Operation Oil Theft: Week 4. Day 2.

Saturday April 9th was a significant day in the Libya conflict as government forces were able to advance on Ajdabiya. As this was more of a smash and grab raid rather then a conventional military advance the rebels were able to repel the attack but the front line has been moved from the eastern outskirts of Brega to the western outskirts of Ajdabiya. The most interesting aspect of the battle was that NATO appear to have waived the no-fly zone in order to allow the rebels to use two helicopter gunships and a fast jet war plane to attack government troops. Libyan government sources claim that they were able to shoot down the two helicopters but the fast jet was provided with a NATO escort to allow it to return to base undamaged.

With depressing symmetry Saturday also saw a dramatic change in the course of the conflict in the Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivorie). Using French led peace talks as cover fighters loyal to the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo have re-grouped. This allowed them to push out from positions around the Presidential Palace and Gbagbo's residence where they had been contained by fighters aligned to the elected President, Alassane Ouattara. With Gbagbo's fighters on the offensive fighting has spread throughout Abidjan and the British Embassy had to be evacuated as it was caught in the crossfire and the violence threatens to spread re-igniting Cote D'Ivorie's civil war.

Despite events in Cote D'Ivorie the main diplomatic focus still seems to be on Libya with African Union leaders including South Africa's Jacob Zuma today (10/4/11) visiting the Libyan government in Tripoli. The first visit by foreign leaders to Libya since the passing of resolution 1973(2011) this trip will be made all the more interesting by the fact that South Africa surprised everyone by supporting 1973(2011). What is more interesting though is the diplomacy that has been happening outside of Libya. On Thursday (7/4/11) Brazil saw it's first US style high school shooting which was an attempt to open a dialogue with America over resolution 1973(2011) which sadly confirmed many of the worries about Brazil's new, "progressive" President. On Friday Britain tried to enquire about and impose it's own meaning onto that dialogue with the shooting of two naval officers by an enlisted man on the nuclear submarine HMS Astute. On Saturday (9/4/11) 6 people were killed in a shopping mall in the Netherlands as a Dutch man went on a shooting spree. Apart from being a Dutch attempt to join in the Brazil dialogue this was also an attempt to enquire how the investigation into the Tuscon shooting is progressing. After all if members of the American intelligence community were found to be working with foreigners to overthrow a lawfully elected US President by assassinating a US Congresswoman you would expect them to find themselves in a lot of Long Island style trouble.

So if the diplomacy's killed 20 I dread to think how many the war's going to kill.