Excerpt
In less than three weeks, an inchoate opposition in Libya, one of the world’s most isolated countries, has cobbled together the semblance of a transitional government, fielded a ragtag rebel army and portrayed itself to the West and Libyans as an alternative to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s four decades of freakish rule.
But events this week have tested the viability of an opposition that has yet to coalesce, even as it solicits help from abroad to topple Colonel Qaddafi.
Rebels were dealt military setbacks in Zawiyah and Ras Lanuf on Tuesday, part of a strengthening government counteroffensive.
Meanwhile, the opposition council’s leaders contradicted one another publicly. The opposition’s calls for foreign aid have amplified divisions over intervention. And provisional leaders warn that a humanitarian crisis may loom as people’s needs overwhelm fledgling local governments.
“I am Libya,” Colonel Qaddafi boasted after the uprising erupted. It was standard fare for one of the world’s most outrageous leaders — megalomania so pronounced that it sounded like parody. It underlined, though, the greatest and perhaps fatal obstacle facing the rebels here — forging a substitute to Colonel Qaddafi in a state that he embodied.
“We’ve found ourselves in a vacuum,” Mustafa Gheriani, an acting spokesman for the provisional leadership, said Tuesday in Benghazi, the rebel capital. “Instead of worrying about establishing a transitional government, all we worry about are the needs — security, what people require, where the uprising is going. Things are moving too fast.”
“This is all that’s left,” he said, lifting his cellphone, “and we can only receive calls.”
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"Qaddafi Forces Renew Attacks on Rebels" By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, New York Times 3/8/2011
Excerpt
With airstrikes, armor and artillery, military units loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi hammered the rebels seeking his ouster in battles along the eastern Mediterranean coast and in the besieged western city of Zawiyah on Tuesday, as a new report documented how badly the insurgents lagged the Qaddafi forces in equipment and capabilities.
Qaddafi forces battered the rebel-held city of Zawiyah for a fifth day. With land lines, cellphones and the Internet down, and journalists barred from the area, it was impossible to tell whose flag flew over the central square as darkness fell.
Fighting was also reported in the rebel-held city of Misratah, Libya’s third largest, about 100 miles east of Tripoli.
The Libyan air force, dominated by members of Colonel Qaddafi’s native tribe, renewed its strikes on rebel positions around the coastal oil city of Ras Lanuf. Rebels had taken control of the city days ago, when they appeared to be moving briskly westward.
On Tuesday they were struggling to regroup after losses the night before, so that they might move again toward the Qaddafi stronghold of Surt, west of Ras Lanuf on the road to Tripoli.
Rebel fighters — including an increasing number of professional soldiers — prepared themselves for a government drive to recapture Ras Lanuf. All afternoon, reinforcements in the form of dozens of white Toyota pickup trucks mounted with heavy machine guns and antiaircraft guns streamed in from the opposition-controlled east.
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