Posted on 08/16/2011 5:32:46 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
Libyan rebels are threatening to isolate the capital, Tripoli, as they capture key towns to the south and west of the city and work to cut off supply routes in their bid to push leader Moammar Gadhafi from power.
The rebels say they control most of Zawiya, a strategic town 50 kilometers west of Gadhafi's power base in Tripoli. Rebel fighters entered Zawiya Saturday in their closest approach to the capital since government forces crushed Zawiya's rebel movement in the early weeks of the uprising.
Pro-Gadhafi forces exchanged fire with rebel fighters in Zawiya Monday, trying to push them back from the town center.
Rebel spokesmen said their fighters also captured the towns of Surman, 60 kilometers west of Tripoli, and Gharyan, 80 kilometers south of the capital. Their claims could not be independently verified.
Control of Zawiya, Surman and Gharyan would allow the rebels to cut off Tripoli from a key highway to the south and another leading west to Tunisia.
A U.S. military official said Monday Libyan government forces fired a scud missile for the first time since their conflict with the anti-government rebels began.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the missile landed in the desert about 80 kilometers outside Brega. Libyan forces and the rebels have battled over the strategic oil port city for months.
NATO and U.S. air strikes have targeted Libyan scud missile facilities and air defense sites out of concern that Gadhafi would use the missiles to target areas beyond government control.
Also Monday, a senior Libyan Interior Ministry official flew to Egypt with nine family members in what appears to be another defection from Gadhafi's government.
Nassr al-Mabrouk Abdullah and his relatives arrived in Cairo on a private jet from the Tunisian resort island of Djerba. Abdullah is believed to be a deputy interior minister. He entered Egypt on a tourist visa and did not meet any representatives of Gadhafi's embassy in Cairo.
Western news agencies quote sources in Djerba as saying Gadhafi's aides met Libyan rebels at a local hotel on Sunday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Libya envoy Abdul Ilah al-Khatib arrived in Tunisia Monday to join the talks between the two sides.
In an audio message broadcast on Libyan state television Monday, Gadhafi urged his people to fight to "to liberate Libya" from rebels who began their uprising in February to end his 42-year rule. He called the rebels "traitors" and denounced NATO as a "colonizer" for staging airstrikes in support of the uprising.
gleeaikin, pinging you for this one.
Is Obama still illegally using our forces in Lybia? The media and politicians have gone silent on this.
We’re still here.
Maybe it is a prelude to filling them with die-hard loyalists, as did Hitler at Frankfurt. Patton merely flooded the sewers after blocking entrances/exits.
Or perhaps Gaddafi plans something else??
The five largest tribes, comprising the bulk of Libyan population support Daffy. Infantry weapons were distributed to the population, including women. If Daffy was dictator as NATO and their terrorist allies claim, Daffy would be gone the moment population got the weapons. Or more logically, Daffy would never distributed it.
The fact is, Daffy has larger support base than Hussein.
We are watching botched arm robbery attempted by UKUSA and their AQ goons on the ground.
Taking Tripoli from several hundred thousand of armed and determined civilians would require Desert Storm-sized expedition force and NATO does not have it.
Their AQ scum is no fighting force and has 2000 bandits tops.
The pattern of fighting so far is quite telling. Libyan army retreats and scatter in small detachments. Armed civilians remain inside. AQ rebels (a.k.a rats) take bait and enter city. Civilians take them into the crossfire and kill as many as they can, army then returns. Trenches are dug and rats lured to capture them. then, trenches are filled with oil and set ablaze.
It seems that Daffy's Belarus and Russian instructors know the mentality of AQ terrorists quite well.
Libya is battle for the entire Africa, and NATO is not winning.
In desert warfare, as Rommel once posited, whoever controls the air, wins. In the past two weeks, "rebel" advances are quite note worthy. But only after having the ground "prepped" by NATO. Without air cover? The opposition would have been ground to dust months ago.
However, NATO will be reticent to use aerial arty in congested areas. Which brings the word "stalemate" to the front...
If the towns they say are captured by rebels and stay captured, then that basically cuts all the main roads leading to Tripoli. They are already cut off at sea and in the air. I am not sure about your tens of thousands estimate??? Meanwhile, here is a very interesting, long article by an experienced combat journalist regarding his month long stay in Tripoli. It includes comments regarding 2 times when he escaped from his government minders:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/16/libya.gadhafi.keyhole/
I’ve just finished a six-disk abridged audiobook version of “Army at Dawn” (Rick Atkinson), about the 1942-43 culminating battles in North Africa, which followed three years of the British fighting the Germans, Italians, and sometimes the Vichy French. Those were professional armies, not what we’re seeing here. I doubt that Gaddafy will bail. His current supporters may, but they’ve already seen how officials who switch sides end up getting executed by some faction or other of the jihadists.
Thanks gleeaikin!
100 tanks captured by opposition forces @ Tiji. No trained crews to operate same.
Gaddafi has terminal illness, hence no recent TV appearances.
140 tons of gold flown out of country to Chad/Mali banks. Others say, sitting in Sebha.
Gaddafi snipers taking a toll at Zawiya, Brega, and virtually everywhere rebels try to advance.
50 vehicle convoy of mercs hit by NATO en route to Zawiya.
The pipeline from Zawiya to Tripoli has been closed. Thus Gaddafi will have even less fuel for tanks, BMPs, etc.
I would guess the money is in Sebha, Gaddafi’s old stomping grounds. I suspect he would trust another country less. I will check out the news tonight and post some links here.
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