At politically sensitive times, she and her husband, Wang Lixiong, himself a Tibetologist and outspoken dissident, are sometimes kept under virtualhousearrest.
He was released in September 2010 but was kept under virtualhousearrest by plainclothes thugs who he says beat him and his wife if they tried to leave.
That puts Gadhafi in "a bizarre situation, " Kaufman says: He is "under virtualhousearrest and not free to gallivant around the city" that he wants to leave for his safety.
Remnants of al-Qaida's so-called management council are still there, though they are usually kept under virtualhousearrest by the Iranian regime There are also a small number of financiers and facilitators who help move money, and sometimes weapons and people throughout the region from their base in Iran.