An official of the revolutionary forces said on Wednesday that the fallen Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi is hiding near the town of Ghadamis under the protection of one of his last and strongest support groups: the Tuareg tribe. The CNN reported that the interim military government had reliable information about Gaddafi’s hideout, but could not disclose how the military had acquired the information.

“Gaddafi is protected by the Tuareq tribe located between Niger, Algeria, and Ghadamis town in Libya,” said spokesperson Col. Abdul Basit. Tuareq fighters have been long-time supporters of the Gaddafi regime, “probably because he’s paying them,” said one source according to the Associated Press.

Ethnic Tuareq is a nomadic community that lives around the desert borders of Algeria, Chad, Libya, Mali and Niger. Tribesmen are known to be capable mercenaries, says CNN, and have played a vital part in the escape of loyalists of the Libyan dictator.  Before the revolution, Gaddafi often cashed in on the support of the Tuareg as he rallied to manipulate unstable countries south of Libya.

While the military spokesperson seemed sure about the discovery of Gaddafi’s whereabouts, the National Transitional Council has before made false statements, according to CNN. Another report has suggested that Gaddafi was hiding in the southwestern desert town of Sabha but suspicion has intensified after a recent attack near Ghadamis.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Gaddafi family is scattered in known and unknown locations around the country and neighboring territory. Saif al-Islam is largely considered to be hiding in Bani Walis, 140 kilometers southeast of Tripoli alongside other regime members while another son, Mutassem, is thought to be in Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown.

CBSnews.com further reported that Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha and other relatives have been given refuge in Algeria. The International Criminal Court in The Hague still has arrest warrants out for the Libyan dictator, his son Salif as well as the former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi. Senussi was allegedly killed during clashes with rebels.

According to Examiner.com, Col. Gaddafi is wanted for crimes committed against humanity through “significant evidence showing Gaddafi ordered forces to attack civilian homes, shoot at demonstrators, disrupt funerals and order snipers to hit those coming out of mosques.” According to NATO, 200,000 Libyan nationals are still under threat from pro-Gaddafi forces.
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On Friday, Interpol issued arrest warrants for Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam as well as his intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi. And it is not just international forces who want the elusive former leader behind bars.

The new rulers in Libya has according to Huffington Post dedicated a special unit to the hunt of Gaddafi — using phone tapping, satellite images and witness accounts to pinpoint his position. The Libyan dictator went underground after Aug 21 when rebels swept into Tripoli but has not been seen in public for several months ahead of this event.

His disappearance is a major issue to Libyans and many western leaders and rumors of his whereabouts have put him on several locations both in and outside the country. Gaddafi himself claims to remain in Libya through audio broadcast and seems unwilling to face defeat.

Meanwhile, anti-Gaddafi forces are rounding up their former political opponents — most importantly the former Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim, according to Sky News. Khaled Kaim was one of the faces of Gaddafi’s regime and also one of those who denied that Arab Spring was sweeping through the people of Libya, calling the uprising the work of islamists and terrorists.

Kaim is now staying at a high security detention centre in Tripoli where he continues to refuse realities Kaim told Sky News reporter Lisa Holland that he had received a death threat from someone inside the regime shortly before it collapsed because “he was pulling away from them.”

He insisted that he was simply a mouthpiece to the Colonel: “Making a press conference doesn’t mean that you’re saying your own opinion,” he explained While former government strongmen try to salvage their political careers, the anti-Gaddafi fighters continue their operation to find the dictator.

One fighter participated in a raid last week where they believed Gaddafi was staying. The fighter, who spoke to The Huffington Post under the condition of anonymity, said that Gaddafi had “escaped less than an hour before the raid through a secret tunnel. Computers were on and cups of tea were still warm.”

NATO, who has plenty of intelligence collection measures in the area were suggested as a possible partner to the Libyan tracking mission. However, both NATO and Libyan officials has declined that the alliance will make a difference in the hunt for Gaddafi. Still, some of the rebel’s allies continue to contribute where they can.

For example, reports say that small CIA teams, as well as a number of British and French special operation advisors, are prepared to help the former rebels in their search. When or if Gaddafi is caught, the International Criminal Court prosecutor wants to see the former leader held accountable “for the serious criminal charges that have been brought against him.”

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The now former German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was the center of an embarrassing row recently when accusations of plagiarism led the University of Beyreuth to stripping Mr Guttenberg of his doctorate. The now shamed Mr Guttenberg, dubbed by the national media ‘Mr Googleberg’ or ‘Mr Cut und Paste’, blamed the media for instigating a ‘witch hunt’ on his person but after futile resistance, stepped down from his post in the Merkel government.

The German ‘copygate’ is regrettably not the only high-profile case of academic fraud at the moment. In Denmark, the previously revered neuro-scientist Milena Penkowa is under criminal investigation and internal probing for several accounts of tampering with research results, abuse of research funds and falsifying experiments. Her case, which goes back to a dispute over her doctorate in 2002, shows a cynical and greedy disrespect for the institution she represented – The University of Copenhagen. Another recent example is the launch of an investigation into the claims that the son of Libya’s faulting dictator Gaddafi plagiarized his PhD thesis. Saif al-Islam’s enrollment into the London School of Economics was already an embarrasing story for the institutions which accepted him as a student alongside a £1.5m gift from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation. With the accusation that the now 38-year-old graduate used a ghost writer and copied several sections of his work, the reputation of the institution is taking a serious blow.

And it is not just a successful bout of investigative journalism. As modern society has grown to value knowledge on behalf of academic credentials, the widespread of falsification, misrepresentation, plagiarism and cheating has exploded.

The obvious question is: Why do people cheat? Academic misconduct has a way of, if caught, tarnishing the fundamental credibility of that person, profession and/or institution. A journal on behalf of UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning found that competitiveness, ambition, greed and other anti-social behavior are most likely motivations for academic fraud. Since the process of gaining academic success has become so competitive, the temptation to gain them illegitimately have equally increased. The author’s explanation for this situation is that “the value of academic success and qualifications is not limited to educational advancement alone. It is accompanied by the prospect of improved status, power, and influence.”

The recent cases have briefly exposed what has been a major problem in the worlds of academia and publishing for many years. Both students and institutions have turned their blind eye to the rule book on academic conduct and it does not seem that things will change anytime soon.

What is deeply concerning – and frustrating for anyone who did academics – is the fact that the more cases of fraud are exposed, the more damage it causes further down in the system. The people who fake their way through scholarly work and credentials set off a chain reaction of mistrust, ridicule and degradation of the world of academics. Honest researchers and writers will have to fight twice as hard to be taken serious, and It tarnishes everything that touched the case – it tarnishes everyone who legitimately follows the same path.

The morale of the story is – don’t be a cheater. The paradox of lying to advance one’s position is that with increased influence comes increased exposure and a bad apple in the cart can soon rot the rest of the harvest. Still, there is little else to do for real academics world wide than to make sure their own practice is legitimate and hope that the recent cases will scare off the rest.

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