Operation Oil Theft: Month 9, Week 5, Day 1.

Over the weekend (16-17/12/11) over US$160bn of Libyan assets have been unfrozen from a range of sources and placed under the control of the National Transitional Council (NTC). The first tranche of this money to actually arrive in Libya is around US$5bn in cash that is going to be flown from Germany to Tripoli. Obviously how much of that money actually ends up in the hands of the NTC depends on who controls Tripoli's international airport.

At the moment that airport is still firmly under the control of the Zintan Brigade militia rather then the Libyan government. The Libyan National Army (LNA) attempted to bring up reinforcements from Benghazi to make a second attempt to gain control of the airport but the convoy was stopped by the Misrata Brigade militia who are allied to the Zintan Brigade midweek. Then on Thursday (15/12/11) the son of the commander of the LNA General Khalifa Hifter was shot and wounded by the Zintan Brigade in Tripoli. When one of Hifter's other sons attempted to visit his brother in hospital on Friday (16/12/11) he was kidnapped by the Zintan Brigade and has not been heard from since. This comes against a backdrop of professionally circulated rumours that Hifter is some sort of American spy. Personally I don't think that is true but I am certain that the Zintan Brigade is being controlled by Britain which is why they were able to capture Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, a prisoner they've yet to hand over to the NTC.

Meanwhile protests that began in Benghazi on Wednesday (14/12/11) have begun to spread calling for more jobs, owed government wages and more transparency from the NTC. While people need jobs and people with jobs need to be paid I am worried by the call for more transparency from the NTC. The foreign powers that backed the Libyan revolution did not do so out of any concern for the Libyan people. Instead they did so to get control of Libya's vast oil wealth. In order to resist this international interference and secure a prosperous future for the Libyan people the NTC needs to be opaque about it's decision making process for a while yet. This is why Britain was so desperate that their militia captured Saif al-Islam so he could be used to ensure that their spy got a job in the NTC.

Or to put it another way the February 17th Libyan revolution that Britain started didn't produce the result it wanted so now they're trying to start a second revolution. This is how the Democratic Republic of Congo got started.