The Civil War in Libya

To the US.

Well William Hague has said the medical evidence is void because he is still alive. Look at how the leaders of the free world have made a mockery of the UN resolution on Libya. So they know they can easily re imprision him because no ones there to stop them.

The last few days have been quite eventful in Libya.

With regard to the death of Gen. Younes , it's still not clear just what the hell happened, but here's my best effort to piece together the story: General Younes was called to Benghazi from the front at Brega in order to meet with a council of NTC bureaucrats to answer charges about some unknown allegations. There are three main possibilities as to what those allegations were. Either he was actively collaborating with Qadaffi, he was having some sort of unauthorized suspicious contact with Qadaffi, or they wanted to question him about the status of the rebel offensive in Brega (it seems that most of the Brega area has been captured by the rebels, but they massive Qaddafi minefields are holding them back and by no means did they score a decisive victory. Younes had vastly exaggerated progress in several public statements).

Younes then left his command post in the custody of men from the Feb 17th Martyrs Brigade, a volunteer force made up mainly of armed civilians that has been acting as both a combat unit and an internal security force in Benghazi.

At some point he was killed, I'm 95% sure by members of the Feb 17th Brigade. I have read from AJE that the men who shot him might have been a pair of brothers who bore a grudge against him from back when Younes was Qaddafi's Interior Minister (supposedly he killed their father during a crackdown on the LIFG, a small Islamist terrorist group, during the 1990s) but I can't confirm that. That, combined with allegations of treason, would provide a motive, and the whole sordid story is certainly something the NTC would try to cover up, which they obviously did.

In any case, Younes is dead. At his funeral, his son swore revenge and shouted aloud that he wanted Qaddafi to be in power again. Of course, that just sealed his political fate. The Obeidi tribe, Younes's tribe, has already affirmed their alleigance to the NTC and calling for the return of Qaddafi essentially assures that any "vengeance" faction will have no following. The NTC has issued an ultimatum for the civilian vigilante groups to turn over their weapons and submit to the central military command and has supposedly arrested the assassins. I think the story will simply blow over.

In more important news, more details have come through about the rebel offensive near the Tunisian border. The strategic towns of Ghezaia and Tkuit are firmly in rebel control. Rebel casualties were 6 killed and 30 wounded; government casualties are unknown but it's reported a general was captured (also I can't confirm that). Tiji and Badr, two small villages that are home to a large Libyan army base and which serve as the main logistic node for Qaddafi operations in the Western half of the Nafusa mountains, are surrounded, with about 500 government troops inside. The rebels have asked them to surrender. There are some reports (highly unconfirmed right now but I'm looking into it) that the rebels on the Misrata front have completed their attack to the south of Zliten, and have entered into the city itself, threatening to trap the Qaddafi troops on the frontline against the sea. But in general, when the rebels try to make a big encircling move, Qaddafi troops always slip the noose due to the rebel's organizational failures and over-caution resulting from lack of firepower/command structure. So don't expect a rebel victory in Zliten to be too decisive. They'll have to slog through Al Khums too before they're on the outskirts of Tripoli.

EDIT: I can confirm that a Qaddafi general was captured in the recent Western rebel offensive.

If the killing of the Gen was indeed a family revenge, it also shows future conflict potential. Up until now there's quite a few rather important, former Gaddafi, "officials" in the NTC that have defected. And I'm also quite sure several of those played a role in a former crackdown / detention / "questioning" in some way.
And I believe there might be some of the original "down with the regime" people around who still have an axe to grind with a certain high level defector, trying to maintain his potition in the new reality.
I have a feeling the NTC is struggeling to unify the fighting rebels under a national cause. Everybody's saying the outcome will see a unified Lybia, though the question is what everybody means by that. The NTC is trying to downplay the tribal links and their importance as the basic social connection of people, but they still seem to play a very important role. And I wonder if former victims of the regime are willing to put a tribal honor below national interests by accepting a defector high in the new ranks.

The conflict is also drawing on for a long time now, and different people might have had time to think abouth their own plans in the future. With ever more countries recognizing the NTC, frozen Gaddafi money in the millions could be released to the rebels in the future. I'd be suprised if there weren't different oppinions on how to spend all that money wisely.

Finally, Finn, do you know how deeply the western rebels are involved with the Benghazi based NTC? Is there a unified military command or are there representatives in the NTC, or are they doing their own thing mainly with some agreemens only?

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Benghazi Clash Exposes Cracks in Rebel Ranks
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK - Published: July 31, 2011

BENGHAZI, Libya — Rebel fighters challenging the rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi waged an eight-hour gunfight here in their de facto capital on Sunday, against what their leaders called a “fifth column” of Qaddafi loyalists who had posed as a rebel brigade. It was the latest sign of discord and trickery in the rebel ranks to emerge in the four days since the killing of the rebels’ top military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, a former Qaddafi confidant who had defected to their side. ...

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Scratch said:

Finally, Finn, do you know how deeply the western rebels are involved with the Benghazi based NTC? Is there a unified military command or are there representatives in the NTC, or are they doing their own thing mainly with some agreemens only?

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The rebel command committees in the Nafusa in the mountains and in Misrata are in regular communication with the NTC and with each other. The militia-style structure of the rebel forces makes serious centralized command and control pretty difficult though. The NTC does have representatives from all areas of Libya, even Qaddafi-held ones. And the NTC's defense minister is currently in the Nafusa mountains, he arrived there to over see the recent offensive that captured Ghezaia and Tkuit and encircled Tiji. To sum up I would say there is increasing cooperation and unification of rebel efforts, but not a true, strict military command hierarchy.

The rebels have pushed Qaddafi troops out of most of Zliten after months of Normandy hedgerow-style fighting in the area between Zliten and Misrata

This is in large part due to the work of the RAF, in the last week or so they've hit Qaddafi positions near Zliten very hard. Like the recent Nafusa offensive, it's an important victory but not a decisive one. They'll need to slog on a bit further before reaching Tripoli.

The serious danger for Qaddafi is that he's running out of heavy equipment and professional troops. The Qaddafi forces don't frequently stand and fight in serious infantry squad vs. infantry squad firefights anymore (unless the terrain seriously favors it). They prefer to lay minefields then defend them with mortars/artillery, and rely heavily on snipers.

This is why the rebels are finding it hard work to win.

Finn McCool said:

The last few days have been quite eventful in Libya.

With regard to the death of Gen. Younes

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, it's still not clear just what the hell happened, but here's my best effort to piece together the story: General Younes was called to Benghazi from the front at Brega in order to meet with a council of NTC bureaucrats to answer charges about some unknown allegations. There are three main possibilities as to what those allegations were. Either he was actively collaborating with Qadaffi, he was having some sort of unauthorized suspicious contact with Qadaffi, or they wanted to question him about the status of the rebel offensive in Brega (it seems that most of the Brega area has been captured by the rebels, but they massive Qaddafi minefields are holding them back and by no means did they score a decisive victory. Younes had vastly exaggerated progress in several public statements).

Younes then left his command post in the custody of men from the Feb 17th Martyrs Brigade, a volunteer force made up mainly of armed civilians that has been acting as both a combat unit and an internal security force in Benghazi.

At some point he was killed, I'm 95% sure by members of the Feb 17th Brigade. I have read from AJE that the men who shot him might have been a pair of brothers who bore a grudge against him from back when Younes was Qaddafi's Interior Minister (supposedly he killed their father during a crackdown on the LIFG, a small Islamist terrorist group, during the 1990s) but I can't confirm that. That, combined with allegations of treason, would provide a motive, and the whole sordid story is certainly something the NTC would try to cover up, which they obviously did.

In any case, Younes is dead. At his funeral, his son swore revenge and shouted aloud that he wanted Qaddafi to be in power again. Of course, that just sealed his political fate. The Obeidi tribe, Younes's tribe, has already affirmed their alleigance to the NTC and calling for the return of Qaddafi essentially assures that any "vengeance" faction will have no following. The NTC has issued an ultimatum for the civilian vigilante groups to turn over their weapons and submit to the central military command and has supposedly arrested the assassins. I think the story will simply blow over.

In more important news, more details have come through about the rebel offensive near the Tunisian border. The strategic towns of Ghezaia and Tkuit are firmly in rebel control. Rebel casualties were 6 killed and 30 wounded; government casualties are unknown but it's reported a general was captured (also I can't confirm that). Tiji and Badr, two small villages that are home to a large Libyan army base and which serve as the main logistic node for Qaddafi operations in the Western half of the Nafusa mountains, are surrounded, with about 500 government troops inside. The rebels have asked them to surrender. There are some reports (highly unconfirmed right now but I'm looking into it) that the rebels on the Misrata front have completed their attack to the south of Zliten, and have entered into the city itself, threatening to trap the Qaddafi troops on the frontline against the sea. But in general, when the rebels try to make a big encircling move, Qaddafi troops always slip the noose due to the rebel's organizational failures and over-caution resulting from lack of firepower/command structure. So don't expect a rebel victory in Zliten to be too decisive. They'll have to slog through Al Khums too before they're on the outskirts of Tripoli.

EDIT: I can confirm that a Qaddafi general was captured in the recent Western rebel offensive.

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Zlitan has not fallen. According to Al Jazzera and even Guardian. The dominate tribe of area has asked rebels not to attack town. The fighting is happening in the very edge of town, forget the Benghazi based spokesmen that said town is captured, they even claimed Brega had fallen on first day of offensive, last month. Generally picture is confused.

BTW Al Josh has been recaptured by government forces near Tiji.

Baibar of Jalat said:

Zlitan has not fallen. According to Al Jazzera and even Guardian. The dominate tribe of area has asked rebels not to attack town. The fighting is happening in the very edge of town, forget the Benghazi based spokesmen that said town is captured, they even claimed Brega had fallen on first day of offensive, last month. Generally picture is confused.

BTW Al Josh has been recaptured by government forces near Tiji.

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I think that at the time I wrote that, most of Zliten was under rebel control. There was a large government counteroffensive in the last 12-24 hrs, and the rebels were pushed back with heavy casualties. Then the rebels pushed back, and I don't know the current situation, suffice to say the frontline passes somewhere through the Souq al Thulata neighborhood in Zli.ten With regard to the Zliten tribal elder's request not to attack, I'm not sure about that. I know the Misrata rebel council was in negotiations with them, but I had read that they had agreed to some kind of compromise that would allow the rebels to enter the city, but I don't have good verifiable information about that.

On the Nafusa front, you're right, Al Jawsh has changed hands for the third time and last I heard, its now in government hands again. Tiji is still surrounded, but the rebel offensive is stalled by lack of ammunition ()

Hey guys here's a book presentation by the author Ideal Illusions. The author argues that while the U.S. gives lip service about caring for human rights around the world, the reality is that it has used the idea of preserving human rights as a tool to expand its global reach.

The author also makes comments on the Lybian conflict.

Currently, there are news bits coming out of intense fighting in several places in Libya, with rebels trying to push further.
In the east, a slow (due to land mines) but steady push is said to be underway on Brega. In that area the offensive has stalled for a long time now.
Then Zlitan is now almost controlled by rebels and they are ready to move on to Tijhi(?), but stoped for talks with a local tribe. So the push west out of Misrata seems to show some progress now. Is there anything known about an eastward push from Misrata towards the easter rebels?
And finally there's reports of a big assault in the Nafusa Mountain front at Yafran. One town, Bir Ghanam, may have fallen, and the cost is their aim. If successfull, it would allow to have one front on each side of Tripoli. I wonder how much longer Gadaffi forces will be able to counterattack. There could be some cracks now in the deadlock.

Scratch said:

Currently, there are news bits coming out of intense fighting in several places in Libya, with rebels trying to push further.
In the east, a slow (due to land mines) but steady push is said to be underway on Brega. In that area the offensive has stalled for a long time now.
Then Zlitan is now almost controlled by rebels and they are ready to move on to Tijhi(?), but stoped for talks with a local tribe. So the push west out of Misrata seems to show some progress now. Is there anything known about an eastward push from Misrata towards the easter rebels?
And finally there's reports of a big assault in the Nafusa Mountain front at Yafran. One town, Bir Ghanam, may have fallen, and the cost is their aim. If successfull, it would allow to have one front on each side of Tripoli. I wonder how much longer Gadaffi forces will be able to counterattack. There could be some cracks now in the deadlock.

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Fighting is ongoing on Brega, but there's no journalists in the area so it's impossible to say with much certainty what is going on there, since the only thing we have to go on is unconfirmed Tweets and statements by the NTC military spokesmen, who pretty much just say "We're winning yay!" I have read that rebel armor had advanced to Bishr, which would indicate that they had advanced past the area that can be properly considered "Brega", and probably surrounded Qaddafi forces in the western built-up area of Brega, but I can't confirm that advance. Basically the fight in Brega is a slow-motion siege as the rebels clear more mines and inch their heavy guns and tanks forward.

In the Nafusa, the rebels captured Bir Ghanem, which until yesterday was a very important Qaddafi blocking position right in the center of the Qaddafi line north of the Nafusa mountains. The capture of Bir Ghanem opens road routes to Zawiya (holding the Colonel's last fuel refinery and the highway to Tunisia he uses to get fuel and other supplies), Gheryan (the last, best fortified Gadaffi position in the mountains, standing astride the route to Qaddafi's logistics/support base in the south around Sebha) and Tripoli. After capturing Bir Ghanem, it seems that a rebel column made a hit-and-run dash up the road for Tripoli, getting something like 30-40 km before encountering resistance, and then turning back. For now the rebels seem to be doing what they usually do: stopping, and preparing for a counterattack, with some of them returning to their hometowns for a few days or going to another active front.

Tiji is about 50-60 km west of Bir Ghanem with a huge military base, and the rebels apparently have it surrounded on 3 sides. I've heard that the rebel units in that area have a major lack of ammunition. In any case they've been negotiating with the Qaddafi forces in the town rather than bombarding it, since a majority of its population supports Qaddafi (the rebels admit as much). They've said that their unwillingness to shell the town and eagerness to negotiate is out of a desire not to harm the many civilians present in the town, but it probably also has something to do with the fact that they're low on ammunition and suspect that they can get the town without a fight. Getting Tiji would be a big win as it would effectively destroy the right flank of Qaddafi forces in the Nafusa, and it probably has lots of supplies. Last I heard, the rebels had issued an ultimatum to surrender with free passage back to Tripoli for the Qaddafi troops.

To answer your question Scratch, on the Misrata/Zliten front, all rebel efforts seem to be directed towards Tripoli rather than east to link up with the rebel forces attacking Brega. This is probably because the city of Sirte is in between, and it is the strongest bastion of Qaddafi support. Also, the terrain closer to Tripoli is less open desert, more scrubland and hills, which makes it easier on the Misrata rebels, who lack a lot heavy firepower and a armor. I have to say, I've been quite impressed with the fighting abilities of the Qaddafi forces in Zliten. They've been subjected to heavy aerial/sea bombardment in the last 2 weeks, and the rebels have broken their line at least once. But they rallied and made successful counterattacks. Zliten is definitely where Qaddafi has his best men.

To sum up, Scratch is right, the deadlock is slowly, slowly breaking. The rebels are holding Qaddafi's best men in meat-grinder fights in Zliten and Brega, with the rebels inching forward and NATO taking its toll. This leaves the Nafusa front open to make serious advances. The ultimate aim in Nafusa is to cut the routes to Tripoli by taking Gheryan and Zawiya. Qaddafi forces are showing tenacity in many spots, but it seems that their increasingly isolated positions and NATO bombardment are making it impossible for them to retake lost ground for more than a day or two. It's a "two-steps forward, one step back" type fight, but the rebels are getting ever closer to Tripoli.