SEPTEMBER 15, 2011.
Standoff in Libya Buffer Zone
Gadhafi Statements Spur Fears of Protracted Insurgency, Cast Doubts on Refugees Who Want to Return Home.
By SAM DAGHER
AL-GADDAHIYA, Libya—Troops loyal to Libya's transitional leaders conducted tense sweeps this week in Al-Gaddahiya, a onetime bastion of support for Col. Moammar Gadhafi, amid mounting evidence that Libya's fugitive former strongman is preparing for a protracted insurgency campaign.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Young Libyans train to join the fighting forces of the country's new National Transitional Council on Wednesday in Tajoura, near Tripoli..
No national flags flew Tuesday over Al-Gaddahiya—neither the green standard of Col. Gadhafi's Libya nor the green, black and red flag of its new leaders. Dozens of families took refuge in a school, an abandoned power plant and a chicken farm.
Short of food and water, and without medical care, most had been displaced by fighting from their homes in Misrata. Troops loyal to the NTC, suspecting these refugees included Gadhafi loyalists, refused to allow the return trip to all but a few families, under Draconian security measures imposed by Misrata.
The standoff underscores the fears in several rebel-controlled areas—that the new government faces a long fight against pro-regime infiltrators and saboteurs.
Fighters loyal to the NTC continue to face fierce resistance around Bani Walid and on the highway to Sirte. On Sunday, rebels in Misrata retreated 100 miles west of Sirte after taking heavy casualties during an advance.
Pro-Gadhafi forces still control most of the Jufra region south of Sirte and the strategic road to Sebha farther south, say rebels in Jufra.
"We don't know what exactly is happening inside these cities," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman said Wednesday in Tripoli. "We're concerned by the fact that the fighting continues, atrocities continue, and civilians remain at risk."
Mr. Feltman, the most senior U.S. official to visit Tripoli since it was captured last month, said the U.S. wasn't directly involved in the manhunt for Col. Gadhafi, focusing instead on helping to secure Libya's chemical weapons sites and anti-aircraft missiles.
On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said at least 13 mass graves have been found in Libya over the past three weeks. Human Rights Watch said 34 bodies exhumed from a mass grave near the town of al-Qawalish in western Libya appear to be those of men detained by pro-Gadhafi forces in early June and later likely executed before the forces fled the area.
Since rebels stormed his compound in Tripoli, Col. Gadhafi has issued several short audio messages saying he is still in Libya and urging his supporters to press on with the fight against the rebels and their international backers.
The messages have been broadcast by the Syria-based Al-Rai television channel run by Mishaan al-Jubouri, an Iraqi businessman with ties to Iraq's Sunni insurgency. Col. Gadhafi is widely believed to be one of the channel's main financial backers.
On Monday, Mr. Jubouri read a message on behalf of Col. Gadhafi vowing not to "surrender Libya to foreign occupation."
Both men have drawn parallels between the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military campaign in Libya in support of the rebels.
"Things are measured by their endings, and not in a battle which is mismatched technologically and militarily," Mr. Jubouri wrote on his Facebook page on Sept. 3, referring to NATO's decisive role in the Libyan war, particularly its intensive aerial bombardment campaignsince March.
In a Sept. 8 audio message, Col. Gadhafi sounded confident in his ability to regain the military initiative. "The young men in Tripoli and everywhere are ready to escalate the attacks against the rats and exterminate the petty mercenaries," he said. "They think NATO will always be in the sky."
Salem Madi, a community leader from the rebel-controlled Western Mountains area southwest of Tripoli, believes that messages like these buoy Gadhafi loyalists, even though they are cut off from each other. "There are those who believe that Gadhafi is maneuvering and will come back," he said.
Mr. Madi said that on Saturday, pro-Gadhafi tribal fighters in the village of Asaba'a in the rebel-dominated Western Mountain killed 12 rebels in an ambush after luring a delegation from neighboring towns, including Gharyan and Kikla, into their area with promises of surrender and reconciliation.
Two days later, pro-Gadhafi tribal fighters aboard pickup trucks similar to those used by the rebels mounted a surprise attack against a rebel checkpoint near the Ras Lanuf refinery in eastern Libya, killing 15 people.
Such attacks, and the resistance encountered in areas like Sirte, have worried rebels in places like Misrata.
In addition to banishing the entire population of Tawergha, a neighboring Gadhafi loyalist town, rebels in Misrata are now preventing residents from their own city, who had fled the fighting earlier this year, from returning until they are vetted. Returnees must find a local sponsor and neighbors to vouch for them. They must fill out forms that are scrutinized, signed and stamped by several committees, say rebel commanders.
Dozens of families are now stuck between Misrata and Sirte, because their adult male members are perceived to be a security risk or they can't complete the clearance process. Living in public buildings, factories and abandoned homes in Al-Gaddahiya, they have are without power or supplies. They said they fear retribution from both sides.
Last week, some of these people say, they turned back a truck with food aid from Misrata because some residents feared they would be punished by pro-Gadhafi forces, who had fled the town in August.
Some have relatives in the ranks of Misrata's rebel leadership who can vouch for them. On Tuesday, Hisham Abu Lifa, a rebel commander, arrived in Al-Gaddahiya with more than a dozen pickup trucks brimming with armed rebels to bring his sister and her family back to Misrata.
Other families huddled at the school pleaded with the rebels to take them back home to Misrata. As barefoot children ran nearby, a man at the school said his family was turned back several times at a checkpoint south of Misrata because he didn't have a sponsor.
"We want the freedom to go back to our homes as soon as possible," the man said.
An ailing elderly man staying at a power plant with his family said he was going to die soon and needed urgent medical attention. Several men broke down in tears. The rebels said everyone had to go through the process.
—Yaroslav Trofimov in Tripoli contributed to this article.
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