Operation Oil Theft: Month 6, Week 2, Day 1.

Although sporadic fighting continues around Zawiya, Gharain, Tripoli and Misrata the rebels now control the majority of the western coastal region of Libya including the main supply route from the Tunisian border. However last weeks assault on Sabha failed and Muammer Qaddafi has still not been deposed let alone captured so the rebels have focused their efforts on an advance of Sirte from both the west and the east. On the western front their advance has been slowed to a stop by Libyan government troops near the village of Abu Grin. On the eastern front the rebels have been stopped near the town of Bin Jawad. Western journalists are being kept well away from the front lines because it is widely believed that the rebels advance on both fronts is being spearheaded by British, French, New Zealander and possibly American special forces.

With the assault on Sabha failing and the south eastern area being mostly desert the current map of Libya looks something like this with the hatched area being the area under Libyan government control;

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Today (30/8/11) the rebel's Transitional National Council (TNC) have given Libyan government forces until Saturday (3/9/11) to surrender or face a full military assault on Sirte. This is triumphant way of admitting that the rebels will not be in a position to attempt an assault on Sirte until Saturday at the earliest.

In the meantime NATO continue to provide the rebels with close air support. This included a British attack on Sirte last Thursday (25/8/11). Although the target itself - a bunker complex - was nothing special this attack was important because it was a long range mission launched from within the UK rather then from the NATO base in Italy. Therefore the main purpose of the attack was Britain warning the other NATO allies that even if the NATO mission ends as scheduled Britain will continue to attack Libya. Britain obviously has the capacity to do this but without NATO support it will be unable to maintain the naval blockade or extensive battlefield surveillance and will be limited to two or possibly three missions per day.

Meanwhile as western journalists flood Tripoli the true horror of the NATO siege and the rebel assault continues to emerge. This includes the desperate situation at the Bab al-Azizya hospital where over 100 patients were left to die from battlefield and other injuries due to a shortage of medical supplies and medical staff being forced to flee from the rebels advance. There have also been two confirmed instances of mass killings constituting a war crime. One committed by Libyan government forces and one committed by the rebels. On August 24th Human Rights Watch (HRW) uncovered a field hospital for Libyan government troops in the Bab al-Azizya area of Tripoli. It contained 29 bodies, some with their hands or legs tied, who'd been executed by rebel fighters. There have also been numerous, unconfirmed reports of gangs of rebel fighters entering Tripoli hospitals and killing black patients in their beds. On August 26th HRW discovered 35 bodies in and around the Internal Security building in the Gargur area of Tripoli who had been executed by Libyan government forces.

The most controversial incident of mass killing so far relates to the discovery of at least 45 bodies (possibly 200) in a burnt out warehouse in the Khalida Ferjan area of Tripoli on August 23rd. This was reported by the BBC on August 28th as a massacre by Khamis Qaddafi's 32nd armoured brigade and if you speak to anyone now no-one will tell you any different. However if you are able to read the statements made by witnesses at the time they talk of prisoners being guarded in the room by Libyan government soldiers with other Libyan government soldiers on the roof of the building. Then there were sounds of battle outside before unidentified gunmen opened the door, threw in several hand grenades and sprayed the room with gunfire before closing the door. They then opened the door for a second time, threw in several more hand grenades and again sprayed the room with gunfire. Now it seems odd to me that Libyan government forces would deliberately kill their own soldiers while they're under attack. So, to me, this incident sounds more like poorly trained and poorly disciplined rebel fighter messing up and then trying to cover it up rather then a deliberate massacre.

Although there are many more bodies to recover after a week of fighting that left an estimated 2,500 dead the main problem for the residents of Tripoli is a chronic shortage of food, water, medical supplies, fuel and electricity. You may have noticed that the rebels and NATO are being evasive and contradictory about what is causing these shortages. Apart from squandering Libya's wealth on a first class health care system, extensive social housing and free education for all Qaddafi also built an extensive network of overland rivers to bring fresh water from desert aquifers to the coastal cities. As part of the siege of Tripoli NATO closed the main supply route from Tripoli, cut the oil pipeline to Zawiya and bombed these overland rivers specifically to cut off the supply of fresh water. So what was a legitimate military tactic to protect civilians when Tripoli was under the command of the Libyan government has suddenly become a humanitarian crisis now the city is under rebel control.

In the UK much is being made of the TNC's refusal to extradite the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Meghari. The problem is that al-Meghari has been tried, convicted, jailed and freed from prison so there's really nothing Britain can do with him if he was extradited. Also is Libya, as with much of the rest of the world, no-one believes that al-Meghari was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing and he is viewed as either a victim of the Qaddafi regime or as a hero. So by requesting something they never wanted Britain was setting the TNC to refuse in order to allow them to give the impression that they're not just Britain's pets.