Gadhafi’s forces in the Libyan town of Bani Walid have failed and will not resume, the chief negotiator for the National Transitional Council said Sunday.

"I am leaving the military commander to resolve the problem," Abdullah Kenshil said when asked if an attack would now be launched on the town southeast of Tripoli where at least one of Gadhafi’s sons is reputed to be hiding.

Moammar Gadhafi's regime warned of "dire consequences" for relations between Libya and Britain if the convicted Lockerbie bomber died in a Scottish jail, secret files released Sunday showed.

In the latest revelations from intelligence documents obtained by media and rights groups in Tripoli, senior British officials feared Gadhafi "might seek to extract vengeance" if the cancer-stricken Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi was not released.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Sunday urged the international community and the new Libyan authorities to avoid making the same "big mistake" as in Iraq.

"If somebody used to work for the regime but has no blood on his hands, why destroy all the structure, all the apparatus of Libya like we've done in Iraq, making a big mistake?" he said.

Libya's National Transitional Council on Saturday announced the creation of a supreme security council tasked with protecting the capital Tripoli.

"This committee represents all those who are concerned for the security of our new capital," Ali Tarhuni, who chairs the newly formed body as well as the NTC's executive committee, told reporters.

Italy will maintain its pre-eminent position in Libya's energy production sector, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini pledged on Saturday.

"Italy will maintain its first place. We have done so and we will continue to do so," Frattini stressed when quizzed on the ability of Libya's former colonial power to hang on to its position in the face of fresh interest from elsewhere, notably France, following the fall of Moammar Gadhafi.

A special envoy for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Tripoli on Saturday, as the international body stepped up efforts to put Libya on a path towards democracy.

Ian Martin landed at a military airport in the capital, as Ban said the world body was ready to assist in re-establishing security after the nearly seven-month uprising that ousted Moammar Gadhafi.