Operation Oil Theft: Month 6, Week 1, Day 1.

After a day packed with the wild claims, dark fantasies and outright lies that have become the rebel's trademark today (23/8/11) the hysteria is starting to fade and the reality of the situation is beginning to dawn.

In the east of the country the rebels have still failed to re-take Brega over five weeks since Libyan government forces withdrew from the town. In Zawiya, Gharain and Ziltan in the west of the country the rebels are coming under sustained guerrilla style attacks by Libyan government forces. They are also being attacked from the west by the government forces who still hold the area between Zawiya and the Tunisian border. In Mistrata the rebels are coming under attack from rocket fire. According to some independent reports the death toll from the rebels four day advance from Zawiya to Tripoli is as high as 1300. This is equivalent to the entire death toll from the four week Operation Cast Lead that Israel launched against Gaza in the winter of 2008/9.

Within Tripoli itself Libyan government and rebel forces are currently engaged in fierce and confusing urban warfare. However the rebel's claim that they would storm the Qaddafi compound and capture Muammer Qaddafi by dawn today (23/8/11) has proved to be false. Although the location of Muammer Qaddafi is still unknown the compound is still most firmly under Libyan government control. Also the credibility of the rebel's claim that they had captured Saif al-Islam Qaddafi was damaged slightly when overnight he strolled into a hotel housing western journalist. He then took some of the journalists of a guided tour of the south western quarter of Tripoli. This not only demonstrated that he's not been captured it also showed that he still had freedom of movement across large sections of the city.

At best I would say that the rebels control about 60-65% of Tripoli. That figure is only expected to fall as the British, French and New Zealand special forces who spearheaded the advance are withdrawn to search for Muammer Qaddafi and escape the TV cameras. Since yesterday (22/8/11) evening there have been reports of rebel units fleeing Tripoli as they discover the fighting is much, much harder then Britain's MI6 had promised them.

On the diplomatic front:

NATO are currently holding a meeting. This was called yesterday (22/8/11) and Britain and France had been hoping to use to get NATO to end the operation as quickly as possible. Today (23/8/11) they're going to try and use it to get NATO to extend the mission for as long as possible. The International Criminal Court (ICC) are being forced to explain why they announced that the rebel's had captured Saif al-Islam Qaddafi when they clearly hadn't. Some people are even suggesting that maybe if the ICC didn't simply accept everything the rebels say as fact without any form of investigation we wouldn't be in this mess.

Also Britain and France are suggesting the possibility of tabling a resolution at the United Nations Security Council that would allow the rebel's Transitional National Council (TNC) to start spending the Libyan government's frozen assets. The idea is to force the TNC to spend all their money now so they'll be totally dependent on the western powers when and if the time comes to negotiate oil contracts. I doubt they'll even get as far as tabling the motion let alone getting it past a vote.

As for the oil price it's gone back up. This is not due to events Libya overnight. Instead it's because the oil traders have had the time to read the lengthy technical reports that estimate that it will be the length of the conflict plus 5-8 years before Libyan oil production gets back to the very low level it was at before the conflict began. It will take even longer if the Libyan government actually get desperate and start sabotaging the oil infrastructure.


Edited at 19:02 on 23/8/11:

As I was making a lot noise writing this post a British or possibly Qatari fast jet bombed the Qaddafi compound primarily to generate a lot of smoke and influence the NATO meeting. However they also managed to breach the outer wall of the compound allowing rebel fighters to enter. The compound itself is about 2.5 square miles (4km) and contains many buildings, tunnels and bunkers. Therefore it will take the best part of 12 hours to search so I'm going to the pub. Not in any rush you understand because there is a football match going on.