Operation Oil Theft: Month 5, Week 4, Day 1.

In Libya this week the unofficial Ramadan ceasefire has not held. In the east of the country the rebels have still failed to regain control of the town of Brega almost a month after Libyan government forces abandoned the town and the rebels promised to re-take it in record time.

The rebels have had slightly more success on the Misrata front line. As of Saturday (13/8/11) they seem to be in control of the town on Tawargha south of Misrata save for some small pockets of government resistance. Although of limited strategic importance Tawargha is where Libyan government forces had based the artillery and long range rockets they'd been using against rebel positions in and around Misrata. With extensive help from NATO close air support the rebels have been able to push those heavy weapons out of Tawargha meaning that they are no longer in range of most of Misrata.

The most dramatic developments though have come on the Nafusa mountains front line. Today (14/8/11) the rebels claim to be in control of the town of Zawiya some 18 miles (30km) outside of the capital Tripoli. This is almost incredible because it would have required the rebels to have advance some 125 miles (200km) from their positions in the foothills of the Nafusa mountains in little over four days - something that would have required the complete collapse of the Libyan government forces. So I think this is the result of a commando style lighting raid rather then a proper military advance. The idea being that a small but highly mobile raiding party smash their way into an area in order to grab a high profile, attention grabbing and morale boosting victory. They are then very quickly pushed out of the area but not before they've caused panic and gathered intelligence on how the area is being defended. So a bit like the London riots then only with heavier weapons.

Also the mystery of whether or not Muammer Qaddafi's youngest son, Khamis al-Qaddafi was killed in a NATO air strike near Ziltan last week has been solved. Put simply he wasn't. What did happen though was NATO aircraft attacked civilian positions in Majar near Ziltan killing at least 85 and injuring hundreds more. NATO claimed that Khamis al-Qaddafi's 32nd Armoured Brigade was in the area in an attempt to cover up the fact they'd attacked a civilian target. This ruse fell apart somewhat when Khamis al-Qaddafi was filmed visiting survivors of the attack in hospital. I hope you weren't expecting to see that on the western media.