Britain's Slipping in Libya.

With Britain unable to bring in reinforcements the rebels advance across the Libyan coast has been halted. With the exception of the Tajoora suburb government troops are in full control of the capital Tripoli and have pushed out into the surrounding area.

In Zuwarah they have retaken the suburbs without a shot being fired and have a small group of rebels surrounded in centre of town. The Libyan army claim that they are delaying moving into arrest this group because the rebels are armed with heavy weapons and the Libyan army want to avoid civilians being killed in any crossfire. In the meantime the government forces have surrounded Mistarah and are working their way through the suburbs where they have encountered armed resistance from the rebels. As government troops still hold a wide are around Sirte it is unlikely that the rebels in Zuwarah and Mistarah will be reinforced by their allies in Benghazi. Rebel forces are also reportedly attacking British military aircraft to prevent them from leaving.

However these developments do not mean that Britain has fully ended it's involvement in the Libyan rebellion. Firstly they have Mustafa Adbel-Jalil who has appointed himself leader of the government of "Free Libya" in the east of the country. Qaddafi's former Justice Minister, Adbel-Jalil is the sort of man who aspires to be a British puppet. After defecting he tried to find favour with the British by doing a series of interviews in which he claimed that Qaddafi had personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing. Although this is the sort of propaganda that Britain dreams of at the time they were still confident of a rapid military victory over Qaddafi so dismissed Adbel-Jalil and his claims because he had no evidence to support them. However with the rebel advance stalled the British are now looking towards Adbel-Jalil to see if they can present him to the world as a legitimate alternative to the Libyan government.

The second area where Britain has significant influence over the Libyan rebels is through the Libyan Youth Movement who have been very active posting false and incorrect information on the new media sites such as Twitter and Youtube. Although I don't think they know why they've been doing it they've started referring to government forces as "Loyalists." Ahead of the Republic of Ireland general election (25/02/11) this was a deliberate attempt by the British to invoke the language of the Northern Ireland Troubles where Irish Republicans like the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) fought groups loyal to the British Crown like the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). This was done to remind everyone that Qaddafi supported the IRA in an attempt to influence the outcome of the democratic election the the ROI.

Although the IRA were, at times, a brutal organisation, especially in their treatment of the INLA, Qaddafi's support for them is actually an important part of the history of the 20th century. Starting in the mid-1980's Qaddafi's support co-incided with the IRA changing their tactics to focus more on destroying buildings and economic targets rather then killing people. Eventually this forced the Loyalist paramilitaries to change their tactics too raising the moral tone of the entire conflict. Also the vast majority of what Qaddafi gave the IRA was never used. Instead it was stockpiled and it was when the British became aware of these stockpiles in the mid/late-1990's they realised that they couldn't defeat the IRA militarily opening the door to the Northern Irish peace process that Britain is currently trying to undo.

While the Libyan Youth Movement haven't mentioned it yet Qaddafi also supported Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC). It was this support that allowed the ANC to avoid falling into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence and by doing so remain tolerable to the USA during the Cold War leading, eventually, to the fall of apartheid in South Africa. Having said that the fact that the advance of the Libya rebels has led to something of an ethnic purge of black Africans from Libya helping to bring an end to apartheid is likely to count against Qaddafi in the eyes of many of the rebels.