Gaddafi forces prevail at Ras Lanuf, opening gateway to Cyrenacia, heartland of the Rebellion.
03/10/11 - The battle for Ras Lanuf continued as the Gaddafi Saadi Brigade, backed by helicopters, Mig-23 jet fighters and naval gun ships launched a coordinated assault to rout rebel opposition and seize the oil facilities there and at Mersa Brega. The Libyan Army did what any military commander worth his salt would do under similar circumstances. The rebel forces, composed of untrained militias of partisan youth, many fighting with only a few days experience, have enough weaponry to block the coastal road leading to Ras Lanuf and make a frontal assault costly. So the Saadi Brigade divided its forces into two battalion assault columns and sent one directly at Ras Lanuf to fix the scattered defense there on the coastal road, while the second executed a wide envelopment aimed at outflanking rebel resistance and approaching Mersa Brega from the south. These are the very same tactics Rommel and Montgomery used in WWII when fighting along these desert coastlines. The Gaddafi attack was further augmented by helicopter gunship and air strikes, with naval gunboats flanking the rebel positions from the sea to the north of Ras Lanuf. It is clear now that the inexperienced and disorganized rebel forces are no match for Gaddafi’s Brigades in these circumstances, and Ras Lanuf is likely to fall back into pro-government hands within hours.
Behind it is the strategic town of Ajdabiya, which Israeli site Debka incorrectly reported captured by Gaddafi forces on March 8th. The town remains firmly in rebel hands, a small but densely structured urban center that could be easy to surround but difficult to clear. Should the rebels fall back to Ajdabiya and fight there, we are likely to see one of two outcomes: 1) a bloody urban battle like Zawiya wherein most of this town will be destroyed by the superior firepower of Gaddafi armored forces, or 2) Gaddafi forces could simply surround and bypass the town, cutting it off from outside help as they continue north into the Rebel held province of Cyrenacia. Frankly I was amazed it took the Libyan Army so long to prevail here, with a full brigade, air support, helicopters, gunboats and artillery at their disposal, outgunning the rebels by a factor of five. This operation marks the first decisive military victory by Gaddafi against the rebellion. His actions in the west have largely failed to retake Zawiya and Misurata.
In Zawiya, the Kamis Brigade has acted in a way that can only be described as criminal. As many as 50 tanks backed by infantry in Armored carriers blasted their way into the city, using their firepower to indiscriminately destroy buildings. Civilian casualties have been very high, but the rebels still control the city center. Gaddafi has tried to prevent the world from witnessing the brutal force he has applied there, intimidating, arresting, and beating foreign journalists like the three BBC reporters who were subjected to a mock execution. Yet reports have leaked out of tanks firing directly into buildings, soldiers breaking into residential homes, snipers killing anyone found outside, old men, women, children. This is what Gaddafi will have to do in Benghazi if he is to prevail.
Yet this is war. Western nations did not hesitate to bomb and utterly destroy civilian centers when they fought each other in WWII. And let us not forget we used atomic weapons to obliterate two Japanese cities, and killed over 100,000 more in a single weekend when we firebombed Tokyo. It is only in recent years that the world decries civilian casualties arising from political conflict--as long as they are not trumped by other “interests” that we value more than human lives.
One thing now is clear to the rebellion: it does not have the military strength to directly oppose and defeat Gaddafi’s more experience and much better armed military. Yet the rebels now know that should their uprising fail there will be brutal reprisals and a return to the 42 year tyranny of Gaddafi. I have little doubt that they will end up pursuing the only strategy they can really adopt given their lack of heavy weapons-- a defense of the most densely populated urban centers like Benghazi, Al Mart, Al Bayda, Darnah and Tobruk. They will fight for these cities as they fight now in Zawiya and Misurata, and Gaddafi will have to destroy the entire eastern province of Cyrenacia if he is to prevail.
With NATO and UN nations still quibbling over whether or not to impose a no fly zone and deny Gaddafi use of his small air force, the question is now firmly on the table--will the West sit by and allow the continued killing of civilian dissidents in Libya, with all the destruction urban fighting will most certainly entail in places like Benghazi? And what will the United States do in this event?
History seldom presents such pointed yet vital questions to an American president, but this is certainly one of them. Will the US support the Libyan revolution and recognize the Libyan Transitional National Council, or will it lend de-facto support to Gaddafi by failing to take action. We sat by and watched Saddam slaughter thousands in Southern Iraq when the Shia rebellion occurred there after the first Gulf War, even with the victorious US army just a few miles away. The result was that we had to go back and fight a second Gulf War for 8 long years in Iraq.
This is a moment on the cusp of time that will decide the fate of Libya, and strongly influence the future course of the popular Arab uprising now underway through the region. A whole generation of Arab peoples, most under 30 years of age, have courageously rebelled against the long entrenched autocracy of their oppressive governments, demanding the one thing we claim to hold most dear in this country--freedom. A decisive action now in support of the Libyan government is a strategic and moral imperative for the United States. The time for equivocation is over. History is asking us a question that we will long regret not answering here. It is time to support the Libyan revolution with the considerable means at our disposal.
Perhaps we fear to take such a decisive stand because rebellion has now come to the vital region of the Persian Gulf in places like Bahrain and now even Saudi Arabia, nations we have armed with our weapons and supported for generations in exchange for a stable and abundant flow of oil. We fear to answer the question in Libya because History may ask it of us yet again in Saudi Arabia. To say this is a thorny problem for the US, and the world, is putting things lightly. It would be far easier to do nothing. The world had no qualms when nearly a million were killed in bloody purges throughout Africa over the last decade. When oil, gas and money are on one scale and human lives on the other, we have too often chosen, to our great shame, to protect commodities and ignore human lives.
03/09/11 - The map above shows the present state of the Libyan revolution, and it is one that would give pro-Gaddafi comanders restless nights. Their one success to date has been the action by Saadi Brigade (4) at Bin Jawad, which stopped the rebel advance on Surt and is now increasing pressure on Ras Lanuf, with more air strikes reported daily there. The Gaddafi army has before it an imposing task, and a campaign much more difficult than Rommel had when he drove east on these desert roads during WWII. As Rommel could threaten to drive directly on Cairo, his Afrika Korps could take the right fork at Ajdabiya and race directly for Tobruk. He did not need to bother with cities like Benghazi, Al Mart, Al Bayda and Darnah. The British retreated as fast as he could advance, through their bastion at Tobruk and then back to the Egyptian border to defend Egypt. But Gaddafi’s loyalist brigades must retake all the green cities and towns, secure them, and re-impose Gaddafi’s authoritarian rule there. Then he must re-enlist the loyalty of all the desert tribes that have abandoned him as well. I reckon it near impossible for him to achieve this. His Khamis Brigade (1) continues to blast its way through Az Zuwiyah in the west, with reports of indiscriminate use of heavy weapons there, destroying buildings and infrastructure in an attempt to impose fear as their ultimate control over the dissident population. He will have to do the same to every city in Libya to re-impose his authority, leaving the nation in ruins if he were to succeed.
News sources have been intrigued today with a report that three of Gaddafi’s private planes have taken off, one heading for Austria, one for Egypt and one for Greece. Speculation is that someone, or some thing is being moved out of the embattled country. The revolutionary council gave Gaddafi a 72 hour ultimatum yesterday, but Israeli news site Debka again has an outlandish spin on the story.(They are sounding more like our own Fox News each day with their constant spin of the situation as one in which Gaddafi is firmly in control and driving events with his iron fisted elite brigades.) They published a photo of a jubilant Gaddafi and claimed the Rebels have offered Gaddafi a cease fire, agreeing to lay down their arms in exchange for a pledge from him to “save Benghazi.” Debka claims an Egyptian Field Marshal, the Greek Prime Minister, and Vienna based diplomats are behind these negotiations, which matches the flight paths of the three planes leaving Tripoli.
Gaddafi forces are, of course, nowhere near Benghazi. To pose any threat to that city they would first have to fight their way through Ras Lanuf, Mersa El Brega, Ajdabiya, Qumanius, Sulug and other smaller towns along the way. I find it improbable that the Rebellion would concede so easily after its initial dramatic successes. The burden of proof, where control of Libya is concerned, is firmly on Gaddafi. All the Rebellion has to do is hold the ground it presently has, in effect creating two Libyas, one liberated and one controlled by Gaddafi. A look at the map above tells the real story, and Gaddafi is a long, long way from restoring the authority of his regime. The Rebellion is unlikely to give him what he cannot take, and he has not proven he can take much at all, the capture of Bin Jawad being his only military victory to date.
03/08/11 - The Gaddaffi counteroffensive has reportedly seized control of Bin Jawad but has been unable to retake the oil towns of Ras Lanuf or Mersa El Brega where rebel forces are consolidating and awaiting reinforcements from Benghazi after advancing 100 miles in the previous week.
In Zawiya, (west of Tripoli) Gaddafi troops are able to bull their way into the city center, but cannot secure the city, as they come under constant attack by rebel forces there. Yet isolated as it is from any other outside help, the insurgents may have little remaining ammunition. In this light, Gaddafi’s inability to quell opposition there with his finest troops, “The Kamis Brigade” shows how difficult it is to secure hostile urban environments.
One has only to recall the intense fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, after the US threw more than 8 battalions of hardened US Marines and Army units, supported by an additional 2000 Iraqi army troops against an estimated 2500 insurgents. It took 9 days of intense fighting to secure the city, and sporadic fighting continued there for another five weeks as Marines had to continually patrol and re-clear areas over and over that had been re-infiltrated by insurgents. This Marine/Army unit was a highly skilled force comprised of two regimental combat teams, supported by tanks, APCs, helicopters and considerable air power and artillery. It possessed combat power an order of magnitude beyond Gaddafi’s “Kamis Brigade.” So the inability of Gaddafi’s best to secure Zawiya demonstrates, in no uncertain terms, that Gaddafi has no chance of ever re-imposing his authority over Libya in populous cities like Benghazi. His forces continue to struggle in Zawiya, and Misurata, all well within his sphere of influence near Tripoli and isolated from the main rebel resistance in the east.
Even though his troops possess tanks, have air and helicopter support, and have naval gunboats, they have not been able to decisively defeat the lightly armed rebel forces on the front lines near Ras Lanuf. The inability of Gaddafi troops to take and hold Ras Lanuf and Mersa El Brega in short order is telling. Keep in mind that the resistance is largely composed of a small core of defected army troops augmented by scores of youth who are holding weapons for the first time in their lives. The inability of Gaddafi forces to quickly defeat this opposition shows they have little chance of advancing on Benghazi, or ever retaking that eastern stronghold should they even manage to approach that city, the second most populous city in Libya. In fact, Gaddafi cannot even claim to completely control all of Tripoli, and there are whole segments of the city that are hostile to his regime.
These facts have led to stories this morning that there have been secret negotiations between the Gaddafi government and the Revolutionary council in Benghazi. Today the council announced it would not pursue Gaddafi for crimes, and would guarantee his safe travel, if he steps down and leaves the country within 72 hours.
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, the government there has reportedly augmented its security forces by drafting 10,000 new conscripts and is sending columns of armor and military to Shia areas most likely to demonstrate in the planned “Day of Rage” scheduled for March 11 and March 20. News like this has led oil futures traders to place call orders for oil at $200/barrel deliverable in June, 2011. (Such call orders guarantee the $200 price while not obligating the buyer to actually make the purchase.)
03/10/11 - The battle for Ras Lanuf continued as the Gaddafi Saadi Brigade, backed by helicopters, Mig-23 jet fighters and naval gun ships launched a coordinated assault to rout rebel opposition and seize the oil facilities there and at Mersa Brega. The Libyan Army did what any military commander worth his salt would do under similar circumstances. The rebel forces, composed of untrained militias of partisan youth, many fighting with only a few days experience, have enough weaponry to block the coastal road leading to Ras Lanuf and make a frontal assault costly. So the Saadi Brigade divided its forces into two battalion assault columns and sent one directly at Ras Lanuf to fix the scattered defense there on the coastal road, while the second executed a wide envelopment aimed at outflanking rebel resistance and approaching Mersa Brega from the south. These are the very same tactics Rommel and Montgomery used in WWII when fighting along these desert coastlines. The Gaddafi attack was further augmented by helicopter gunship and air strikes, with naval gunboats flanking the rebel positions from the sea to the north of Ras Lanuf. It is clear now that the inexperienced and disorganized rebel forces are no match for Gaddafi’s Brigades in these circumstances, and Ras Lanuf is likely to fall back into pro-government hands within hours.
Behind it is the strategic town of Ajdabiya, which Israeli site Debka incorrectly reported captured by Gaddafi forces on March 8th. The town remains firmly in rebel hands, a small but densely structured urban center that could be easy to surround but difficult to clear. Should the rebels fall back to Ajdabiya and fight there, we are likely to see one of two outcomes: 1) a bloody urban battle like Zawiya wherein most of this town will be destroyed by the superior firepower of Gaddafi armored forces, or 2) Gaddafi forces could simply surround and bypass the town, cutting it off from outside help as they continue north into the Rebel held province of Cyrenacia. Frankly I was amazed it took the Libyan Army so long to prevail here, with a full brigade, air support, helicopters, gunboats and artillery at their disposal, outgunning the rebels by a factor of five. This operation marks the first decisive military victory by Gaddafi against the rebellion. His actions in the west have largely failed to retake Zawiya and Misurata.
In Zawiya, the Kamis Brigade has acted in a way that can only be described as criminal. As many as 50 tanks backed by infantry in Armored carriers blasted their way into the city, using their firepower to indiscriminately destroy buildings. Civilian casualties have been very high, but the rebels still control the city center. Gaddafi has tried to prevent the world from witnessing the brutal force he has applied there, intimidating, arresting, and beating foreign journalists like the three BBC reporters who were subjected to a mock execution. Yet reports have leaked out of tanks firing directly into buildings, soldiers breaking into residential homes, snipers killing anyone found outside, old men, women, children. This is what Gaddafi will have to do in Benghazi if he is to prevail.
Yet this is war. Western nations did not hesitate to bomb and utterly destroy civilian centers when they fought each other in WWII. And let us not forget we used atomic weapons to obliterate two Japanese cities, and killed over 100,000 more in a single weekend when we firebombed Tokyo. It is only in recent years that the world decries civilian casualties arising from political conflict--as long as they are not trumped by other “interests” that we value more than human lives.
One thing now is clear to the rebellion: it does not have the military strength to directly oppose and defeat Gaddafi’s more experience and much better armed military. Yet the rebels now know that should their uprising fail there will be brutal reprisals and a return to the 42 year tyranny of Gaddafi. I have little doubt that they will end up pursuing the only strategy they can really adopt given their lack of heavy weapons-- a defense of the most densely populated urban centers like Benghazi, Al Mart, Al Bayda, Darnah and Tobruk. They will fight for these cities as they fight now in Zawiya and Misurata, and Gaddafi will have to destroy the entire eastern province of Cyrenacia if he is to prevail.
With NATO and UN nations still quibbling over whether or not to impose a no fly zone and deny Gaddafi use of his small air force, the question is now firmly on the table--will the West sit by and allow the continued killing of civilian dissidents in Libya, with all the destruction urban fighting will most certainly entail in places like Benghazi? And what will the United States do in this event?
History seldom presents such pointed yet vital questions to an American president, but this is certainly one of them. Will the US support the Libyan revolution and recognize the Libyan Transitional National Council, or will it lend de-facto support to Gaddafi by failing to take action. We sat by and watched Saddam slaughter thousands in Southern Iraq when the Shia rebellion occurred there after the first Gulf War, even with the victorious US army just a few miles away. The result was that we had to go back and fight a second Gulf War for 8 long years in Iraq.
This is a moment on the cusp of time that will decide the fate of Libya, and strongly influence the future course of the popular Arab uprising now underway through the region. A whole generation of Arab peoples, most under 30 years of age, have courageously rebelled against the long entrenched autocracy of their oppressive governments, demanding the one thing we claim to hold most dear in this country--freedom. A decisive action now in support of the Libyan government is a strategic and moral imperative for the United States. The time for equivocation is over. History is asking us a question that we will long regret not answering here. It is time to support the Libyan revolution with the considerable means at our disposal.
Perhaps we fear to take such a decisive stand because rebellion has now come to the vital region of the Persian Gulf in places like Bahrain and now even Saudi Arabia, nations we have armed with our weapons and supported for generations in exchange for a stable and abundant flow of oil. We fear to answer the question in Libya because History may ask it of us yet again in Saudi Arabia. To say this is a thorny problem for the US, and the world, is putting things lightly. It would be far easier to do nothing. The world had no qualms when nearly a million were killed in bloody purges throughout Africa over the last decade. When oil, gas and money are on one scale and human lives on the other, we have too often chosen, to our great shame, to protect commodities and ignore human lives.
03/09/11 - The map above shows the present state of the Libyan revolution, and it is one that would give pro-Gaddafi comanders restless nights. Their one success to date has been the action by Saadi Brigade (4) at Bin Jawad, which stopped the rebel advance on Surt and is now increasing pressure on Ras Lanuf, with more air strikes reported daily there. The Gaddafi army has before it an imposing task, and a campaign much more difficult than Rommel had when he drove east on these desert roads during WWII. As Rommel could threaten to drive directly on Cairo, his Afrika Korps could take the right fork at Ajdabiya and race directly for Tobruk. He did not need to bother with cities like Benghazi, Al Mart, Al Bayda and Darnah. The British retreated as fast as he could advance, through their bastion at Tobruk and then back to the Egyptian border to defend Egypt. But Gaddafi’s loyalist brigades must retake all the green cities and towns, secure them, and re-impose Gaddafi’s authoritarian rule there. Then he must re-enlist the loyalty of all the desert tribes that have abandoned him as well. I reckon it near impossible for him to achieve this. His Khamis Brigade (1) continues to blast its way through Az Zuwiyah in the west, with reports of indiscriminate use of heavy weapons there, destroying buildings and infrastructure in an attempt to impose fear as their ultimate control over the dissident population. He will have to do the same to every city in Libya to re-impose his authority, leaving the nation in ruins if he were to succeed.
News sources have been intrigued today with a report that three of Gaddafi’s private planes have taken off, one heading for Austria, one for Egypt and one for Greece. Speculation is that someone, or some thing is being moved out of the embattled country. The revolutionary council gave Gaddafi a 72 hour ultimatum yesterday, but Israeli news site Debka again has an outlandish spin on the story.(They are sounding more like our own Fox News each day with their constant spin of the situation as one in which Gaddafi is firmly in control and driving events with his iron fisted elite brigades.) They published a photo of a jubilant Gaddafi and claimed the Rebels have offered Gaddafi a cease fire, agreeing to lay down their arms in exchange for a pledge from him to “save Benghazi.” Debka claims an Egyptian Field Marshal, the Greek Prime Minister, and Vienna based diplomats are behind these negotiations, which matches the flight paths of the three planes leaving Tripoli.
Gaddafi forces are, of course, nowhere near Benghazi. To pose any threat to that city they would first have to fight their way through Ras Lanuf, Mersa El Brega, Ajdabiya, Qumanius, Sulug and other smaller towns along the way. I find it improbable that the Rebellion would concede so easily after its initial dramatic successes. The burden of proof, where control of Libya is concerned, is firmly on Gaddafi. All the Rebellion has to do is hold the ground it presently has, in effect creating two Libyas, one liberated and one controlled by Gaddafi. A look at the map above tells the real story, and Gaddafi is a long, long way from restoring the authority of his regime. The Rebellion is unlikely to give him what he cannot take, and he has not proven he can take much at all, the capture of Bin Jawad being his only military victory to date.
03/08/11 - The Gaddaffi counteroffensive has reportedly seized control of Bin Jawad but has been unable to retake the oil towns of Ras Lanuf or Mersa El Brega where rebel forces are consolidating and awaiting reinforcements from Benghazi after advancing 100 miles in the previous week.
In Zawiya, (west of Tripoli) Gaddafi troops are able to bull their way into the city center, but cannot secure the city, as they come under constant attack by rebel forces there. Yet isolated as it is from any other outside help, the insurgents may have little remaining ammunition. In this light, Gaddafi’s inability to quell opposition there with his finest troops, “The Kamis Brigade” shows how difficult it is to secure hostile urban environments.
One has only to recall the intense fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, after the US threw more than 8 battalions of hardened US Marines and Army units, supported by an additional 2000 Iraqi army troops against an estimated 2500 insurgents. It took 9 days of intense fighting to secure the city, and sporadic fighting continued there for another five weeks as Marines had to continually patrol and re-clear areas over and over that had been re-infiltrated by insurgents. This Marine/Army unit was a highly skilled force comprised of two regimental combat teams, supported by tanks, APCs, helicopters and considerable air power and artillery. It possessed combat power an order of magnitude beyond Gaddafi’s “Kamis Brigade.” So the inability of Gaddafi’s best to secure Zawiya demonstrates, in no uncertain terms, that Gaddafi has no chance of ever re-imposing his authority over Libya in populous cities like Benghazi. His forces continue to struggle in Zawiya, and Misurata, all well within his sphere of influence near Tripoli and isolated from the main rebel resistance in the east.
Even though his troops possess tanks, have air and helicopter support, and have naval gunboats, they have not been able to decisively defeat the lightly armed rebel forces on the front lines near Ras Lanuf. The inability of Gaddafi troops to take and hold Ras Lanuf and Mersa El Brega in short order is telling. Keep in mind that the resistance is largely composed of a small core of defected army troops augmented by scores of youth who are holding weapons for the first time in their lives. The inability of Gaddafi forces to quickly defeat this opposition shows they have little chance of advancing on Benghazi, or ever retaking that eastern stronghold should they even manage to approach that city, the second most populous city in Libya. In fact, Gaddafi cannot even claim to completely control all of Tripoli, and there are whole segments of the city that are hostile to his regime.
These facts have led to stories this morning that there have been secret negotiations between the Gaddafi government and the Revolutionary council in Benghazi. Today the council announced it would not pursue Gaddafi for crimes, and would guarantee his safe travel, if he steps down and leaves the country within 72 hours.
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, the government there has reportedly augmented its security forces by drafting 10,000 new conscripts and is sending columns of armor and military to Shia areas most likely to demonstrate in the planned “Day of Rage” scheduled for March 11 and March 20. News like this has led oil futures traders to place call orders for oil at $200/barrel deliverable in June, 2011. (Such call orders guarantee the $200 price while not obligating the buyer to actually make the purchase.)
