The rebel fighter in Zawiyah, named Ibrahim, said forces loyal to Gaddafi were in control of the main road and the suburbs. Rebel forces still controlled the square and the enemy was about 1,500 meters (yards) away, he said.
Ibrahim said there were army snipers on top of most of the buildings, shooting whomever dared to leave their homes.
It's only a matter of time, at this point, before the loyalists capture the city. If the loyalists can turn over garrison duty to loyal paramilitaries to release the army units that spearheaded the assault, these units could move on to Misrata to capture that rebel-held city to the east of Tripoli.
Khaddafi also needs to exploit this victory to make sure that his side controls the oil resources of the west. this would allow Khaddafi to fund a war without drawing down on his cash reserves. Our government is worried that a long war is in the making:
The U.S. believes Col. Moammar Gadhafi has solidified control in parts of Libya, creating a stalemate with rebels and raising the stakes in the Obama administration's internal debate about whether to take military action to help the opposition, officials said.
I've worried about this for a while, now. I didn't get caught up with the eagerness to write off Khaddafi in the excitement of dramatic rebel uprisings in the east. Now, reports give Khaddafi a chance to avoid defeat. At this point, I wonder if our government is behind the curve and that a stalemate between east and west might be the best case scenario.
If the rebels can't get organized and bring heavy weapons and air defenses on the line to resist the firepower Khaddafi has deployed to grind down lightly armed rebels, Khaddafi will be able to drive into the east. If the loyalists can push to Ajdabiya, they'll be in a position to cut off the southern oil resources of the rebels, and threaten Benghazi and Tobruk. And a no-fly zone will have very little effect on this development.
If momentum visibly shifts to the loyalists, rebels still in the west will stay quiet making it easier for Khaddafi to send units east that might otherwise be needed to hold western cities.
Making no decision on what the United States should do in Libya rests on the wholly unsupported assumption that the rebels will eventually win. We may think that we can get on the right side on the cheap by declaring Khaddafi has to go without actually doing anything to make him go. That could bite us in the butt if the loyalists keep their nerve and move east.
We have options that fall short of open intervention, as I've noted in several posts and as Austin Bay reinforces.
UPDATE: Interesting:
The two sides in Libya traded barrages of artillery shells and rockets Wednesday afternoon about 12 miles (20 kilometers) west of the oil port of Ras Lanouf, an indication that regime forces were much closer than previously known to that city. Ras Lanouf is the westernmost point seized by rebels moving along the country's main highway on the Mediterranean coast.
Loyalists are already moving east, it seems, before nailing down Zawiyah and Misrata.
Also interesting:
In Cairo, an Egyptian army official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Maj. Gen. Abdul-Rahman bin Ali al-Saiid al-Zawi, the head of Libya's logistics and supply authority, was asking to meet Egypt's military rulers.
If I was Khaddafi, I'd be offering Egypt cut-rate oil from the eastern oil fields in exchange for cutting off all support for the rebels and keeping Western forces from staging out of Egypt or allowing supplies to go overland to Egypt.
Were I the rebels, I'd be making the cheap oil offer on the condition that Egypt provides aid to the rebels, including adding to the special forces Egypt has already sent in to help them.
UPDATE: Zawiyah has fallen to the loyalists:
Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi recaptured Zawiyah Wednesday after a fierce attack on the closest rebel-held city to the capital Tripoli, residents said.
Libyan state television showed footage of Gaddafi supporters waving flags in what it said was a celebratory march in Zawiyah and a rebel fighter told Reuters pro-Gaddafi forces had driven rebels from their stronghold in the central square.
Perhaps the rebels can counter-attack or harass the loyalists from around the city. If the loyalists can hold the city with paramilitaries and armed civilian supporters and redeploy the regular army units that spearheaded the assault, they can roll up Misrata and then work on going after the rebel heartland by taking Ras Lanouf.
Also interesting is that there are rumors that Khaddafi loyalists are putting out feelers about possible exile locations. So even though I think the military balance has shifted to the loyalists over the last couple days, loyalist leaders aren't so confident of victory yet.
UPDATE: Rebels say they counter-attacked and recaptured the main square of Zawiyah. Whatever is going on, the city sure isn't secured by the loyalists yet, even if the rebels were driven off from the city center.
