Operation Oil Theft: Week 3. Day 3.

In eastern Libya the rebels have dug into positions just to the east of Brega. Although both sides continue to fire on each other this has produced something of a stalemate with the rebels lacking the strength to advance on the government forces and foreign air power preventing the government forces advancing on the rebels.

This lack of movement has allowed the focus to shift onto Misrata, the only pocket of rebel resistance in western Libya. Yesterday (3/4/11) a Turkish ferry that had been evacuating casualties from Misrata docked in Benghazi. Apart from showing off their injuries for the cameras and telling the world why they should hate Qaddafi these casualties also revealed why they'd been prevented from receiving medical attention in Misrata. In the very early days of the conflict, prior to resolution 1973(2011) being passed the rebels took over the main hospital in Misrata, forced patients out of the building and turned it into their military headquarters. This is most certainly a war crime and probably one of the dirtiest tricks in the book because not only does it force opposition forces to attack a hospital it also undermines the very principle that anything marked with either a red cross or a red crescent should be considered neutral. There have also been reports that rebels in Misrata and elsewhere have been launching attacks from inside Mosques in order to force government troops to attack those Mosques which really raises the question of whether there is anything that the rebels are not prepared to do to create anti-Qaddafi propaganda.

In diplomatic news the Libyan deputy Foreign Minister is in Greece for talks. When he initially crossed into Tunisia there was excitement in Britain that he might be another defector. He wasn't so I should explain that the NATO no-fly zone also includes diplomatic and civilian flights meaning that if the Libyan government want to carry out any diplomatic activity they must first drive to Tunisia to catch a flight and hope they don't get blown up on the way.

Also the Americans have formally denied that they are supplying weapons to the rebels and have troops on the ground training the rebels how to use those weapons. They are of course lying because I don't think they've informed either NATO or the UN. In an oil for weapons swap Qatar is providing the rebels with a variety of weapons and ammunition including heat seeking Katyusha missiles being brought into the country via Egypt. As Katyusha missiles are relatively hi-tech weapons the rebels are being trained how to use them and other military techniques by American and Egyptian special forces at a secret base believed to be near Al Marj. This suggests that the current stalemate will last until enough rebel fighters have been trained up to advance west under the cover of foreign air support.

In the meantime NATO air strikes have been severely hampered by the actual weather. Last week there were rain storms and cloud cover. This week there have been sand storms that have obscured ground targets. This is fitting into a pattern that saw the government forces initial advance on Benghazi taking place when the world was distracted by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan so I think the rebels might want to think twice before they shout "Allah Akbar!" again.

Also Barak Obama has today (4/4/11) officially announced that he intends to stand for the US Presidency again in 2012. That's odd because by my reckoning he gave up on doing that job about five weeks ago.