Category Archives: War in Libya

Next stop Tripoli — Libya’s rebels sense victory is within reach

The Independent reports:

Another town falls. Another hook of the trap around Tripoli locks into place. More die, more homes burn, the hatred deepens. But after months of savage strife, there is now a sense that the endgame is at last approaching in Libya’s bloody civil war.

The latest battleground was Sabratha, an ancient city and Unesco heritage site. Yesterday I walked through its streets, now in rebel hands after prolonged and fierce fighting. This has further cut off Muammar Gaddafi’s regime from its lifeline to the outside world, depriving it of food, fuel and reinforcements. “We are going to Tripoli and meet Gaddafi,” shouted a rebel fighter waving his Kalashnikov. It was a battle-cry we have heard many times in the past, but now that final journey may not be too far away.

Underlining the sense of desperation and foreboding in the Libyan capital, the United Nations announced yesterday that it was mounting an emergency evacuation of the thousands of foreigners trapped there. A spokeswoman for the International Organisation for Migration stressed: “We have a very limited window of opportunity to carry out this operation because of the fighting.”

The New York Times reported:

Tens of thousands of other foreigners fled Libya in the conflict’s early stages, many overland into neighboring Tunisia. But that route has now been effectively blocked by increasingly emboldened rebel forces.

It is unclear whether Colonel Qaddafi, whose four-decade hold on power in Libya looks increasingly tenuous, will authorize a foreign-supervised departure of the remaining foreign nationals in Tripoli. There are still many thousands there, a large number of them Egyptians.

“We don’t know how many migrants are left in Tripoli and how many in total want to leave,” said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, said in a telephone interview. “But we can say we’re seeing an increase in the number of requests.”

Charles Levinson reports from Gharyan in Libya’s Western Mountains:

Long regarded as the Libyan leader’s Western Mountain stronghold, Gharyan’s defenses collapsed in just four or five hours on Sunday, one day after the battle for Zawiya began. It took another 24 hours to clear out the last remnants of Col. Gadhafi’s forces from the city.

“We had always been told how important Gharyan was, we heard Gadhafi had brough in reinforcements, but when we attacked, it all dissolved,” said Adel Seger, a rebel commander in the city. Still, rebels said they lost 35 fighters in the battle to retake the city.

Rebels marched through the city’s streets firing rifles into the air and waving rebel flags on Friday. They also buried their dead, including a 19-year-old boy killed by a sniper.

At the boy’s gravesite, his brothers wept and had to be carried away draped over their friends’ shoulders. There were hints of the scars that six months of civil war have left on Libyan society. One resident, Faisal Jailani, said one of the snipers who had terrorized the city’s residents had lived among them for nearly 30 years, before rebels captured him this week.

“We helped raise this boy. How could he turn against us like this?” wondered Mr. Jailani. “I hope he hangs.”

But for the rest of the city, Friday was a day of jubilation. Muftah al-Arabi reopened his camera shop and recounted how Col. Gadhafi’s henchmen used to show up and demand free services, such as, on one occasion, 1,000 posters of Col. Gadhafi. If he refused, he would be branded a dissident and jailed, he said.

“He’s finished, Gadhafi is finished,” Mr. Arabi said, with a beaming smile.

That buoyant optimism has infected rebel ranks. In recent days, as rebels have advanced closer to Tripoli, there have been an increasing flow of reports in Arab and Western media outlets that the end of Col. Gadhafi’s rule is imminent.

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The writing is on the wall for Gaddafi

Brian Whitaker writes:

Take a look on Google and you’ll find more than 1,500 news items combining the words “Libya” and “stalemate”. Repeating the search for Syria and “stalemate” reveals a mere 109 items, and for Yemen only 73.

This is rather strange, because the Yemeni and Syrian uprisings – unlike that in Libya – are both obvious examples of a state of stalemate. In Yemen and Syria, the regimes have no prospect of restoring the status quo, but at the same time it’s difficult to see how their opponents can decisively gain the upper hand.

That has never really been the case in Libya, despite many articles predicting that stalemate would occur, and others treating it as an established fact. Once Nato intervened and the National Transitional Council (NTC) began winning international recognition, the writing was on the wall for Gaddafi.

It has turned into a drawn-out struggle and Gaddafi’s forces have had successes as well as failures along the way, but the overall direction has always been clear: the regime’s opponents have been getting stronger while the regime itself, under multiple pressures, has been steadily weakening. There is also no realistic possibility now that Gaddafi can reverse this trend.

Commenting on the “Draft Constitutional Charter” issued by the Libyan National Transitional Council, Whitaker writes:

As might be expected, it contains things that would appeal to a variety of different elements. Parts of it have been copied from Gaddafi’s 1969 constitution, and it is interesting to compare the two documents to see what has been included and what has been omitted. For example, the Arab and pan-Arab nationalism has gone. Libya is no longer described as an Arab state, though Arabic will remain as the official language “while preserving the linguistic and cultural rights of all components of the Libyan society”. This is a major step towards de-marginalising the Amazigh (Berbers).

Article 1 says “Islam is the religion of the state”. Undesirable as this may be in terms of separating religion from the state, it leaves the Gaddafi constitution unchanged – and the same applies in most other Arab countries.

The new part is that it also says Islamic jurisprudence (sharia) will be “the principal source of legislation”. This form of words is also used in the Egyptian constitution and it’s something that Islamists are obviously keen on.

It adds that non-Muslims will be allowed to practise their religion and, as in Egypt and several other Arab countries, it talks of different personal status laws for different religions (which has proved very problematic in practice).

Other parts of the document talk about democracy, a multi-party system, equal rights, freedom of expression, independence of the judiciary, etc. Women will have the right to participate “entirely and actively in political, economic and social spheres”.

Taken as a whole, the document has quite a lot of good points. But so too did Gaddafi’s 1969 constitution. The real test comes later, in the application.

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Libya’s rebels face questions as transition looms

Reuters reports:

Opponents of Muammar Gaddafi have managed to cobble together an alliance and, with plenty of NATO help, fight the Libyan leader’s forces to what increasingly looks like the verge of defeat.

Now the hard part might be about to begin: The rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) might soon have to step up and run the country, if Gaddafi is swept aside.

The council has been unable to shake off fears about its ability to govern, let alone remain united, in this oil-producing country awash with weapons. It may face tribal and regional divides and creeping Islamisation.

The council, recognised as Libya’s legitimate authority by more than 30 countries, says it is ready to lead Libya on a path to stability and democracy.

“Of course we’re ready to take over,” the head of the NTC’s political committee, Fatih Baja, told Reuters. “We’ve been preparing for this since the first month of the revolution.”

The NTC is a disparate group of Gaddafi opponents which emerged in February in the wake of uprisings in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt. It includes former Gaddafi officials.

It is based in Benghazi, operating out of hotels and homes in eastern Libya’s biggest city, which feels more like a laid-back seaside town than the hub of a revolution.

The NTC’s suburban headquarters is guarded by fighters in pick-up trucks with machine guns mounted in the back. Reporters have to show rebel-issued press cards before passing through a metal-detecting gate.

Along with fly-blown piles of uncollected trash in the streets, there is a sense of disorganisation. Rebel officials have earned a reputation for poor communications, both among themselves and with their allies and the media.

Faced with the prospect of Gaddafi’s departure after 41 years of harsh rule, they have set up a task force with a plan to take over quickly in the capital, Tripoli, Baja said.

“Security is at the top of the list, to secure Tripoli militarily and socially,” he said.

But analysts fear trouble could begin as soon as the inevitable volleys of celebratory gunfire die down.

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Libyan rebels ‘capture Zawiya oil refinery’

Reuters reports:

Libyan rebels took control of an oil refinery in the western town of Zawiyah and blocked the main highway north to the capital on Thursday, further isolating Muammar Gaddafi’s Tripoli stronghold.

Rebel advances in recent days have cut Gaddafi’s forces off from their main resupply routes following a months-long stalemate, putting the Libyan leader’s 41-year rule under unprecedented pressure.

Small groups of rebel fighters occupied the inside of the Zawiyah refinery complex, about 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli along the highway linking Tripoli to Tunisia, with no sign of the pro-Gaddafi forces that had battled for the plant.

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Rebels gain near Tripoli, as refugees pour out

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.

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Libya shows signs of slipping from Muammar Gaddafi’s grasp

The Guardian reports:

Muammar Gaddafi’s regime has shown fresh signs of buckling as rebels have come close to cutting off supply routes and the Libyan interior minister arrived in Egypt in what appeared to be the highest-ranking defection for many months.

The Libyan leader broadcast a defiant appeal to his supporters to rid the country of “traitors”, telling them: “The blood of martyrs is fuel for the battle.” But the call was issued over a poor telephone line to state television, and most was inaudible – the result of what officials said was a technical breakdown.

Gaddafi’s rallying call came as rebel fighters moved into Zawiyah, 30 miles west of Tripoli, straddling a critical road supply route from the Tunisian border. Rebel forces claimed to have near total control of the town, but government troops still held its oil refinery, the regime’s last homegrown supply of fuel. Reuters reported that pro-government snipers in Zawiyah were firing on any civilians who ventured out of doors.

The anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council (NTC) also claimed to have taken the city of Surman and said it was close to gaining control of Sabratha, along the same coastal road. A rebel spokesman said that talks were under way with government forces over their surrender.

There were clashes near the Ras Ajdir border crossing with Tunisia, and opposition forces were reported to be pushing towards Tripoli from the south having taken the strategic crossroads of Garyan over the weekend. Control of Garyan, in the Nafusah highlands, cuts off Tripoli from the Gaddafi stronghold of Sabha in the south. The multi-pronged offensive was an attempt by rebel commanders to cut off Tripoli’s supply lines and regain the initiative after the killing of their military leader, General Abdul Fattah Younes.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports:

Libya’s rebel-held city of Misrata, under siege by forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi for the past six months, is experiencing something new: traffic jams.

With rebels advancing toward the Libyan capital, Tripoli, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the west, honking horns and the voices of children playing in Misrata’s streets have replaced the explosions of incoming rockets and artillery shells.

“We are confident we are safe now,” English student Aisha Alifafer, 20, said in an interview yesterday. “We can go shopping and visit others. In the last six months we could not go outside and see the sun.”

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Libyan rebels ‘take Az-Zawiyah’

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.

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Who is in control of the Libyan opposition?

The Washington Post reports:

The retired accounting professor who runs the city council of the Libyan rebel capital wants you to know: “There is good news in Benghazi!” Just ignore the smell.

“Electricity, benzene, water, gas — all okay. No rockets, no fighting — all okay. Sewage? Big headache. But all in all, we are amazed,” said Saad Elferjani, who compared his city — in the most favorable way possible — to a roach motel.

“You remember the advertisement?” he said. “ ‘You can check in, but you can’t check out.’ That is us.”

In recent months, the dueling capitals of Libya have traded places. Tripoli, held by leader Moammar Gaddafi, is now in worse shape than rebel-held Benghazi.

Life in Benghazi gets slightly better every day: Police officers dressed as admirals at least pretend to direct traffic, an exhibit of once-forbidden art has opened in the new Gaddafi Crimes Museum, and the schools are scheduled to start again in September.

“The city feels safe. Things work,” said Abed Dada of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who has spent the past few weeks in Benghazi.

The bakeries are turning out special pastries again. A tank of gas costs $4, less than before the revolution. Cellphone calls are free.

Asked to compare the rival cities of east and west, which were traditional adversaries even before the uprising, one young merchant notes with pride that the price of a chicken in Tripoli is $12, whereas in Benghazi, a bird (imported from Egypt) will set you back $3.

The conditions of daily life in the de facto rebel capital — and the perceptions of its citizens — are important clues to how a post-Gaddafi Libya might function. The evidence in August suggests here would be a fractious, opaque government of well-meaning amateurs who care enough to try to keep the lights on.

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Libyan rebels fly flag over key town near Tripoli

Reuters reports:

Libyan rebels raised their flag over a strategic town near Tripoli on Sunday after their most dramatic advance in months cut off Muammar Gaddafi’s capital from its main link to the outside world.

The swift rebel advance on the town of Zawiyah, about 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli, will deal a psychological blow to Gaddafi’s supporters and severs the coastal highway to Tunisia that keeps the capital supplied with food and fuel.

There was no sign Tripoli was under immediate threat from a rebel attack: heavily armed pro-Gaddafi forces still lie between Zawiyah and the capital. Previous rebel advances have often been reversed, despite help from NATO warplanes.

But rebel forces are in their strongest position since the uprising against 41 years of Gaddafi’s rule began in February. They now control the coast both east and west of Tripoli, while to the north is the Mediterranean and a NATO naval blockade and there is fighting to the south.

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Libyan rebels advance into gateway to Tripoli

The Associated Press reports:

Libyan rebels fought their way into the strategic city of Zawiya west of Tripoli on Saturday in their most significant advance in months, battling snipers on rooftops and heavy shelling from Moammar Gadhafi’s forces holding the city.

Zawiya, 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital, is a key target for rebels waging a new offensive launched from the mountains in the far west of Libya, an attempt to break the deadlock in combat between the two sides that has held for months in the center and east of the country.

A credible threat from the rebels in the west could strain Gadhafi’s troops, which have been hammered for months by NATO airstrikes. Defending Zawiya is key for the regime but could require bringing in better trained forces who are currently ensuring its hold over its Tripoli stronghold or fighting rebels on fronts further east.

A group of about 200 exuberant rebel fighters, advancing from the south, reached a bridge on Zawiya’s southwestern outskirts, and some rebels pushed farther into the city’s central main square. They tore down the green flag of Gadhafi’s regime from a mosque minaret and put up two rebel flags. An Associated Press reporter traveling with the rebels saw hundreds of residents rush into the streets, greeting the fighters with chants of “God is great.”

Gadhafi’s forces then counterattacked, unleashing rounds of heavy shelling and gunfire could be heard as rebels and government troops battled.

Regime snipers were firing down from rooftops on the rebels, said one resident, Abdel-Basset Abu Riyak, who joined to fight alongside the rebels when they entered the city. He said Gadhafi’s forces were holed up in several pockets in the city and that there were reports of reinforcements coming from Tripoli, though there was no sign of them yet. He said NATO airstrikes had hit Libyan military positions near the city the night before.

Rebel spokesman Gomaa Ibrahim claimed that the opposition’s fighters controlled most of Zawiya by nightfall. “What remains are few pockets (of Gadhafi forces) in the city,” he said. “The road is now open all the way from the western mountains to Zawiya, we can send them supply and reinforcement anytime.”

Zawiya’s residents rose up and threw off regime control when Libya’s anti-Gadhafi revolt first began in February. But Gadhafi’s forces retaliated and crushed opposition in the city in a long and bloody siege in March. Many of Zawiya’s rebels fled into the mountains — and were among the lead forces advancing on the city Saturday — while others like Abu Riyak remained in the city, lying low.

Speaking to the AP by telephone, Abu Riyak said residents were now joining up with the rebels’ assault, saying, “95 percent of Zawiya’s people are with the revolution.”

“There is shooting from all sides,” said another rebel, 23-year-old Ibrahim Akram. “The people joined us. Fierce clashes are still ongoing, but thank God our numbers are great.”

But Gadhafi is likely to fight hard to keep control of Zawiya. The city of about 200,000 people on the Mediterranean coast is key because it controls the main supply road to the capital from the Tunisian border and is the site of the sole remaining oil refineries in the west still under the regime’s control.

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Tribal rifts threaten to undermine Libya uprising

The New York Times reports:

Saddled with infighting and undermined by the occasionally ruthless and undisciplined behavior of its fighters, the six-month-old rebel uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is showing signs of sliding from a struggle to overthrow an autocrat into a murkier contest between factions and tribes.

The increase in discord and factionalism is undermining the effort to overthrow Colonel Qaddafi, and it comes immediately after recognition of the rebel government by the Western powers, including the United States, potentially giving the rebels access to billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets, and the chance to purchase more modern weaponry.

The infighting could also erode support for the rebels among members of the NATO alliance, which faces a September deadline for renewing its air campaign amid growing unease about the war’s costs and direction. That air support has been a factor in every significant rebel military goal, including fighting on Saturday in which rebel forces were challenging pro-Qaddafi forces in or near three critical towns: Brega, an oil port in the east, Zawiya, on the outskirts of Tripoli, and Gharyan, an important gateway to southern Libya.

While the rebels have sought to maintain a clean image and to portray themselves as fighting to establish a secular democracy, several recent acts of revenge have cast their ranks in a less favorable light. They have also raised the possibility that any rebel victory over Colonel Qaddafi could disintegrate into the sort of tribal tensions that have plagued Libya for centuries.

In recent weeks, rebel fighters in Libya’s western mountains and around the coastal city of Misurata have lashed out at civilians because their tribes supported Colonel Qaddafi, looting mountain villages and emptying a civilian neighborhood. In the rebels’ provisional capital, Benghazi, renegade fighters assassinated their top military commander, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, apparently in revenge for his previous role as Colonel Qaddafi’s security chief.

In response, the chief of General Younes’s powerful tribe threatened to retaliate against those responsible, setting off a crisis in the rebels’ governing council, whose members were dismissed en masse last week.

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Benghazi clash exposes cracks in rebel ranks

The New York Times reports:

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.

The mysterious circumstances of his death have raised new questions about his own loyalties, and about the unity and discipline of the rebel troops. The rebel leaders’ response to the killing has produced a cascade of conflicting stories, hints of conflicts within the rebel government and signs that its leaders are deeply fearful of tribal animosities within their ranks, despite their efforts to portray Libya’s tribal rivalries as antiquated and obsolete.

At the same time, leaders have taken an increasingly hostile and, some journalists said, threatening tone toward the news media.

The developments come at a time when many foreign governments, including the United States, are recognizing the rebels’ governing council as the legitimate government of Libya, with the possibility of turning over to the rebels millions of dollars in frozen Qaddafi government assets.

The gunfight in the city began on Sunday just after midnight and lasted until about 8 a.m. Neighbors hid in their homes as assault rifles, revolvers and rocket-propelled grenades rang out, badly damaging homes and cars around the license plate factory where the so-called fifth column group, numbering several dozen people, was holed up.

In one house that was opened to reporters, the trail of a wounded fighter’s blood led down the stairs from a blast hole made by a grenade. But reporters were not allowed in the factory.

At a news conference on Sunday, rebel leaders said that three of their own fighters had died and eight were wounded in besieging and ultimately capturing the fighters in the factory. Of the fighters in the factory, they said, four died and at least 12 were wounded.

Rebel leaders said they had undertaken the assault in part because of a new drive to bring quasi-independent armed brigades around the city under the direct authority of the rebel military and security forces. It has been five months since the Libyan conflict broke out, and nearly as long since the rebels first talked of establishing a unified command. But the killing of General Younes focused new attention on the disorder among their brigades.

Asked why the rebel security forces had not moved sooner against the so-called fifth column, Mustapha el-Sagazly, the deputy interior minister, said that the group had associated itself with a prominent local tribe that officials were afraid to alienate. “Since the issue of the tribes is sensitive, we did not want to stop them, from the early days,” he said.

To reduce the chances of a tribal backlash, the rebels recruited soldiers and mediators from the same tribe for the assault, Mr. Sagazly said. He declined to name the tribe for fear of insulting it, noting that “most of the sons of the tribe” sided against the group in the factory. He also said that the group in the factory turned out to include some fighters from other tribes and even from other North African countries.

Through the weekend, rebel leaders continued to issue various conflicting and incomplete accounts of the circumstances surrounding the death of General Younes, perhaps trying to tamp down anger over the death among the general’s tribe, the Obeidi, the largest in the eastern Libya.

There were reports on Sunday that the rebel government was moving to name another member of General Younes’s tribe, Suleiman al-Obeidi, as his successor. And whatever suspicious there may have been about General Younes, rebel officials now universally refer to him as a “martyr.”

The Guardian reports:

Outwardly, foreign backers of the rebels insist the NTC is sound, with French defence minister Gerard Longuet saying Paris was not pushing for an immediate resolution: “Impatience is never a good adviser.” He insisted an end to the conflict rested with the people of the Libyan capital: “Things have to move in Tripoli. To put it clearly, the population has to rise up.”

Nerves remain frayed in Benghazi and questions remain over the role, if any, of NTC officials in the death of Younis, following an admission that he had been arrested for questioning on treason allegations just hours before his death.

In London, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, would not be drawn on the assassination. “It’s not yet clear who carried out the killing, and there are claims and counter-claims,” he said. “It will be at least several days until we know exactly what the situation was. There has always been a mixture of people who make up the opposition forces – hardly surprising given the country’s history – and it would be for the Libyans themselves to sort out exactly how any power structure develops post-Gaddafi.”

Sir Menzies Campbell, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the killing raised questions about the stability of the NTC and demonstrated the need for a “wholesale” review of policy. He told Sky News: “The assassination has thrown into fairly sharp focus the whole question of the Transitional National Council. What kind of government [it would be], for example, [if] it ever got to Tripoli.

“I also think that claims of success have always got to be taken with a certain amount of scepticism because it’s not about just taking ground temporarily, its taking it permanently. I’ve been saying I think we should take this period for a wholesale examination of policy.

“I supported the military action – I continue to support the British government’s involvement – but I think we have to have a pretty clearer view about what the NTC would be like were they ever to get to Tripoli.”

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Libya rebels say Younis killers were ‘Islamist element’

The Guardian reports:

The gunmen who shot dead the Libyan rebels’ military chief Abdul Fatah Younis were members of an Islamist-linked militia allied to the campaign to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, according to a National Transitional Council minister.

After 24 hours of confusion surrounding the death, the NTC’s oil minister, Ali Tarhouni, said Younis had been killed by members of the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade, a militia named after one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, suggesting that Islamist elements were involved.

Tarhouni told reporters in Benghazi that a militia leader who had gone to fetch Younis from the frontline had been arrested and had confessed that his subordinates carried out the killing. “It was not him. His lieutenants did it,” Tarhouni said, adding that the killers were still at large.

The NTC leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said on Thursday that Younis had been recalled for questioning to Benghazi but was killed before he arrived. Relatives said they retrieved a burned and bullet-riddled body.

The Gaddafi government has said the killing is proof the rebels are not capable of ruling Libya. Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said: “It is a nice slap [in] the face of the British that the [NTC] they recognised could not protect its own commander of the army.”

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Libyan rebels fear rift after death of Abdel Fatah Younis

The Guardian reports:

The death of the Libyan rebels’ chief of army staff, Abdel Fatah Younis, has raised fears of a rift within opposition forces amid speculation that he may have been killed by gunmen on his own side.

The president of the National Transition Council (NTC), Abdul Mustafa Jalil, announced on Thursday night that Younis had been assassinated by pro-Gaddafi agents. But the lack of detail, and the fact that earlier that day Younis had been arrested on the orders of Jalil, have raised questions about the circumstances of his death.

Jalil said that rebels had arrested the head of the group behind the attack but the bodies of Younis, Muammar Gaddafi’s former interior minister, and two colonels also killed in the alleged ambush have not been found.

The rebels said earlier on Thursday that Younis had been arrested on suspicion that his family might still have ties to the Gaddafi regime. Rumours swirled that he was involved in unauthorised contact with the administration he dramatically abandoned in February or had even helped to supply Gaddafi troops with weapons.

Before the announcement of his death, armed men declaring their support for Younis appeared on the streets of Benghazi claiming they would use force to free him from NTC custody.

Minutes after Jalil’s statement at a chaotic late-night press conference at a hotel in Benghazi, gunfire broke out in the street outside. Members of Younis’s tribe, the Obeidi, one of the largest in the east, fired machine guns and smashed windows, forcing security guards and hotel guests to duck for cover.

A tribal split within the opposition could prove catastrophic and plays on western fears of a civil war over Libya’s oil resources – a possibility raised by Gaddafi.

The discord comes a day after the foreign secretary, William Hague, said Britain would recognise the NTC as the legitimate government of Libya and painted a rosy picture of the opposition forces in Libya, praising their “increasing legitimacy, competence and success”.

Adding to the confusion, a security officer, Fadlallah Haroun, told the Associated Press before Jalil’s announcement that security had found three badly burned people. Two of them were dead and one was unconscious, Fadlallah said, adding that one was known to be Younis, though they didn’t know which one.

Jalil said Younis had been “summoned” for questioning on “a military matter” but had not yet been questioned when he was killed. Jalil said it was “with regret” he had to announce the death of Younis and called him “one of the heroes of the 17th of February revolution”.

Younis was not universally trusted within opposition ranks. Many were suspicious of his past links to the Gaddafi regime and troops in the besieged city of Misrata have conspicuously refused to accept orders from him, to the extent of insisting that their fighters are not part of the Benghazi-controlled national rebel army.

During an interview in April Gaddafi’s daughter, Aisha, suggested that Younis was still loyal to her father and declined to answer when asked if the former interior minister was still in touch with her family.

Younis reportedly nearly came to blows with his rival for the army command, Klalifa Hefter, during a meeting in late March. For much of that month both men claimed to be in command of the ragtag rebel forces as they raced west towards Tripoli, only to be thrown back towards Benghazi in chaos and confusion.

Reuters now adds:

Mourners brought a coffin carrying the body of Libyan rebel military commander Abdel Fattah Younes into the main square of Benghazi on Friday, his nephew told Reuters.

“We got the body yesterday here (in Benghazi), he had been shot with bullets and burned,” Younes’s nephew, Abdul Hakim, said as he followed the coffin through the square of the main rebel-held town. “He had called us at 10 o’clock (on Thursday morning) to say he was on his way here.”

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Abdul Fatah Younis ambush killing blamed on pro-Gaddafi forces

The Guardian reports:

The Libyan rebels’ chief of army staff, Abdel Fatah Younis, has been killed in an assassination by pro-Gaddafi agents, according to the rebel authorities.

The president of the ruling National Transitional Council, Abdul Mustafa Jalil, made the dramatic announcement of the death of Younis at a chaotic late-night press conference at a hotel in Benghazi.

He told reporters that Younis had been called back from the frontline near Brega to Benghazi for questioning on the progress of the campaign, and suggested he had been killed by “pro-Gaddafi” forces on the route early in the morning.

But questions remain over the lack of detail over how Younis died or who killed him. The general usually travels inside an armoured car in a multi-vehicle convoy with 30 armed guards, posing problems for any potential assassination team.

Jalil said two senior rebel officers were killed alongside Younis, and demanded that what he called pro-Gaddafi elements he said were operating in Benghazi surrender or join the rebel forces.

The shock announcement came after a day of heated speculation that Younis had been arrested on the orders of Jalil. Younis was Gaddafi’s former interior minister until he dramatically changed sides to join the revolution in February.

The rumours were still swirling late on Thursday night, with armed men declaring their support for Younis appearing on the streets of Benghazi, claiming they would use force to free him from NTC custody.

Soldiers loyal to Jalil from the 17 Brigade, Benghazi’s elite unit, had surrounded Younis’s house in the late afternoon.

Then in the evening, Jalil said at the press conference that “with regret” he had to announce the death of general Younis. Jalil called him “one of the heroes of the 17th of February revolution”.

Minutes later, gunfire broke out in the street outside the Benghazi hotel where the announcement was made, with machine gun bullets smashing windows.

The press conference, which ended abruptly with the NTC president refusing to take questions, failed to explain how the general could have been ambushed in a highly guarded convoy.

Younis has been a controversial figure as head of the rebel forces because – until the uprising – he was Muammar Gaddafi’s Interior Minister, one of his most trusted officials and confidants. The general’s friendship with Gaddafi dated from 1969 when he joined a group of fresh-faced army officers in deposing Libya’s king.

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Libya: Britain cuts last ties with Gaddafi regime

The Guardian reports:

Britain is to open negotiations at the UN to unfreeze assets running into hundreds of millions of pounds to be funnelled to the Libyan rebel council that was recognised by the UK on Wednesday as the “sole governmental authority” in the country.

As the foreign secretary, William Hague, announced the expulsion of the Libyan chargé d’affaires and the eight remaining Libyan embassy staff in London, British diplomats in New York were drawing up plans to unfreeze assets covered by UN sanctions.

Britain has frozen £12bn of Libyan assets since the conflict began in February this year, the vast bulk of which will remain frozen until the regime of Muammar Gaddafi loses power. But a proportion of the assets can be released if Britain can prove that they will only be used by the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council (NTC).

The push by the UK, which has temporarily closed its embassy in Tripoli, will raise questions about whether the funds will be used to buy arms. Foreign Office sources said assets would remain frozen if there is any evidence or suspicion that they were being used to pay for arms, even for the Libyan rebels. Arms sales of any description to any quarter in Libya are banned by UN sanctions.

But a source close to the NTC said funds may be used to buy weapons. “We can’t,” a source close to the NTC told the Guardian when asked how it would make sure funds are not used to buy weapons.

The source added: “We are militarily engaged in removing Gaddafi. Therefore it would be a bit strange to say that we are happy for you to have the no-fly zone, but rather that you didn’t buy arms.

“They [the NTC] haven’t been able to meet their payroll, which is their biggest problem to keep going. They also desperately need money to buy arms, particularly in the western mountains where there is often one weapon between two fighters, who go into battle hoping to get one from the enemy or a fallen comrade.”

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Hardships in Tripoli buoy rebels

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Motorists in Libya’s capital can wait days for fuel, and when they get it they have to spend about $12 a gallon—when they used to pay 60 cents. Bank withdrawals are limited to 1,000 Libyan dinars (about $625) a month. The prices of bread and other food staples have doubled.

People who recently left Tripoli tell of a city whose struggle to carry on with life as normal masks a pervasive fear. They speak of near daily house raids by the Public Guards, Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s security force dedicated to stamping out any hint of dissent. But they also describe signs that the regime’s control may be weakening, as young loyalists are shipped to a front line that is creeping ever closer to the capital, and frustration mounts with growing shortages and rising prices.

Such reports hearten rebel leaders who hope a weakened security apparatus and frustrated populace will hasten the regime’s collapse.

Rebel commanders say they are counting on armed cells to lead an uprising of Tripoli residents when rebel fighters close in on the city. The mood of residents, the degree of security forces’ control, and the ability of rebels in the city to get weapons and organize will help determine the strength of that potential uprising.

Obtaining a clear picture of what is happening in Tripoli, where Western journalists are shadowed by minders and limited in their movements, is difficult.

Interviews with five people who left the city in recent days—and support the rebels—offer a picture of life in Tripoli as a growing struggle. Blackouts expand by the day, knocking air conditioners out of service as the summer hits full gear. Sanctions and rebel sabotage of an oil pipeline have resulted in fuel shortages.

In a report released Monday, a United Nations team that just completed a weeklong fact-finding mission to Tripoli reported threefold price increases for food and transportation, and shortages of cash, fuel and electricity.

In general, however, basic food supplies can still be found in shops and markets, said Laurence Hart, acting U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Libya, who was on the mission.

“The issue is how sustainable the situation can be,” he said. “The main reason the food stocks are up is because the supply chain between Tunis and Tripoli is under the control of the government. If that should fall under the antigovernment forces, that would cause a serious problem in Tripoli.”

He said medical supplies, cash and fuel supplies were running low. A fuel consumption quota is in place, and Libyan oil experts have warned fuel could run out in two weeks, he said.

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Problems with logistics, coordination and rivalries hamper Libya’s rebels

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.

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