Three weeks ago, President Obama ordered American troops into the first “humanitarian war” on his watch, vowing to stop the forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from massacring their own people. Mr. Obama’s hope was that a quick application of power from the air would tip the balance, and the Libyan rebels would do the rest.
Now . . . the question in Washington has boiled down to this: Can Mr. Obama live with a stalemate? . . .
If the country’s civil war drags on, Mr. Obama will almost certainly have to answer a rising chorus of critics that he entered the battle too late, began to exit too early, and overestimated a very inexperienced, disorganized rebel movement.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton renewed the United States’ call for Khaddafy to step down and to leave Libya.
Clinton said the U.S. believes “there needs to be a transition that reflects the will of the Libyan people and the departure of Khaddafy from power and from Libya.”
After weeks of U.S. and NATO bombardment, about one-third of Moammar Gadhafi’s ground armor has been destroyed, as well as most of the fixed air defense sites and aircraft, but a stalemate between government and rebel forces is emerging and could last for some time, according to a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of the latest military assessments. . . .
The official said the latest U.S. and NATO view is that both sides essentially remain in their fixed positions — the rebels near Ajdabiya and the pro-government forces near al-Brega. . . .
“Neither side has the wherewithal to move,” the official said. Rebels do not have the manpower, vehicles or weapons to make major advances. And while Gadhafi’s forces continue their attacks, especially in Misrata, the source said they are suffering from a lack of supplies, ammunition and fuel because of airstrikes. The official said that a major ground force movement would put Gadhafi’s units in the cross hairs of NATO airstrikes. . . .
While [the rebels] are holding on to Ajdabiya for the moment, the senior official said it is hard to imagine them making any further gains toward Tripoli.
The president talks oil prices as if he actually knew something about either oil or economics. What Obama neglects to mention is that his administration’s own policies are a key factor in the price increase. But now it appears that the civil war in Libya (which Obama witlessly escalated three weeks ago) may soon end in a negotiated peace:
Embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, in negotiations with the African Union, has agreed in principal to a deal that would end the conflict in the nation he’s ruled for 42 years, South African President Jacob Zuma told reporters Sunday.
Negotiations remained under way Sunday night between Gadhafi and the African Union delegation.
Details of the agreement were not available, though it is believed to include an immediate ceasefire in the nearly two-month long war between Gadhafi’s forces and those fighting to unseat him. . . .
After staying overnight in Tripoli, the African Union delegation will fly Monday to the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi to meet with opposition leaders there.
So on March 3, Obama declared Qaddafi “must leave.” Now he’s like Emily Litella: Never mind.
Ajdabiyah had been the launch point for insurgents during a week-long fight for the oil port of Brega further west and its fall would be a serious loss.
To say that Gaddafi’s capture of Ajdabiya “would be a serious loss” is an understatement: Losing the town would be a disaster for the rebels, who have already been forced to retreat more than 200 miles eastward since March 28, when their advance threatened Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte. As the Associated Press says, if the rebels lose Ajdabiya, “the way is open for a siege of Benghazi.”
What I cannot understand is how Qaddafi’s troops were able to advance from Brega — across 50 miles of open highway in the desert — if NATO’s air forces were on the job. While it is reported that NATO jets knocked out several of Qaddafi’s tanks near Ajdabiya, a vigilant air patrol would have destroyed anything moving up the coast out of Brega. Yet now we have reports of Qaddafi’s artillery pounding Ajdabiya?
NATO has screwed the pooch. Here’s an al-Jazeera video report:
Like I said, look at the map: Two weeks ago, on March 27, the rebels were advancing in a major offensive, pushing west to capture the oil ports of Brega and Ras Lanuf, with Gaddafi’s troops reported abandoning artillery and fleeing in civilian vehicles. By March 28, the rebels were “jubilant” as they advanced toward Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown. By March 29, however, the rebels retreated in a “panicked scramble,” with fighting reported in Bin Jawwad and artillery fire audible in Ras Lanuf. By March 30, Gaddafi’s forces had retaken Brega “forcing rebel fighters into a chaotic retreat.”
It was last Sunday, April 3, that we saw the video of Geraldo Rivera under fire as rebels were fighting to re-take Brega. Now, a week later, the Gaddafi troops are reportedly closing in on Ajdabiya, where the rebels are trying desperately to hold onto their forward base. From Bin Jawwad to Brega is about 115 miles, and Gaddafi’s forces advanced that far in less than two days. After 10 days of fighting around Brega, Gaddafi’s forces have now apparently pushed another 50 miles to Ajdabiya.
It’s only 100 miles from Ajdabiya to the rebel capital at Benghazi, and they’ve already been pushed back more than 200 miles in two weeks. If another one of those “panicked scramble”/”chaotic retreat” scenarios develops for the rebels, Gaddafi could retake Benghazi within a week.
UPDATE: Mark Steyn checks in on Libya: “You remember, it was in all the papers for a couple of days. So I guess things have gone quiet because it’s all wrapped up now?” Or not, as Professor Reynolds observes: “War seldom rewards half measures.”
There was just now a Fox New report from Benghazi that seemed strangely optimistic, but I’m checking other reports online now and it looks like a rebel collapse may be underway at Ajdabiya.
The assault was more determined and organized than the ambushes and exchanges of rocket and artillery fire of recent days. Barrage after barrage of incoming fire thudded and exploded within the city, and loyalist troops advanced behind it. . . .
Many of the rebels fled once again, streaming north up toward Benghazi, the rebel capital, their horns blaring. One rebel fighter shouted at vehicles as they passed: “Qaddafi’s forces are coming! Go! Go! Go!” . . .
As the gun battle raged, the main rebel force rallied about 10 miles north of Ajdabiya.
Still checking reports of today’s fighting. Remember that there may be a gap of several hours between the time something happens in Libya and the time reporters there can get it on the Web. It’s not like they can just pop into a Starbucks, open their laptops and live-blog the war.
Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s military forces appeared to falter on Sunday in a second day of assault against the rebel city of Ajdabiya, as opposition fighters aided by heavy NATO airstrikes retook positions through much of the city.
Occasional skirmishes between small units within the city on Sunday morning appeared to be dying out. And other than an apparent mortar attack against a rebel checkpoint, the loyalists’ artillery and rocket batteries were mostly silent by the afternoon . . .
It was a sharp turnabout from the fighting on Saturday, when heavy artillery barrages sent rebel forces running several times through the day and caused heavy damage here. [Qaddafi’s] forces were able to infiltrate the city, fighting gun battles in the city center against local rebels who had stayed to defend their homes. But by Sunday, that threat appeared to have passed. . . .
By 4 p.m., a long rebel column of pickup trucks passed through the city’s main street, firing their weapons in the air in celebration.
The rebels’ gains were at least in part because of heavy NATO airstrikes throughout the morning and afternoon outside Ajdabiya . . .
OK, 4 p.m. Libya time was three hours ago (it’s now 1 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. in Libya), and the fact that Chivers was still able to file stories under an Ajdabiya dateline suggests that Qaddafi’s troops have been pushed back.
Muammar Gaddafi’s forces continued to fight their way toward Benghazi . . . Rebel defences around Ajdabiya appeared to be failing as Gaddafi’s soldiers broke into the heart of the strategic town, 90 miles from Benghazi, and engaged in running street battles after again outmanoeuvring the revolutionaries. . . . Shelling around the southern entrance to Ajdabiya continued, with loud explosions heard and thick black smoke rising over parts of the town.
Much of Ajdabiya was deserted after civilians fled amid the prospect of Gaddafi’s troops taking the town for the second time in as many weeks. . . . “Gaddafi’s military is in the town,” said Saleh Mufta, a 25-year-old who was a science student before becoming an armed rebel.
“There’s been a lot of shooting. Gaddafi has copied our techniques. He is not using so many tanks now after the air strikes. His men are in pickups. They move very fast. We don’t know where they are. They just pop up.” . . .
Asked what he thought the government army’s intent was, Mufta said: “They don’t want Ajdabiya. They want the road to Benghazi. They want Benghazi.”
Nato faces humiliation if Gaddafi’s army is able to force its way through Ajdabiya again to threaten Benghazi . . .
Other than a line of artillery about 15 miles from the city, rebel defences around Benghazi are little in evidence.
Comparing these two accounts, from Chivers and McGreal, you see how hard it is to tell what the military situation is now.
Saleh Mufta’s explanation that the Qaddafi troops are traveling in pickup trucks, and just “pop up” to attack the rebels, explains a lot of the confusion. In the span of an hour, a pickup truck carrying five or six men with AK-47s and mortars could easily move 30 or 40 miles cross-country in the desert. Mufta’s assertion that truckloads of these light forces are attempting to cut off the road from Ajdabiya to Benghazi explains why the rebels are so prone to panic: Without proper communications, the rebels currently fighting in Ajdabiya might get cut off by an attack on the Benghazi road many miles to the east. And they wouldn’t know they were cut off until it was already too late to retreat.
UPDATE V: Here is a CBS/Washington Post video report (you’ll have to watch a 30-second commercial):
The BBC reporter is Orla Guerin, who has one of those Gaelic-inflected accents that Americans seldom hear except on NPR programs about Irish folk music.
UPDATE VII: Ed Morrissey says, “It doesn’t take a Sir Bernard Law Montgomery to read the map. Ajdabiya is the key to Benghazi and Tobruk. . . . How badly is it going? Gaddafi felt sanguine enough to make a public appearance, making sure that the media noted today’s date on the school’s whiteboard.”
Diplomats are now trying to negotiate a ceasefire in Libya, which suggests that “kinetic military action” has become a synonym for “getting our butts kicked by Qaddafi.”
Scarcely three weeks after the U.S. military launched Operation Odyssey Dawn, the war in Libya is beginning to look like President Obama’s worst failure to date. While official Washington and the political press have been focused on budget negotiations and the prospect of a federal government shutdown, a foreign-policy disaster has been slowly unfolding in the deserts of the North African nation that Col. Moammar Gaddafi has ruled for more than four decades.
It was more than a month ago, during a March 3 press conference, that Obama declared his intent to “send a clear message: the violence must stop; Muammar Gaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead and he must leave.” Gaddafi hasn’t left yet, nor has the 68-year-old dictator indicated any intention of leaving any time soon, and the military actions of the United States and our allies do not seem calculated to force Gaddafi from power.
Least of all does Gaddafi’s continued rule seem jeopardized by the poorly armed and ill-organized Libyan rebels. . . .
News accounts are very confusing and contradictory at this point, but it appears that the Libyan rebels who had been trying to re-take the port city of Brega sustained a serious defeat today, and may even be prepared to abandon Ajdabiyah, 50 miles east of Brega on the coast highway. Here is a report from McClatchy News:
AJDABIYA, Libya — Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s air force evaded the U.N.-ordered NATO-enforced no-fly zone on Thursday and destroyed three rebel tanks parked along a key highway here, triggering a rebel retreat that seemed to pave the way for a full pro-Gadhafi assault on the city of Ajdabiya.
Rebels at first had blamed NATO for the airstrike, which witnesses said killed between two and six rebel fighters. But Eman Boughaigis, a spokesman for the rebel National Libyan Council in Benghazi, said the attack had actually been launched by a Gadhafi loyalist aircraft. It was not immediately clear how the aircraft had evaded the no-fly zone, which the U.N. ordered last month to keep Gadhafi planes from attacking rebel forces. . . .
The tanks — three Soviet-built T-72s and a Soviet-built T-55 — had left Benghazi, the rebel capital, Wednesday to reinforce rebel positions near Brega, site of a strategic oil terminal where rebels and pro-Gadhafi forces have been battling for days. A rebel unit commander, Salah Saraj, 34, said the rebels had parked the tanks after NATO ordered them not to go forward. A lone aircraft attacked the four tanks at about 11 a.m., according to another rebel fighter, Ahmed Salim Youssef, 25, who said he witnessed the attack. Three tanks suffered direct hits, Youssef said. Also hit was a bus carrying rebel fighters.
Youssef said the attack took place about 12 miles outside of Brega and that the aircraft made two passes at the tanks.
The assault apparently was carefully coordinated with Gadhafi loyalist ground troops. When the rebels abandoned their positions near the tanks, loyalist forces pursued, chasing the rebels to the western gate of Ajdabiya.
Ajdabiya was the last rebel redoubt before the capital of Benghazi, 100 miles away, but it appeared to be on the verge of being seized by loyalist forces Thursday evening. . . .
Other reports indicate that this was another friendly-fire error, like a previous misguided NATO air strike that killed 13 rebels. So like I said, it’s confusing at this point. Here is a video report that indicates the rebels are panicking, and some are pulling back from Ajdabiyah:
As you hear from this report, for Qaddafi’s forces to advance from Brega to Ajdabiyah would be very difficult, if NATO aircraft are on alert. But if Qaddafi’s air force is still actually capable of making attacks on the rebels, what the hell is NATO doing?
Rebel fighters claimed NATO airstrikes blasted their forces Thursday in another apparent mistake that sharply escalated anger about the military alliance’s efforts to cripple Libyan forces. At least five rebels were killed and more than 20 injured, a doctor said. . . .
“Down, down with NATO,” one fighter shouted as dozens of rebel vehicles raced eastward from the front, toward the rebel-held city of Ajdabiya.
Later, hundreds of cars poured out of Ajdabiya toward the de facto rebel capital, Benghazi, amid fears that pro-Gadhafi forces could use the disarray among rebel units to advance along the Mediterranean coastal road that serves as the lifeline for both sides. . . .
A rebel commander, Ayman Abdul-Karim, said he saw airstrikes hit tanks and a rebel convoy, which included a passenger bus carrying fighters toward Brega. He and other rebels described dozens killed or wounded, but a precise casualty toll was not immediately known. . . .
The rebel commander Adbul-Karim said the tops of rebel vehicles were marked with yellow under advice by NATO to identify the opposition forces. But rebels use tanks and other vehicles commandeered from the Libyan army — potentially making their convoys appear similar to pro-government units from the air.
The attack occurred about 18 miles (30 kilometers) from Brega, where rebel forces have struggled to break through government lines, he said.
So while there is confusion about whether this air strike was made by NATO or Qaddafi’s air force, this Associated Press account does appear to confirm the sense of panic in Ajdabiyah over the possibilty that Qaddafi’s troops will advance.
Libya’s seven-week-old civil war is reaching stalemate, a senior U.S. general said on Thursday . . .
Like we needed a general to tell us that. But notice how this is now just a “civil war” in Libya, as if Operation Odyssey Dawn never happened and President Obama had never declared Qaddafi “must leave.” If Qaddafi had been vanquished, the headline would have been “Obama Wins,” but now that it looks like Qaddafi might hang on, the media want you to forget that Obama committed U.S. prestige to this fucked-up war.
A spokesperson for the opposition’s National Transitional Council, Imam Bugaighis, said the air strike near the Libyan oil-town of Brega is believed to have been by pro-Gadhafi forces and not by NATO war planes as initially reported from the field.
Bugaighis: “There is no evidence the strike was by NATO. The jet fighters were at low level and they bombed our Free Libyan forces.”
Reporter: Who was behind this attack?
Bugaighis: “Gadhafi’s regime, Colonel Gadhafi’s regime”
Of course, you see that this would reflect just as badly on NATO as if it were a friendly-fire incident. If NATO is supposed to be enforcing a no-fly zone, and yet Qaddafi’s air force is able to attack the rebels, where is the vaunted NATO air superiority that was supposed to make a decisive difference in Libya?
Civilians and rebels fled Ajdabiya in their thousands yesterday on rumours that Colonel Muamar Qaddafi’s forces were charging towards the key eastern town, witnesses said.
Families packed into cars and trucks joined rebel military vehicles — pickups loaded with rocket launchers and machine guns — in a stampede north-east towards the rebel bastion Benghazi, some 160 kilometres away.
The rebel military, as it sometimes called, is not really a military at all. . . .
With throaty cries and weapons they have looted and scrounged, the rebels gather along Libya ‘s main coastal highway each day, ready to fight. Many of them are brave, even extraordinarily so. . . .
But by almost all measures by which a military might be assessed, they are a hapless bunch. They have almost no communication equipment. There is no visible officer or noncommissioned officer corps. Their weapons are a mishmash of hastily acquired arms, which few of them know how to use.
With only weeks of fighting experience, they lack an understanding of the fundamentals of offensive and defensive combat, or how to organize fire support. They fire recklessly and sometimes accidentally. Most of them have yet to learn how to hold seized ground, or to protect themselves from their battlefield’s persistent rocket and mortar fire, which might be done by simply digging in. . . .
Read the whole thing. It is in hope of overthrowing Moammar Qaddafi with this pathetic rabble that the Obama administration has involved the international prestige of the United States. Sigh.
Rebel soldiers refused to let civilians past the checkpoint outside the town of Ajdabiya on the road leading to the front, citing strict orders from the defected army officers who lead the opposition forces. . . .
Until now the front lines have had a carnival-like quality, with hundreds of young men, mostly unarmed, milling around, singing and chanting, and then fleeing in panic when mortars crash into the sand along the road.
But after a week in which the force has been pinned down outside a string of vital oil towns it has twice seized and lost, the core of army defectors leading the charge ordered civilians be kept away from the battle.
So as to what has transpired in the fighting near the oil port of Brega, we must rely on second-hand accounts:
Libyan rebels reported heavy fighting with the forces of Muammar Gaddafi on the Mediterranean coast road on Wednesday as both sides tried to break a stalemate in the seven-week war.
Mohamed el Masrafy, a member of a rebel special forces unit, said clashes began at 6am after Gaddafi’s forces were resupplied with ammunition and moved eastwards out of the oil port of Brega.
He told journalists after returning to the eastern town of Ajdabiyah there was heavy fighting with machineguns and other weapons.
“The rebel army is about 60 kilometres [35 miles] from here,” he said. That would put them about 20 kilometres [12 miles] from Brega, the focus of a week-long see-saw battle. Gaddafi’s forces mounted a sustained assault on Tuesday that pushed the rebels about half way back to Ajdabiyah, gateway to their stronghold of Benghazi. . . .
Hossam Ahmed, a defector from Gaddafi’s army, said the frontline was 40-60 kilometre west of Adjabiyah, saying on Tuesday’s retreat “wasn’t a full withdrawal, it’s back and forth”.
There was one report, from the Chinese press agency Xinhua, claiming Qaddafi’s forces have retreated from Brega, but that is contradicted by all other news reports online. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that Qaddafi’s forces have attacked oil fields that feed the rebel-held port of Tobruk, limiting the ability of the rebels to export oil to pay for more weapons. And the continued fighting in Libya is one reason some analysts expect oil to spike as high as $150 a barrel later this year.
When last we left the Half-Assed Uprising, the ragtag rebels had retreated from Brega yesterday — some reportedly fleeing all the way to Ajdabiya, 50 miles up the coast — after Qaddafi’s forces laid down an artillery barrage.
Libyan rebels regained ground in a new advance on an oil port Wednesday but accused NATO of inaction hindering their quest to oust Muammar Gaddafi. . . .
In their eastern heartland, ill-trained insurgents thrust back westwards towards the contested oil port of Brega, recovering mostly desert terrain lost in a pell-mell retreat from Gaddafi’s superior firepower the day before.
Rebels returning to the tiny outpost of al-Arbaeen, midway between Brega and their frontline town of Ajdabiyah, spoke of rocket duels close to Brega’s port as both sides strived to end a ragged stalemate in the oil-producing state’s civil war.
There was little doubt the rebels had made ground after falling back at least 40 km (25 miles) Tuesday but it was impossible to verify accounts that they were closing in on Brega once again.
There were reports of mortar and rocket battles near the town on Libya’s desolate Mediterranean highway 80 km (50 miles) west of Ajdabiyah. Fighting had resumed at daybreak after government forces were resupplied with ammunition and swung east from Brega, rebel officer Mohamed el-Masrafy told Reuters. “God willing, we are going to try to enter Brega today,” said rebel Idriss Abdel Karim, but he and various comrades complained of a lack of support from NATO bombers.
“(Government forces) are scared of NATO air strikes but NATO doesn’t bomb anything in the first place,” he said.
So it’s “impossible to verify” whether the rebels are actually making headway against “Gaddafi’s superior firepower” at Brega and, I suppose, a few hours from now we’ll have further confusing and inconclusive reports about the situation.
What we can say for sure is that (a) the Libyan rebels have a low opinion of our NATO allies’ military effectiveness, and (b) Moammar Qaddafi is no closer to being overthrown today than he was yesterday.
Reports from several news organizations indicate that Libyan rebels, who had been attempting to re-take the oil town of Brega, have retreated after an intense artillery barrage from forces loyal to Moammar Qaddafi’s regime. Associated Press:
BREGA, Libya – Libyan government forces unleashed a withering bombardment of rebels outside a key oil town Tuesday as an Obama administration envoy met with the opposition leadership in its de facto capital, a possible step toward diplomatic recognition. . . .
On the coastal road leading from the east to Tripoli, the rebels had managed to take part of the oil town of Brega on Monday, aided by an international air campaign. But the rocket and artillery salvos unleashed on the rebels Tuesday indicated the government’s offensive capabilities remain very much intact. . . .
Rebel attempts to fire rockets and mortars against the government forces were met with aggressive counter bombardments that sent many of the rebel forces scrambling back all the way to the town of Ajdabiya . . .
BREGA, Libya — Forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi battered rebel fighters on the road outside this strategic oil town on Tuesday with rocket fire, mortars and artillery, driving them many miles to the north and leaving them in disarray. . . .
Abdul Fattah Younes, the head of the rebel army, lashed out at NATO during a news conference in Benghazi on Tuesday, accusing it of indecision and lengthy delays in carrying out needed airstrikes. “What is NATO doing?” he said “Civilians are dying every day. They use the excuse of collateral damage.” . . .
How far the rebels have retreated, and whether the Qaddafi forces will pursue them, is unclear from these initial reports.
UPDATE: Ajdabiya is about 50 miles up the coast from Brega, so if much of the rebel force has fallen back that far, it would indicate a serious setback.
Meanwhile the rebel government’s military forces suffered another reverse. An artillery barrage by regime troops drove back the rebels 25kms from the city of Brega. The rebels have been attempting to take back the oil ports of Brega and Ras Lanuf after Western air strikes stopped an advance by regime troops. However, ineptitude by the revolutionaries has led to failure.
International coalition aircraft attacked regime forces outside Brega yesterday, but the rebels criticised Nato for being too slow to act. “Either Nato does its work properly or I will ask the [rebel] national council to raise the matter with the Security Council,” said Abdel Fattah Younes, head of the rebel forces, at a news conference in Benghazi in the rebel-held east.He said Nato’s inaction was allowing forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi to advance and letting them kill the people of the rebel-held city of Misrata “every day”.
This indicates that the rebels have not retreated all the way to Ajdabiya, but we still don’t know exactly where the front line is now.
UPDATE III: Starting to look like a “fog of war” situation. Libya is about 6 hours ahead of Eastern time in the U.S. (i.e., at 11 p.m. ET, it’s 5 a.m. the next morning in Libya), and it might be Wednesday before we have anything like a clear picture of what has happened.
While these initial reports indicate a pretty substantial retreat, the question is whether Qaddafi’s forces are following up in pursuit to threaten Ajdabiya. Perhaps this reported “retreat” is just a rear-echelon rumor, spread by some portion of the rebel forces who panicked under fire. For the Qaddafi troops to advance 5o miles on open road would expose them to NATO air attack. But given the rebel complaints about NATO, this air cover may not be very effective.
Rebels sharpened their criticism of what they said was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s failure to provide effective air support, as pro-Gadhafi forces drove eastward Tuesday, bombarding newly reorganized rebel forces with artillery. . . .
In Libya, Rebel forces had held their lines on the outskirts of Brega for three days, since they counterattacked the city Friday night.
But on Tuesday morning they woke up to a withering counterattack by Col. Gadhafi’s forces that drove them out of the city. By noon, the most forward rebel positions appeared to sit about 12 miles east of the city.
OK, then: By noon Tuesday (which was 14 hours before the story was published), the rebels had pulled back their forward positions about 12 miles, which is to say, out of range of Qaddafi’s artillery in Brega. But there is no indication that Qaddafi’s forces have advanced up the road toward Ajdabiya.
