Where is Gadhafi? Guessing game begins as an era ends in Libya
By Laura Rozen | The Envoy & (Ulf Laessing and Missy Ryan )| Reuters
President Barack Obama said the conflict was not quite finished but that Gaddafi's 42-year rule was over. He urged him to surrender to end the bloodshed. Obama and his NATO allies backed the six-month revolt with air power but eschewed the ground combat that cost American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Your revolution is your own," he told Libyans, offering U.S. aid but not troops and urging the rebels to avoid settling scores in blood. "The Libya you deserve is within your reach."
"Egypt, still grappling with the fall of its own autocrat, abandoned its caution and recognized the rebel government. Other beleaguered Arab revolutionaries, notably in Syria, may take heart from a hard-fought triumph in the sands of Libya.
After Gaddafi, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must be "the most miserable person on earth," said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political scientist in the United Arab Emirates: "Gaddafi's fall," he said, "will also inspire the Syrian people" - By Ulf Laessing and Missy Ryan | Reuters
"He's (Gadhafi ) is everywhere, he's nowhere; he's negotiating to get out, he will never surrender; who knows?" former United Nations official Mark Quarterman said of the contradictory reports about Gadhafi's fate in an interview Monday with The Envoy.
What's important for Libya's reconciliation process is not just that the dictator is on the way out, Quarterman stressed, but how he goes.
"Gadhafi's mode of leaving is very important," Quarterman, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Envoy. "If he leaves but aspects of his regime stick around—-people who keep the lights on, and pick up the garbage, and they cooperate with the new transitional authority, that's a good thing. ... But if there's chaos in his wake," that would be very bad.
Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, leader of the Libyan opposition National Transition Council, triumphantly declared "the Gadhafi era is over" Monday as rebels poured into the capital of Tripoli, meeting sporadic fighting and pockets of resistance in certain neighborhoods.
The NTC said they had three of Gadhafi's sons in custody or under house arrest--including former heir apparent Seif al-Islam Gadhafi and Gadhafi's eldest son, Mohammed. But they confessed they had no idea of the whereabouts of the dictator who has brutally ruled the North African nation for almost 42 years.
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UPDATE : MODERN WARFARE 3.0
By Uri Friedman | The Atlantic Wire
When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated last week that Muammar Qaddafi's days were numbered, many news outlets--ourselves included--reported the news with some skepticism. After all, all sides in the conflict had declared imminent victory before, the Libyan leader was as defiant as ever, and the consensus among analysts was that the ragtag rebels faced steep challenges in seizing a relatively quiet and heavily fortified Tripoli.
And then suddenly, on Sunday, the unthinkable happened: rebel fighters poured into the capital with relative ease, swiftly taking control of much of the city (as today's heavy fighting suggests, fully rooting out the regime is proving more difficult).
What was behind the sudden shift in the six-month-old uprising, which observers had long dubbed an intractable stalemate? Let's take a look at some of the most intriguing theories:
Related: The Rebels Advance Toward Tripoli: We've Heard This Story Before
- Better NATO Surveillance and Coordination With Rebels American and NATO officials tell The New York Times that the alliance's targeting of Qaddafi's military had recently become more precise as the U.S. used Predator drones to monitor Qaddafi's forces near Tripoli. The sources add that Britain and France, among other nations, dispatched special forces on the ground inside Libya to help train and arm the rebels (this despite NATO's mandate to protect civilians rather than take sides in the conflict). As NATO air strikes gradually wore down the Libyan military's infrastructure and command-and-control structure, the officials explain, the enhanced surveillance and coordination proved lethal for the regime. As a case in point, The Times points to the fact that rebel leaders credited NATO with preventing Qaddafi loyalists from recapturing the strategic city of Zawiyah on Sunday.
- Frenetic NATO Bombing as Deadline Loomed The AP notes that NATO jets hit at least 40 targets in and around Tripoli in the past two days--the highest number on a single geographic location since the bombing began more than five months ago, according to NATO officials. The AP points out that "alliance's military planners have been racing against a deadline next month, when member states must vote on a second three-month extension of the mission," adding that "NATO officials deny there has been a fundamental shift in tactics in recent days to provide close air support to the advancing rebels."
Sleeper Cells in Tripoli Fathi al-Baja, the head of the rebels' political committee, tells the AP that the opposition had been plotting Sunday's offensive for the past three months, collaborating with NATO and dispatching rebel smugglers to arm sleeper cells in Tripoli. On Thursday and Friday, he explains, NATO escalated its strikes on the capital (a comment that supports the NATO bombing theory), and on Saturday--at what the rebels called the "zero hour"--the rebels activated the sleeper cells, sparking protests in the capital. Baha adds that a special battalion guarding the gates of Tripoli surrendered because the unit's commander, whose brother had been executed by Qaddafi years ago, was secretly loyal to the rebellion. Britain's Channel 4 News is also reporting that a dissident group that had been making secret broadcasts and podcasts in Tripoli over the last several months used Twitter and Facebook to give rebel forces map coordinates of pro-government snipers and heavy artillery in the capital.
Related: The Libyan Stalemate Suggested by Google Earth
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BREAKING NEWS UPDATES 08.21.11
Libya conflict: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi re-emerges!
THE BATTLE FOR TRIPOLI, LIBYA - LIVE
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14610722
