Jets launched air strikes on the western gate of Ajdabiyah, the last town before the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, witnesses said, and a helicopter strafed the town which lies on a strategic road junction.
Government tactics during their counter-offensive have followed a pattern. Aerial bombings are followed by artillery barrage, then by an armored ground assault, suggesting Ajdabiyah was being softened up for an attack.
But while an advance on Ajdabiyah could not be ruled out, fighting still raged for the third day in the oil terminal town of Brega, along the coast southwest of Ajdabiyah, rebels said.
Strategypage provides an overview and describes exactly what I said early on the loyalists would have to do to defeat the rebels:
But the basic government strategy is working, so far. Several brigade size (1-3 thousand men) units are being sent along the coastal highway to recapture towns and cities. These assault brigades are equipped with Russian made tanks, and other armored vehicles, including artillery. The brigades are backed up by a few dozen fighter-bombers and helicopter gunships, as well as a few warships off the coast. Once the rebels in a town are killed or driven out (or into hiding), the government forces bring in less heavily armed security troops, and contact local government loyalists (or recruits some new ones) and proceed to terrorize the locals into obeying orders and not demonstrating or taking up arms. There aren't a lot of loyalists right now, so terror is the primary weapon.
Strategypage thinks the major combat operations will be over by the end of the month after the capture of Benghazi, and that then the retribution of hunting down rebels will begin.
I'll wait to see how the battle for Ajdabiyah goes. As the Strategypage report indicates, the loyalists haven't been able to get local loyalists to garrison what they capture--something I thought critical to maintaining momentum in a loyalist offensive. If you have to garrison everything you've taken with your assault forces, eventually your assault force dwindles to nothing and the offensive grinds to a halt all on its own. In the small towns the loyalists have captured so far along the coast on their eastern front offensive, this hasn't been a huge problem since they wouldn't require many troops to hold. Ajdabiyah--if the loyalists can take it--will be a problem to hold if the loyalists capture it. That's a lot of city with room for defeated rebels to wage a guerrilla war.
And that's not even considering the casualties the assault forces could endure. Cities eat troops if strongly defended. Even light militias with assault rifles, machine guns, and RPGs (if they have good morale) can be major threat to invaders. Iranian Pasdaran defenders in the Battle of Khorramshahr (with some heavy support from the regular army) held off Iraqi army assaults in 1980, and even when the Iraqis brought in better trained troops to take it, the Iraqis lost thousands of men for their victory and took over a month to defeat the defenders. The losses may have dissuaded Saddam from attacking other Iranian cities that the Iraqi army had approached in the initial invasion.
But if Ajdabiyah falls quickly, that's a really bad sign for the rebels. Khaddafi might then roll north to attack Benghazi. The rebels might still hold off the initial assault, but then the rebellion will be penned in to a small area.
And even if the rebels manage to make Khaddafi's forces pay a high price for Ajdabiyah, the loyalists would still have the option of heading east to the Egyptian border to cut off the rebellion. It would be a larger area that the rebels would hold--from Benghazi to Tobruk--but it would be mostly cut off and have no access to oil revenue.
Still, if the rebels can hold Ajdabiyah, hold the southeast oil fields, and then manage to organize decent organized units with some heavy weapons, the fight could be a long one that swings back and forth between the loyalist stronghold of Sirte at the west end and Ajdabiyah at the east end. I mentioned a while back that if it becomes a long war, each side's friendly populated areas could become the end points of a battle that rages between them.
It's even possible that a tough rebel defense of Ajdabiyah could shatter the loyalty of Khaddafi's forces (or kill off too many for future operations) or make the mercenaries refuse to fight since they want the payday and not the martyr's funeral. If the loyalist assault forces shatter on Ajdabiyah, rebels forces could again be racing west, and might trigger further defections or desertions of loyalist forces. Pro-rebel civilians might rise up again in the west, further straining the loyalists' limited manpower.
Watch Ajdabiyah. I think this will be the key battle of the civil war. If anybody's special forces are in Libya to support the rebels, this is where they need to go--now.
UPDATE: Did Ajdabiya fall already?
"The town of Ajdabiyah has been cleansed of mercenaries and terrorists linked to the al Qaeda organization," state television said, referring to the rebels fighting to end Gaddafi's 41 years of absolute power. ...
Government jets opened up with rocket fire on a rebel checkpoint at the western entrance to Ajdabiyah, then unleashed a rolling artillery barrage on the town and a nearby arms dump, following the same pattern of attack that has pushed back rebels more than 100 miles in a week-long counter-offensive.
At least one missile hit a residential area. Residents and rebels piled into cars and pickups to flee town on highways toward Benghazi or Tobruk, which are still in rebel hands.
Call me shocked if this is true. Clearly, the loyalists are attacking and some rebels retreated. Did all or even most rebels flee? If the rebels couldn't make a stand in a city of the size of Ajdabiya, they are SOL. But loyalists have made premature claims before. And the claims can be part of psychological warfare to convince rebels to retreat. So I'll wait for more solid information.
But if the rebels couldn't even make a losing fight for the city drag out for weeks, forget discussions of no-fly zones. It will always be too little, and now it will be too late. The only thing that will save the rebels is a division-sized landing of Western troops at Tripoli to capture the city and Khaddafi.
UPDATE: As of tonight, reports are that, at the very least, the loyalists control the road through Ajdabiya and the roads out of the city are open.
If the city is secured, the loyalists should strike north to Benghazi while rebel morale is shaken. An enemy not crushed can recover and fight back if given time--as Khaddafi's forces proved.
If the city isn't secured, it would be too much of a risk to push on leaving a potential threat to their line of supply to their rear.
And if the rebels have a counter-attack left within their capabilities, use it now to retake Ajdabiya and then hold the damn place. If the rebels can't do that, they are truly and royally effed. I remain shocked that the loyalists may have won that battle so easily.
