Uprising in Libya

[Sea Skimmer]

The French are now endorsing rebel claims to have taken most of Brega; first thing anyone foreign has said on the matter. But it appears that between landmines all over and pockets of resistance they don't have it all yet.

[Sea Skimmer]

Okay so its become apparent that east Brega, a purely residential area about 10 miles down the road has fallen to the rebels, but Qaddafi defiantly still holds the main town and oil facilities, but the position of his troops hear is at least mostly isolated. They don't appear to be physically cut off, but basically rebel positions overlook the coastal road and make any major reinforcement or resupply difficult or impossible. The rebels are continuing to take heavy losses every day, but they also continue to have T-55 tanks and for the first time, at least one actual artillery battery with 122mm D-74 guns in action.

On the unconfirmed news front, supposedly some captured pro Qaddafi troops said at least 40,000 mines were laid around the town, which is EASILY plausible (100,000+ is easily possible), and just in the last couple hours reports are circulating that Abdullah Senussi, Qaddafis brother in law and head of security was killed or wounded when his vehicle was hit by an RPG in Tripoli. Along with Qaddafi and Qaddafis son Saif al-Islam he was one of three men the ICC indicted.

Elsewhere in Libya; western mountains have been static, I suspect in large part they've been told to be static because NATO is flying most sorties over Brega and Misrata, at Misrata the opposition is finally pushing into the edges of Zlitan on the road to Tripoli, and in the far south a claim has been made that a rebel unit crossed the desert to seize a small village 80 miles from Sabha. Sabha has been viewed as Qaddafi's power base, in large part because he imported people from central Africa to live around it and join his army, but its also had a number of protests and sporadic fighting against his regime. If a new front opens up around the town it could become very troublesome for him. But for the moment the nearest confirmed rebel held area is still over 400 miles away, and the nearest sources of all important gasoline to drive such vast distances is further away still.

[Sea Skimmer]

Glorious Italy may have supplied the rebels with a thousand plus tons of weapons and ammunition. Officially its only missing! Too bad Cyprus didn't take the same option.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1SaZjdjXj

[Lord Woodlouse]

Glorious Italy? Steady on.

[Sea Skimmer]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43851287/ns ... _n_africa/

Qaddafi has denounced all talk of peace talks 'until Judgement day'; which is helpful as it means the Franco-Euro Axis need not waste more time talking about them. Personally I think France and others really only started talking about the topic purely to run political interference trying to protect NATOs reputation after being caught supplying weapons. The amount of propaganda coming from both sides has been impressive all and all, almost approaching World War levels. Someone should send over another five thousand tons of ammunition and a hundred T-55 tanks with mine plows and see if Qaddafi's mind changes.

[Pu-239]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -side.html

The rebel military chief has been assassinated under rather suspicious circumstances.

[TC27]

Anyone know somewhere we I can get a good ongoing analysis of whats going on? The mainstream newsmedia in the UK is fairly useless at analysing the siutation either due to lack of competency or political bias (the BBC gives the impression that Qadafi's forces will be invading London soon).

I get the impression that Quafdafi is being worn down albeit slowly and the plan is to take strip away his assets until his position becomes untenable rather than fight massive pitched battles in urban centers.

[Sea Skimmer]

In the last couple days another major rebel attack in the western mountains has taken the towns of Tiji, Badr and al-Josh, the first of which included a large pro Qaddafi military base. Seizing these places basically gives the rebels complete control of the westernmost 100km of the mountains and will finally render the border crossing to Tunishia safe from counter attacks. Several other small but important towns fell earlier in the week.

This map is slightly out of date; the pro Qaddafi troops over at Takut and Tiji are now if not totally defeated, driven out of the towns they were holding and being pushed away. Some fighting is ongoing but one can see how the rebel position is consolidating; when it does finishing consolidating the next move is back towards Garyan. Two months ago nearly half the settlements on this map would have been occupied by pro Qaddafi forces.


Wazin to Garyan is about 220km in a straight line. Downtown Tripoli is 80km from Garyan.

[Sea Skimmer]

I've been a bit busy to spend time posting the minor advances the rebels have made in the past two weeks. None of that matters now, rebel troops have today seized large portions of Zawiyah on the coast, and Garyan in the mountains. This is not a random claim; numerous sources at least indirectly confirm fighting in both cities. Reporters have attempted to approach both places from the pro Qaddafi side and been blocked within earshot of gunfire and explosions.

These cities are the two most strategic locations held by Qaddafi in western Libya outside of Tripoli itself. It is by no means clear they will be held owing above all else to rebel shortages of ammunition; but the very fact that major rebel forces entered them suggests Qaddafis forces are collapsing away from the main Brega-Misrata fronts.

Couple links
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... wiyah.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/afric ... 65166.html

[Iroscato]

I hear a vital oil facility was captured by the rebels? Perhaps this will be the blow that really does in Gaddafi's forces. If not, business as usual I guess, playing yo-yo wars.

[The Romulan Republic]

Gaddaffi's gradually weakening. When was the last time he won a major victory? It may take time, but I remain confident he's going down.

[Iroscato]

It's fucking took him long enough, when did the UN start airstrikes? May?

[Sea Skimmer]

I hear a vital oil facility was captured by the rebels?

No. They may have gained some ground around Brega, nobody is sure and frankly I trust zero rebel reports from that area, but an oil refinery is just north west of Zawiyah and if they hold that city for any length of time it will be forced to shut down, if not occupied. Most likely the rebels will avoid occupying it to avoid fighting causing it any damage; it suffices to deny it to Qaddafi.

It's fucking took him long enough, when did the UN start airstrikes? May?

The anti Qaddafi capitalist air blitz commenced 19 March . US forces ceased large scale combat operations on 4 April . Since then NATO has maintained about 110-150 sorties per day with 45-55 of them being air to ground missions about 50% of which actually drop weapons. As of August 13th NATO has flown 18,774 sorties including 7,127 strike sorties. Also around 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired by the USN and RN.

Rebel control of Zawiyah could become very bad, very quickly. Since Qaddafi MUST have control of that city, the oil refinery and the coastal highway to survive he can be expected to do absolutely anything in his power to secure and hold it. Large areas of the city may be decimated by artillery fire in short order if his remaining ground troops fail; they took a long time to recapture it in the first place when the rebellion first began, and given the NATO performance at Misrata (over a month of rocket and artillery fire) the Europeans will be quite incapable of preventing this without a return of major US combat forces. Hopefully that situation wont happen though; such orders might even cause a final breakdown of Qaddafis forces.

Gaddaffi's gradually weakening. When was the last time he won a major victory? It may take time, but I remain confident he's going down.

Depends on what you mean by major victory. He did stop the rebel attack at Tiji last week, but in large part because the local residents asked the rebels not to attack. He also blocked the rebels at Bi'r al Ghanam for a while with several counter attacks, and really chewed up rebel attacks at Zlitan and Brega. The latter two sites are defended by the bulk of his regime protection troops in the field (some remain in Tripoli). But overall, if the rebels hold any spot for more then two days, for the last several months, its been the case that Qaddafi will simply not get the land back. He hasn't taken anything new of note in about three months. Really since his troops were pushed out of Misrata, and the Wazin border crossing in the mountains fell its just been a slow slide downhill for Qaddafi.

Don't count him out yet though. The rebels have taken heavy losses in the last two weeks, and Qaddafi still has a lot of troops. Its a matter as to if they will fight or not; and some clearly still will. I hope and think he is crumbling, but he's looked like that before.

[Sea Skimmer]

Qaddafi's shit bunker is flooding even quicker then expected; it is now being reported that rebels are also attacking at Abu Kammash near the Tunisian border. The coastal road runs between the ocean and a salt marsh to the west for about 10km until it reaches the border, so no paved bypass is possible and this is yet another point at which the rebels might choke of Qaddafi’s imports of fuel and supplies. It also simply means even if this rebel push fails, he can’t pull troops from the far west to come back east to fight at Zawiyah without taking a huge risk.

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews ... 0I20110813

[Sea Skimmer]

Another article confirming that basically, this has taken Qaddafis coastal forces by surprise, if not by storm. A busload of reports was driven right into the battle. Other then this, everyone is just recirculating the same news articles for the moment.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/afric ... firefight/


Also I just noticed, bit random but, it was May 14th that the rebels broke out of Misrata greatly changing the strategic situation; now August 14th may see mass conformation of Tripoli being isolated and another radical shift in the war against the regime.

[CaptainChewbacca]

So does Qadaffi have ANYTHING left entirely under his control besides Tripoli? Shouldn't he be catching a plane now?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So does Qadaffi have ANYTHING left entirely under his control besides Tripoli? Shouldn't he be catching a plane now?

He'd rather commit suicide with a bang?

[Tribun]

So does Qadaffi have ANYTHING left entirely under his control besides Tripoli? Shouldn't he be catching a plane now?

He'd rather commit suicide with a bang?

Nah, I think once he really feels that things go south -meaning Rebels knocking at his door- he'll probably flee to his friend Hugo, the only one who still would accept his presence. (That reminds me, have you also watched Chavez' increasingly bizarre statements concerning Libya?)

[That NOS Guy]

So does Qadaffi have ANYTHING left entirely under his control besides Tripoli? Shouldn't he be catching a plane now?

Doesn't his plane risk being shot down if it takes off?

[Omega18]

Doesn't his plane risk being shot down if it takes off?

Right now its safe to say NATO forces would be very willing to let Qadaffi flee somewhere else by plane if its understood that it would be part of his regime agreeing to stand down and give up, thereby ending this conflict. (The only question is if the part about allow Qadaffi to safely flee would be made public or not.)

[Sea Skimmer]

Reporters on the rebel side have reached Zawiyah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FElcx8qI ... r_embedded



Its way more likely Qaddafi would flee by road into the desert and try to hide out Saddam style and do as much as possible to try and provoke a insurgency. He'll never trust any NATO offer of safe passage out. I'll be amazed if he does leave Libya; the time to do so was when he was still in a position of some strength and still had some money.

[JME2]

I'll be amazed if he does leave Libya; the time to do so was when he was still in a position of some strength and still had some money.

An additional concern about Qaddafi fleeing is the potential for a scorched earth scenario in the capital and surrounding areas. He's crazy enough to do it, but I'd like to hope that the window of opportunity has passed.

[Sea Skimmer]

It likely never existed. I doubt his minions would ever obey such orders; even Hitler's people refused to more then partially carry scorched earth orders even though it was clear a lot of stuff was going to fall into Soviet hands.

[Tribun]

Well, it certainly doesn't look good for Gaddafi's forces right now. Back when Zawia was first taken, the Rebels were pretty disorganised, unerarmed and complete rookies. This time they are armed, trained and organised. They also have captured the highway that leads through the city, and which connects Tipoli the the lands west of Zawia. This means that should they hold the city -and right now they do everything to get a good grip on it- all of Gaddafi's troops west of it are boned.

How in deep trouble they already are can be seen that now attacks flare up in these cities. At the border, the soldiers try to act normal, but from Tunesia everyone can hear the gunfire coming closer.

[CJvR]

So does Qadaffi have ANYTHING left entirely under his control besides Tripoli?

Oh he still have a strong position reaching from Tripoli via Bani Walid to Sirte on the coast beyond Misrata and Sabha in the south.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Libyan_Uprising.svg
The Rebels are effectively divided into three separate pockets: The Western mountains, Misrata and Libya east of Brega.