Martin Chulov in Tripoli, Chris Stephen at Kilometre Sixty, Daniel Boffey in London and Chris McGreal in Washington
The Observer, Sunday 28 August 2011
Article history
People in Benghazi celebrate the storming of Muammar Gaddafi's main military compound in Tripoli. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/AP
The crucial blow came as Muammar Gaddafi and much of the world looked the wrong way. The Libyan revolutionaries who swept out of the western mountains and into Tripoli, turfing a hated tyrant from power in a matter of days, had been regarded as bit players: by Gaddafi as he concentrated his forces to fend off the threat from rebels in Benghazi and Misrata in the east and by European and American politicians as they questioned the point of Nato's daily bombing raids after months of military stalemate.
But far from view, the rebels in the west were armed by the French, trained by the British and led into battle by Qatari special forces as they gained enough ground to seize the town of Zawiya, then pounce on the capital. By then rebel supporters in Tripoli, secretly armed, were ready to rise up and revolutionaries from Misrata had moved on the city from the east.
The scale of the astonishing victory, as the rebels swept in with such speed and force that they took most of the capital before Gaddafi could organise a defence, surprised the revolutionaries, even if the dictator still eludes them and his loyalists hold out in pockets of resistance.
"I admit that we did not expect such a pace in the military operation," said Ali Tarhouni, a member of the National Transitional Council and aspiring oil minister.
He was not alone. "We were sending text messages that something should happen on the 20th or 21st," said Muhammad Mahmoud in the eastern Tripoli suburb of Souk al-Juma. "But the dates were not sure. Then [last Sunday – the 21st] we were outside the police station in Tajura and the guards all ran away, leaving their guns behind. It was a dream. Finally we were free."
The offensive not only toppled Gaddafi after 42 years in power and six months of rebellion, but disarmed critics of Nato's long bombing campaign, which proved crucial in keeping the fledgling revolution alive and then in grinding down the Libyan leader's ability to fight while the revolutionaries grew in strength. The architects of Nato's war – David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama – breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of an end to what had seemed the interminable and costly bombings. Now the talk is of a new model of western interventionism.
The rebel victory has also added new impetus to other Arab revolutions, affirming the struggle for freedom shortly before Tunisians and Egyptians seek to consolidate their new-found liberties with elections and offering fresh hope to Syrians.
But the fall of Tripoli has also suddenly brought to the fore long-brewing questions about what will replace Gaddafi, as even western leaders have shaky confidence in the largely unknown members of the revolutionary government they have backed unstintingly, the Transitional National Council, to assert its authority over a country awash with armed young men with competing allegiances. Neither is the military struggle completely over. A potentially bloody battle over the town of Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace between Tripoli and Benghazi, has already begun.
Yet, for all the uncertainty there was jubilation among many in Tripoli at their sudden liberation. Ahmed Hassan stood at a checkpoint in Tripoli's east with a rifle he had looted from a nearby armoury and a swagger that suggested he liked his role in the new Libya.
"I was working in the central bank last week and this week I'm doing something noble," he said. "I got my cousin from the prison yesterday. His cheeks were empty and his eyes yellow. All because he was with the revolution. That is what they did to people. That's Gaddafi."
Even after six months of revolution, nightly blitzes by European air forces and a siege that was clearly taking its toll, Libyans seemed unprepared for their moment in history. The resolve of Gaddafi loyalists dissolved quicker than anyone had expected and by the week's end the former regime was in control of only about 10% of the capital that Gaddafi had ruled as a family fiefdom. After clearing the central city, rebels are massing for an assault on loyalist controlled farmland east of the airport that could finish the takeover of Tripoli.
The city's people are discovering what Libyans in other liberated cities discovered before them: the sudden release from lifelong fear of the regime. But as life slowly starts to take shape in Tripoli, people are constantly having to curb their instincts and remind themselves that the society they want to build will be different from the one they know and that they must suppress a desire to subject Gaddafi to summary justice.
"I would like to kill him," said Hassan. "Everybody would. He suffocated us for a long, long time and served up the remains to his sons. But the best thing would be to put him in a cage like a bird and drive him around the country."
Rid of the fear of Gaddafi, and certain that he cannot make a comeback, others are not bent on revenge. "It doesn't matter when, it doesn't matter how," said Dr Sami Segaigis at a Tripoli hospital. "He will be caught and put on trial. What we need then is a system of justice, not vengeance," he said. "A lot of things have to be made to work and this is going to take time, perhaps too much time."
Around the corner from the hospital on the city's eastern outskirts, justice was being meted out to a young man suspected of being one of the regime's key army officers. He was dragged from his car at a checkpoint and was being interrogated by local tribal chiefs and community elders. "We think he is from the Khamis Brigades," said one of his interrogators, referring to the feared and capable military unit commanded by one of Gaddafi's sons. "He is very important and he will be dealt with."
Many of Gaddafi's soldiers and officials had made no attempt to escape because Tripoli was surrounded so suddenly.
The cause of the sudden turnaround in the revolution can be seen in the fighters at Kilometre Sixty, a windblown truck stop in the desert named for its distance south of Misrata. It is no more than a wrecked cafe where two highways join in the middle of flat empty nothingness.
It is also the jumping-off point for rebel formations heading for what looks like being the war's last major battle – to capture Sirte 80 miles away. These formations are not the rag-tag groups of fighters who confronted tanks with petrol bombs in the spring fighting and who usually turned and fled in the face of mortars and gunfire. Now they come equipped with heavy weapons. Around the truck stop, parked in fire positions laid out by British special forces teams based in Misrata, are battered black pickup trucks, each mounting anti-aircraft guns. Behind them are a line of squat tanks, recently captured from fleeing government forces which, combined with heavy artillery and rocket launchers, add hefty firepower to the planned attack. "We learned a lot," said rebel fighter Abdullah Mateeg.
It was this army that in a week smashed through Gaddafi lines in the pell-mell advance on Tripoli. Better equipped, trained by British, French and Qatari special forces, and with six months' experience, this is the rebel's new model army.
For all that, air power was crucial. As was clear from the moment of the first Nato attacks to protect Benghazi five months ago, this was a war the rebels were going to win only with the backing of foreign planes and bombs.
The immediate effect of the air raids was to stall the advance of Gaddafi's forces. In time it went further and ground down his ability to resist an increasingly well armed and well trained rebellion. His forces had the tanks and guns to hold the front lines, but since March the alliance had been busy annihilating them.
Bunkers were shattered as if by a giant's fist, armoured vehicles flipped on their backs.
"It was hard at first [to fight the war]," said Muhammad Subka, one of a clutch of young rebel liaison officers working with British and French special forces teams in Misrata. Still, he makes clear that while Nato's air war kept the revolution alive when it was facing defeat, eventually the rebels had to deliver.
He said rebel soldiers, most of whom had never picked up a gun before, learnt quickly from British instructors at their base near Misrata's port. Subka, a former aircraft dispatcher, said his position as a commander carried pressures. "It makes you consider everything: their lives are in your hands. If you put him [a subordinate] in the wrong place, he dies."
The capture of Sirte, urgent now that Gaddafi's men are launching Scud missiles against Misrata, is viewed here as the final battle and one these bearded fighters hope will not need to be fought. "We've had enough, believe me," said Mateeg. "Nobody wants to fight. Ask yourself truly why we went to Tripoli. We went there to end this subject."
Now for the politics of the revolution, which promise to be complicated, fraught and messy. The National Transitional Council felt confident enough that the former regime was crushed to announce that it would move from Benghazi to Tripoli this weekend.
But the council may struggle to establish its credibility there. It is already viewed with scepticism by many rebel fighters because of its disastrous early handling of the war and it has been all but invisible to many Libyans even in the revolutionary stronghold of Benghazi. Crucial decisions have been made behind closed doors and barely explained to the public. Most members of the council are unknown to the broader population.
The council leader, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, is the only one with genuine appeal among ordinary Libyans and that is mostly because of his former role as Gaddafi's justice minister and a speech in January 2010 in which he declared promises of reform had been broken and resigned his post.
Jalil cut his teeth as a judge with a reputation for trying to use the law to free political prisoners and curb some of the regime's excesses. It was a delicate balance, but he gained a reputation that meant, when Gaddafi needed to demonstrate he was serious about reform in 2007, Jalil was made justice minister.
He was an early convert to the revolution and his fame assured him the top job, but he is a man without charisma and with no track record in politics, economics or the military. Around him are clustered a group of men he knows and trusts, but who have no grassroots appeal, in large part because they all served Gaddafi.
The 49-member council has done a good job of winning diplomatic and economic support from Europe and the Gulf countries. What it has not done is forge a functioning administration.
Western diplomats in Benghazi complain that most members lack the administrative expertise to run a government. Of particular concern is the concentration of the oil and finance portfolios in the hands of Tarhouni, despite the personal warmth diplomats feel for him.
The splits and bickering among the council came to the fore in July when army commander Abdel Fatah Younis was murdered. Jalil fired his cabinet on 8 August to signal his displeasure at the failure to explain the death or hold a publicly accountable investigation.
With Jalil struggling to impose himself on the council, he will now have to deal with competing factions from other cities as well as controlling Tripoli. Misrata's military spokesman, Ibrahim Betalmal, has put on record that the rebels here, who have done much to liberate Tripoli, do not accept orders from the council. Many Misrata rebels are upset that Benghazi obliged them to pay for arms shipped to the city during the siege.
The council remains publicly committed to designing a constitution, getting it approved by referendum and holding elections within eight months. Ordinary Libyans will be watching closely whether Jalil and other council members stick to their oft-repeated promise that they will not stand for the first presidential and parliamentary election.
However, the council inherits a country with no shortage of funds, including $150bn in assets overseas and largely undamaged oil wells that in more normal times produce 1.3 million barrels of oil a day. Libya's population is only six million, so the council will face no cash problems. What it will face is a struggle to establish itself in a capital in the face of a hostile elite, and with the grudging support of Misrata and troops from the Nafusa Mountains as its own units are largely absent from the capital.
The transition will be watched closely and with concern from afar. There was palpable relief among Downing Street aides last week as events unfolded. The rebels' dramatic sweep into Tripoli came as difficult questions were mounting about the cost and effectiveness of the endeavour.
But last week's sense of "satisfaction", as it was described by a senior government source, was tempered by the realisation that much could still go wrong.
At No 10, David Cameron's chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn – an aide to Lord Ashdown in Bosnia who knows that post-Gaddafi chaos could be the biggest hurdle yet – is advising the prime minister. Llewellyn is driving talk of stabilisation along with £20m of taxpayers' money and "suits on the ground" to help advise on everything from public order to the creation of government institutions.
On Thursday, the prime minister goes to Paris to co-chair a summit with Sarkozy. The two men who pushed hardest for the UN resolution that opened the way for the air campaign are keen to keep the tone right, not least because both governments believe further international recognition of the new government will be necessary to persuade the Libyan people that it is legitimate. Bragging by western powers is the most likely way to ensure that such recognition fails to be granted by states such as Russia and China.
Obama also has good reason to be satisfied with what was portrayed as his strategy of "leading from behind" – throwing US military might behind the Nato strategy but letting the Europeans be the public face of the anti-Gadaffi assault. He had come under criticism from left and right in the US for involving the country in another Middle Eastern conflict that seemed set to drag on indefinitely while others damned him for not doing enough to help the rebels.
Those criticisms have evaporated. Others may yet follow as Libya embraces, sooner than the rebels had dared hope, a future without Gaddafi.
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