Associated Press reports:

They called it Operation Mermaid Dawn, a stealth plan coordinated by sleeper cells, Libyan rebels, and NATO to snatch the capital from the Moammar Gadhafi’s regime’s hands.

It began three months ago when groups of young men left their homes in Tripoli and traveled to train in Benghazi with ex-military soldiers.

After training in Benghazi, the men would return to Tripoli either through the sea disguised as fishermen or through the western mountains.

“They went back to Tripoli and waited; they became sleeper cells,” said military spokesman Fadlallah Haroun, who helped organize the operation.

He said that many of the trained fighters also stayed in the cities west of Tripoli, including Zintan and Zawiya, and waited for the day to come to push into the capital.

Operation Mermaid Dawn began on the night of August 21 and took the world by surprise as the rebels sped into the capital and celebrated in Green Square with almost no resistance from pro-Gadhafi forces.

Haroun said about 150 men rose up from inside Tripoli, blocking streets, engaging in armed street fights with Gadhafi brigades, and taking over their streets with check points.

He said another 200 men from Misrata.

But why did the armed Gadhafi troops melt away when the rebels drove through?

Fathi Baja, head of the rebel leadership’s political committee, said it was all thanks to a deal cut with the head of the batallion in charge of protecting Tripoli’s gates, the Mohammed Megrayef Brigade.

His name was Mohammed Eshkal and he was very close to Gadhafi and his family. Baja said Gadhafi had ordered the death of his cousin twenty years ago.

“Eshkal carried a grudge in his heart against Gadhafi for 20 years, and he made a deal with the NTC — when the zero hour approached he would hand the city over to the rebels,” said Haroun.

“Eshkal didn’t care much about the revolution,” said Haroun. “He wanted to take a personal revenge from Gadhafi and when he saw a chance that he will fall, he just let it happen.”

But Haroun said he still didn’t trust Eshkal or the men who defected so late in the game.

Haroun said that he didn’t trust any of the defectors who left Gadhafi’s side so close to August 20.

“They lived knew his days were numbered so they defected, but in their hearts they will always fear Gadhafi and give him a regard,” he said.

Haroun said NATO was in contact with the rebel leadership in Benghazi and were aware of the date of Operation Mermaid Dawn.

“Honestly, NATO played a very big role in liberating Tripoli — they bombed all the main locations that we couldn’t handle with our light weapons,” said Harouin.

The New York Times reports:

As rebel forces in Libya converged on Tripoli on Sunday, American and NATO officials cited an intensification of American aerial surveillance in and around the capital city as a major factor in helping to tilt the balance after months of steady erosion of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s military.

The officials also said that coordination between NATO and the rebels, and among the loosely organized rebel groups themselves, had become more sophisticated and lethal in recent weeks, even though NATO’s mandate has been merely to protect civilians, not to take sides in the conflict.

NATO’s targeting grew increasingly precise, one senior NATO diplomat said, as the United States established around-the-clock surveillance over the dwindling areas that Libyan military forces still controlled, using armed Predator drones to detect, track and occasionally fire at those forces.

At the same time, Britain, France and other nations deployed special forces on the ground inside Libya to help train and arm the rebels, the diplomat and another official said.

The Guardian reports:

While most of the world’s attention had focused throughout the conflict on the continual attempts by Benghazi-based rebels to secure the oil town of Brega, and simultaneous efforts to break out of the opposition enclave of Misrata, a pivotal breakthrough took place in what had hitherto been considered a sideshow in the Libyan war – the western mountains.

The Nafusa highlands, as the range is called, stretches south-west of Tripoli and forms a natural barrier between the capital and Libya’s interior. Its Berber inhabitants, the Amazigh community, had turned against Gaddafi early on but had been bottled up in their home villages since the spring by government forces. Every attempt to break through government lines into the coastal plains to the north had been rebuffed.

During the spring and early summer, however, Amazigh fighters were joined by dissidents streaming out of Tripoli and the oil refining port of Zawiya, fleeing Gaddafi’s brutal suppression of the uprising there. In the Nafusa highlands a more effective fighting force was fused from these disparate elements with the help of Nato trainers and French air-drops of arms and equipment.

By early August, these fighters began to push out from their bases. They moved village by village at first, and the offensive was little noticed outside the region. But it quickly grew and by the beginning of last week the mountain rebels had arrived at Gharyan, a heavily fortified city 60 miles south of Tripoli, and were beginning to infiltrate Zawiya as well.

Previous attempts to take Zawiya had been pushed back by Gaddafi forces, exposing the over-ambition and tenuous supply lines of the rebel attacks. This time, the rebels took central Zawiya and stayed. By Friday they had seized the coastal oil refinery. They had not only cut the road between Tripoli and the Tunisian border, along which the regime imported most of its food and basic supplies, but had turned off the last trickle of refined fuel going into the capital. “The fall of Zawiya was the pivotal moment in hindsight. It not only had practical effects, severing road links and so on, it was also an enormous psychological blow [for Gaddafi forces],” said Shashank Joshi, a military analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “The death of Younes had not been as bleak for the rebels as we had thought. The battle had already shifted its centre of gravity to the Nafusa range. The rebels adapted and learned. They realised that their reckless advances without consolidating their positions weren’t working. They began to move methodically, and took orders, waiting for Nato soften up the defences before moving in.”

Evidence of greater discipline and better co-ordination with Nato air strikes was apparent on every front. Rebel commanders were told not to stray over “red lines” marked out by Nato liaison officers as “free fire zones”. Rebel forces had attempted to mark their vehicles to avoid friendly fire from alliance jets, painting them black or painting a white “N” on them, but the markings were not universally applied and quickly copied by government forces.

When Misrata-based forces finally broke through government lines at Zlitan on Friday, however, the bonnets of their vehicles were clearly draped with red and yellow flags, provided by Nato and kept under wraps until the offensive.

Special forces played a key role in that close relationship, though UK government officials declined to comment on whether serving SAS personnel were involved, including acting as forward air controllers – directing pilots to targets on the ground. Reports that France deployed special forces to Libya have also not been convincingly denied. In addition, Qatari and Jordanian special forces also played a role, the Guardian has been told, while Qatar is believed to have paid for former SAS and western employees of private security companies.

Radar, cameras and listening devices on Nato planes, including RAF Sentry and Sentinel surveillance aircraft, based in Sicily and Cyprus, and US Predator drones, could identify clear military targets such as tanks, armoured vehicles, as well as known command and control centres.

Charles Levinson reports from Zawiya:

Fighting raged for a fourth straight day in this strategic coastal city 30 miles west of Tripoli on Wednesday, as rebel fighters battled to mop up pockets of loyalist soldiers and laid siege to the regime’s last working oil refinery.

The roads leading to Zawiya were clogged with rebel fighters pouring toward town and refugees fleeing in the opposite direction. The refugee flow from Zawiya, a city of 200,000 people, and from Tripoli hinted at the possible flood that could pour into rebel-held havens and neighboring Tunisia as fighting moves closer to the capital.

Rebel fighters reported a series of other gains in the west as well. They said they had eliminated government forces in the town of Tiji and had secured the coastal town of Sabratha, west of Zawiya, bolstering their control of the vital coast road that is a key lifeline to the capital, Tripoli, which is still controlled by Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

The regime wasn’t available for comment. Officials in Tripoli have been quiet in recent days, not holding the regular news conferences and journalist trips they had sponsored earlier in the conflict.

While the momentum has swung toward the rebels in recent weeks, they remain heavily dependant upon air power from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whose 90-day mandate to operate in Libya could need to be extended a second time in late September. And the rebels’ potentially toughest battle—to capture Tripoli—may still lie ahead.

Zawiya’s fleeing residents and rebel fighters said most of the city was now under rebel control. On Wednesday, fighting was fiercest around the oil refinery on the western edge of the city, where a group of pro-Gadhafi fighters were holed up and surrounded by rebel fighters, said rebel commanders and fighters.

The commanders said they had already shut down the fuel lines leading to and from the refinery, knocking Mr. Gadhafi’s last refinery offline. The refinery provides only a fraction of the regime’s fuel oil and doesn’t produce gasoline. The government has been smuggling in most of its fuel needs from Algeria and Tunisia.

Still, it further pressures Col. Gadhafi and deals him a symbolic blow by depriving the once oil-rich strongman of the ability to produce even a drop of his own fuel needs.

Control of the coast road between Tunisia and Zawiya, and another road from Algeria in the south are far more crucial fuel and supply conduits for the regime, but are also collapsing beneath the rebel offensive.

The New York Times reports:

After a period of political turmoil, fighters opposing Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi advanced on several fronts on Sunday, seizing ground in the strategic city of Zawiyah that placed them on Tripoli’s doorstep and threatening to cut off an important supply line for the colonel’s loyalists.

The incursion late Saturday into Zawiyah, joined by fighters inside the city, promised to bolster the flagging morale of the rebel movement, which is still reeling from the assassination of a top military leader.

A rebel military spokesman reported that the rebels had also taken control of Surman, farther west along the road to Tunisia; that claim could not immediately be confirmed. Clashes were reported near the Ras Ajdir border crossing with Tunisia, the spokesman said, as well as in Gheryan, a city in the Nafusah Mountains that straddles another important route connecting Tripoli with Sabha, a Qaddafi stronghold in the south.

In the east, the rebels on Sunday continued their assault on Brega, an oil city where they are trying to force a contingent of Qaddafi fighters out of the city’s manufacturing district. Colonel Qaddafi’s soldiers were said to remain in control of important oil facilities in both eastern and western Libya; the rebels, who have said they are afraid to damage such installations, have had a difficult time dislodging opponents from them.

The New York Times also reports:

The Libyan security chief arrived unexpectedly with his family in Cairo on Monday in an apparent high-level defection from the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi as the rebels challenging his rule seized ground in a strategic oil port just 30 miles from his Tripoli stronghold.

Colonel Qaddafi’s interior minister, Nassr al-Mabrouk Abdullah, landed on a private plane in Cairo with nine family members who were traveling on tourist visas and headed for a local hotel, Egyptian security officials at the airport said Monday.

The Qaddafi government’s ambassador, Ali Maria, said in short telephone interview that he had “no information” about Mr. Abdullah’s arrival or defection.

If confirmed, Mr. Abdullah’s defection would signal a new crack in the Qaddafi government after weeks of seeming stability since the defection of Colonel Qaddafi’s righthand man, Musa Kusa, and a handful of others around the time of start of the Libyan uprising and NATO’s bombing campaign in its support. While the Qaddafi government has recently dispatched other senior officials on quiet trips abroad for diplomatic negotiations or other errands, those on official business do not usually travel with their families.

C J Chivers reports:

Ahmad Harari, a Libyan rebel fighting to overthrow Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, recounted how he was almost killed last week.

He was part of a small group of fighters assigned to defend a front-line position in Qawalish, a village in Libya’s arid western highlands. Then Colonel Qaddafi’s military attacked, rushing forward in pickup trucks.

Mr. Harari said he had only 18 cartridges for his rifle, roughly the same amount of ammunition carried by everyone in his group. Within minutes he ran out.

“Every man lost all of his bullets and tried to escape,” he said. A friend was captured, killed and mutilated, he said, but the others managed to get away.

While the Libyan rebels have carved out an enclave in the west, the dearth of ammunition in Mr. Harari’s group points to one of the continuing drains on their military strength — an absence of coordination, even on matters as basic as making sure that ample ammunition is provided to the front-line fighters.

As Libya’s uprising-turned-desert-war enters its sixth month, the rebels in the mountains have assembled into small bands of local fighters. These groups — often named for the towns the fighters come from — have demonstrated both an eagerness to fight and a willingness to work with almost anyone who can help them reach their goal of ousting the Qaddafi family from power.

But coordination between them, as well as logistical help from their higher commands and foreign supporters, has not developed in important ways. In eastern Libya, the rebel authorities talk of making a national army; here in the west, the state of official disorganization makes the prospects for such a force unlikely in the near term.

Meanwhile, The Guardian reports:

Libyan rebels claimed to have made significant advances against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces on Thursday amid signs that the regime is feeling the strain of offensives backed by Nato air power.

Rebels in the western city of Misrata said they had captured the chief of operations of government forces in Zlitan on the first day of their attack.

General Abdul Nabih Zayid was caught late on Wednesday after advancing fighters overran his command post at Souk Talat, a small village on the outskirts of Zlitan, opposition commanders said.

“We have him in custody. He is being well looked after,” said Mohamed Frefr, in charge of detainees for the rebels. “After three days talking with him, we will hand him to the military prison.”

Growing confidence was also expressed by rebel officials from Misrata, who met Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president, and reportedly told him that with help, they could be in Tripoli within days.

The New York Times reports:

Rebels opposed to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi seized control of this village in the mountains on Wednesday, extending their hold in western Libya and inching toward a supply route to the capital that they hope to sever.

After a half-day gun battle, Colonel Qaddafi’s soldiers yielded the town in the early afternoon, firing rockets and mortars to cover their withdrawal. The ordnance exploded on the hillsides around the town with reverberating booms and plumes of dust and smoke that briefly kept the rebels away.

But the rebels flowed in behind the fleeing troops, capturing more than a dozen of them and collecting the departed soldiers’ abandoned ammunition and equipment. Soon they were refueling their cars and pickup trucks at the gas station they now held.

Qawalish changed hands while rebels elsewhere reported making progress outside of Misurata, east of the capital, Tripoli. They said they were advancing toward the city of Zlitan. Those reports could not be independently confirmed.

In the mountains, the rebels said they hoped their day signaled new momentum for a fight in western Libya that had been deadlocked for more than a week. “We are doing well,” said Sofian Alhaj, a fighter who said he was a former employee of an investment company run by Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, one of the Libyan leader’s sons. “Now we will keep going, until we are in Tripoli.”

That ambition, if realized, would most likely occur in increments. Geographically, the seizure of Qawalish marked a minor shift in the front lines. But it moved the rebels within about 35 miles of Gharyan, a small city astride a strategic highway running south from Tripoli.