Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi battled government opponents for control of a key oil installation and airstrip on the Mediterranean coast in a counteroffensive Wednesday against the rebel-held eastern half of the country.
The fighting at the Brega oil port appeared to be the first significant attempt by Gadhafi's regime to push back against the large swath of territory seized by the opposition — almost the entire eastern half of the country.
Brega (or Breqa or Burayqah) is a location that I mentioned that the rebels needed to hold to block advances into their enclave. But there is a road to the southwest (and which goes up to Tripoli in a round-about way) where Khaddafi apparently scraped up some new forces for this attack.
If Khaddafi can take and hold Burayqah and also retake Misrata, he will have pushed the front line to the rebel side of the country. I'm assuming that the central Sirte region is basically friendly to Khaddafi as his birthplace and based on early reports of loyal areas.
Khaddafi has also gotten foreign help from Belorus--arms, but most important, mercenaries, apparently:
The first suspicious flight, Griffiths says, took off on Feb. 15, the first day of Libya's mass unrest. A Russian-made Il-76 cargo plane departed that day from Baranovichi airport, the site of a major weapons stockpile that Belarus inherited from the former Soviet Union, and landed in Sebha, a Gaddafi stronghold in the southern Libyan desert that is out of reach of Western radar systems. It is one of the few airports still under Gaddafi's control.
In the past two weeks, according to Griffiths, a Libyan Falcon 900, the favored aircraft in the Gaddafi family's personal fleet, has also made flights in and out of Belarus. What they were carrying remains a mystery - some media reports have said they were packed with gold and diamonds for the Belarusian leader - but the main asset Gaddafi would need right now in return is not artillery or war planes. "Everyone had been supplying him with weaponry for years," Griffiths told TIME in an interview Tuesday. "What he was short of was guys in uniform to use it." (Comment on this story.)
According to recent reports, there have indeed been men who look European among the allegedly African mercenaries battling it out with Gaddafi's rivals.
The location of the airlift would fit in with an attack on Burayqah, if arms and mercenaries provided a stiffening for Libyan loyalists. Technicians to repair old Soviet-made weapons would be very valuable to Khaddafi. But there is no mention of this aspect.
Let's see if Hugo Chavez sends in any planes, too. Maybe he wants to repeat Cuba's African legion from the 1970s. Khaddafi isn't dead yet. I know the enthusiasm to see him go led to some people getting carried away with thoughts of an early victory. I figured Khaddafi could fight back if he got his act together.
So there will be cries for the West to intervene (but be aware that the Compassionate Community will turn on the interveners if the going gets tough). Western Europe should be able to scrape up the force, including several brigades of ground troops, that would be necessary to take Tripoli and hand it over to rebels. We could support it with a battalion of troops, air and sea power, and logistics, but we're carrying the load in Afghanistan and carried the load in Iraq, so let Italy, Spain, France, and Germany step up. We could help send supplies to eastern Libya, including technicians to help repair weapons and organize the rebels (hello MPRI).
There could be a long drawn out civil war yet, with each side having access to oil for exports. It could be the Iran-Iraq War all over again.
UPDATE: The BBC has a useful map that confirms my impression of the situation in the north:
If Khaddafi can take Zawiya, he can lock down oil resources in the west. If he takes Misrata, he opens up a supply line to Sirte. Taking Brega (Burayqah) and then Ajdabiya would protect the southwest somewhat, degrade the east's oil infrastructure, and create a jumping off point to take the heart of the rebellion at Benghazi.
UPDATE: It looks like the assault on Burayqah failed, and that only a couple hundred loyalists attacked. That isn't much of an offensive. It was gutsy for such a small force to try, I'll grant.
UPDATE: And who says Khaddafi has no friends left?
As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body's Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya's human rights record.
The review commends Libya for improving educational opportunities, for making human rights a "priority" and for bettering its "constitutional" framework. Several countries, including Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens -- who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal.
Well, half the country is free, I admit. But sadly, the report focuses on pre-revolt days. I'd say this is unfreakingbelievable, but this is the sainted international community in action. It is par for the course. Why the so-called Human Rights Council is still around is beyond me. But it isn't dead yet and continues to attack, too.
UPDATE: Oh, if Khaddafi takes Burayqah and Ajdabiyah, he could take a page out of Rommel's play book and advance across the desert (now with a road) to take Tobruk to isolate Benghazi from both east and west land supply lines. But while Khaddafi has been the first to launch real attacks, he has yet to succeed in dislodging the rebels from any important objective. We may yet see if the rebels can get organized and do any better on offense.
