Operation Oil Theft: Month 4, Week 3, Day 1.

In Libya the front lines between Libyan government and rebel forces are still in place in Misrata, Brega/Ajdabiya and in the foothills of the Nafusa mountains. However in the early part of the week the conflict reached such a stalemate that neither side could even be bothered to exchange sniper fire across those front lines.

The government forces reason for this is quite simple. They know that if they attempt to attack the rebel positions NATO aircraft will come along and bomb them in order to protect the rebel fighters. So they are perfectly happy to sit on the defensive line they've established and wait for the rebels to attack them. The reason why the rebels have yet to do this is more complicated. They claim that they are avoiding attacking in order to avoid civilian casualties and are instead waiting for the long promised uprising in Tripoli to begin. In reality it is because they know that they can't break through the government line and the rebels backers have somewhat lost interest now that the bulk of Libya's oil reserves, in the south east of the country, are under rebel control and slowly coming to market.

The fact that Muammer Qaddafi is still able to bring hundreds of thousands of Libyans onto the streets in support coupled with the fact that the foreign controlled resistance network in Tripoli now seems to have been broken up to the point where they're reduced to actions, such as setting fire to billboards, that British anarchists would consider beneath them means that the rebels morale has dropped dramatically in recent weeks. So on Tuesday (5/7/11) the rebels leadership launched a big operation to boost morale and re-energise their support. One element of this was to call hundreds of thousands of rebel supporters to the streets in Benghazi and Misrata on Wednesday (6/7/11) to show to the world that the rebels have not yet been defeated. The other element was to launch two offensives on the Misrata and Nafusa front lines.

In Misrata a small section of the rebels offensive line was able to break out and establish a narrow, 12 mile (20km) long corridor towards government lines. This took two days between Tuesday (5/7/11) and Thursday (7/7/11) and around 30 rebels and an unknown number of government forces were killed in the process. Despite the rebels claims of success they remain within the limits of the city and it remains to be seen if they can maintain this corridor with their fighters isolated very far ahead of the main rebel line.

In the Nafusa mountains the rebels pushed out almost parallel with the government line to take the town of Gualish around 6 miles (10km) to the north-east. This effort took three days between Tuesday (5/7/11) and Friday (8/7/11) and although I don't have actual figures the rebels are said to have sustained heavy casualties. Although the rebels and the western media are claiming this to be a major victory all the rebels have actually achieved is to move closer to the strategically important town of Gharain which contains the main highway to Tripoli but remains about 28 miles (45km) ahead of them. Taking Gharain will take an even greater effort from the rebels because it is part of the government's stop line.

On the diplomatic front Britain and Russia held talks designed to help end the conflict but they broke down, apparently due to Britain's refusal to stop arming the rebels. At this point I have to say that I think Britain is hoping that the war in Libya will get so boring that everyone will stop paying attention and therefore not notice that it never actually ends.