Tobruk - While the offensive intensifies Gaddafi in Benghazi, and the Cyrenaica, I challenge anyone to find the front line, on which the insurgents resisting the advance of troops in Tripoli. It is zigzag, neurotic, damn mobile, you can not draw it. It is a game of chess in the desert, with the cities as pawns.
Cities that each claim to have captured, and that others claim to have liberated them and defend. It is a swing of lies. It is often a daunting exercise chasing the truth. Psychological warfare, fueled by the propaganda of both parties, puts a strain on the nerves of the population. In addition to the dead in cemeteries and the wounded in hospitals, there are ghosts multiplied by the false reports.
As I arrived at Tobruk, rumors gave some to the presence of mercenaries with green flags on the outskirts of Gaddafi. And it was a fake. Travel hundreds of miles into space, between the gray sand and blue sea in spring, with anxiety, let us say the fear of bumping into soldiers in Tripoli that, I say, running around on white truck "made in Japan" .
To them I'm an outlaw, being without a visa issued by Tripoli. I hope instead to meet the rebels. With them are inevitably friend. But now beginning to express an ill-concealed rancor. You are a westerner, you've made so many promises, what are you waiting to give us a hand? The setting moon rise languor and adrenaline rush.
On the road from Sollum, the last town in Egypt, and Tobruk, Libya's first major city to a checkpoint there is a boy with a stick of black pitted that even looks at me and then, a hundred miles away, in another roadblock, a young rests on the sleepy Kalashnikov like a stick. Still farther on the road to Benghazi, the capital city of Cyrenaica released and placed in the decisive game, along hundreds of miles is the same vacuum.
I wonder where the army of the insurgents. We are hidden, people swear by the cockade of the flag of revolution, which is that of the deposed king Senussi more than forty years ago by Gaddafi. Gotta groped a budget. Measured? I gave already in the hands of the dictator of Tripoli, and instead the fate of that important port of Tripoli would still uncertain, since the same regime of Saddam announced in the morning that operation is in progress to control it.
The insurgents claim to have killed eighty soldiers and Gaddafi have shot down two planes. Yet measured is at hand. Tripoli then struggling to tame it. The unexpected recovery of Gaddafi is not so triumphant. The dictator, while ringagliardito, limps. The same applies to the most distant Ajdabiya, key cities of Cyrenaica, because it is a junction of roads from Kufra, in Tobruk, in Sirte, but especially in Benghazi.
Ajdabiya fall, it was stated yesterday, Benghazi has no escape. After the bombings Tuesday and Wednesday Ajdabiya seemed lost for the insurgents, overcome by some tank and air strikes. The news, confirmed, denied, and again confirmed, but remained in doubt according to the insurgents, believed to have a few nests of resistance, caused a small exodus from Benghazi, in particular the withdrawal into Tobruk (six hours by car) of many foreign journalists.
Which I have left behind a quiet town, but with fewer and fewer flags of revolt and the people uneasy even if it is made. The latest reports say that troops loyal to Saddam are seventy kilometers from the outskirts. Calm, self-assured in appearance, General Abdel Fatah Yunis, the military commander of the insurgents in Benghazi, argues that despite the proximity of the enemy to the west, and the launching of missiles at several kilometers from the town (and it seems close to the airport ), the city still does not feel threatened and resist.
At the same time, Tripoli proclaimed that within 48 hours the entire country would be back in order. Of hours as I write, it should now be missing a few. But here in Tobruk, there is nothing new. And the same goes for Benghazi, even if the troops loyal to Saddam are approaching from the west and prepare for an attack.
It is a fact, Qaddafi is gaining ground. This is why the insurgents in Tobruk and partied long Bangasi the vote of the Security Council that authorized the no-fly zones, designed to prevent air strikes, along with other measures to "protect civilians". For them it is a relief, and may be a precondition for further aid, even more concrete.
A more direct intervention (on the ground?), Halt the conquest of Saddam. The "young" (shabab) struggling to fend for themselves. Defend themselves but they can not promote offensive able to regain lost ground. Halt the advance of the enemy, it is true, give the impression of being more organized, not to act more like improvised bands, can result in even longer.
No more. The occupation of Ras Lanuf, March 10, by the troops in Tripoli, marked a turning point. Insurgents believed Ras Lanuf, a town in the desert surrounding the Gulf of Sirte, their base impregnable, able to stabilize the front line. Instead, that bastion has fallen in a few hours, opening a gap is unbridgeable.
That defeat has dealt a severe blow to the morale of the fighters, whose strength was due more to the enthusiasm that the military capability. Insurrection, generous and confused, is dissolving? Threatens to leave cities in the desert and only blood stains? It is difficult, after so many promises and encouragements Western and Arab, after having ruled the capital of our inevitable impending collapse of Saddam, do not try now some shame.
The inertia of those who would like to reach out to cowardice. Looks more and more you collect loads of resentment among the insurgents leave a mark. Perhaps it is too late. The game is not quite finished. Benghazi and Tobruk, and a large part of Cyrenaica, the overwhelming power of the traditionally unruly dictator, have not yet been submitted.
On the square in Tobruk, named Tahrir (Liberation), like that of Cairo, has gathered a small crowd. Glued to the wall of a mosque half-empty, hang the old and recent photographs of the victims of the "green dictatorship" of Gaddafi. People look at them in silence, I try to break asking provocative questions.
Wonder where the army would defend the city. I see no trace. I have not met a single gunman in all Tobruk. I answered an elderly gentleman, an engineer in the oil industry, which city has more than six thousand people. He invites me dry, not to worry. Benghazi Tobruk as will be defended house by house.
It seems to me an act of faith and do not insist. The cool look of these prevent it. That is an important chapter of the tribes. In forty years Gaddafi has reduced the political landscape in a desert in Libya. Nor has created the most basic structures that govern a State. He survived only the social and tribal.
The dictator has been able to control, with the stick and carrot, with the repression and the oil money, the mosaic of tribes. On February 17, the mosaic is skipped. The support comes mainly from Gaddafi Warfalla, installed 180 kilometers southwest of Tripoli, which form a powerful tribe, with many communities, among the most educated and influential in the capital.
The dictator also has its own tribe, with a center Sirte, 500 kilometers from the capital. Among Warfalla Kadhafa and there is an ancient "blood" and also a common adversity against many other tribes who are called Awaker in Benghazi, Tobruk to Elgobai and so on. It is a labyrinth in which the alien is lost, but it is also a maze where you can perhaps decipher many aspects of the ongoing civil war. 
Cities that each claim to have captured, and that others claim to have liberated them and defend. It is a swing of lies. It is often a daunting exercise chasing the truth. Psychological warfare, fueled by the propaganda of both parties, puts a strain on the nerves of the population. In addition to the dead in cemeteries and the wounded in hospitals, there are ghosts multiplied by the false reports.
As I arrived at Tobruk, rumors gave some to the presence of mercenaries with green flags on the outskirts of Gaddafi. And it was a fake. Travel hundreds of miles into space, between the gray sand and blue sea in spring, with anxiety, let us say the fear of bumping into soldiers in Tripoli that, I say, running around on white truck "made in Japan" .
To them I'm an outlaw, being without a visa issued by Tripoli. I hope instead to meet the rebels. With them are inevitably friend. But now beginning to express an ill-concealed rancor. You are a westerner, you've made so many promises, what are you waiting to give us a hand? The setting moon rise languor and adrenaline rush.
On the road from Sollum, the last town in Egypt, and Tobruk, Libya's first major city to a checkpoint there is a boy with a stick of black pitted that even looks at me and then, a hundred miles away, in another roadblock, a young rests on the sleepy Kalashnikov like a stick. Still farther on the road to Benghazi, the capital city of Cyrenaica released and placed in the decisive game, along hundreds of miles is the same vacuum.
I wonder where the army of the insurgents. We are hidden, people swear by the cockade of the flag of revolution, which is that of the deposed king Senussi more than forty years ago by Gaddafi. Gotta groped a budget. Measured? I gave already in the hands of the dictator of Tripoli, and instead the fate of that important port of Tripoli would still uncertain, since the same regime of Saddam announced in the morning that operation is in progress to control it.
The insurgents claim to have killed eighty soldiers and Gaddafi have shot down two planes. Yet measured is at hand. Tripoli then struggling to tame it. The unexpected recovery of Gaddafi is not so triumphant. The dictator, while ringagliardito, limps. The same applies to the most distant Ajdabiya, key cities of Cyrenaica, because it is a junction of roads from Kufra, in Tobruk, in Sirte, but especially in Benghazi.
Ajdabiya fall, it was stated yesterday, Benghazi has no escape. After the bombings Tuesday and Wednesday Ajdabiya seemed lost for the insurgents, overcome by some tank and air strikes. The news, confirmed, denied, and again confirmed, but remained in doubt according to the insurgents, believed to have a few nests of resistance, caused a small exodus from Benghazi, in particular the withdrawal into Tobruk (six hours by car) of many foreign journalists.
Which I have left behind a quiet town, but with fewer and fewer flags of revolt and the people uneasy even if it is made. The latest reports say that troops loyal to Saddam are seventy kilometers from the outskirts. Calm, self-assured in appearance, General Abdel Fatah Yunis, the military commander of the insurgents in Benghazi, argues that despite the proximity of the enemy to the west, and the launching of missiles at several kilometers from the town (and it seems close to the airport ), the city still does not feel threatened and resist.
At the same time, Tripoli proclaimed that within 48 hours the entire country would be back in order. Of hours as I write, it should now be missing a few. But here in Tobruk, there is nothing new. And the same goes for Benghazi, even if the troops loyal to Saddam are approaching from the west and prepare for an attack.
It is a fact, Qaddafi is gaining ground. This is why the insurgents in Tobruk and partied long Bangasi the vote of the Security Council that authorized the no-fly zones, designed to prevent air strikes, along with other measures to "protect civilians". For them it is a relief, and may be a precondition for further aid, even more concrete.
A more direct intervention (on the ground?), Halt the conquest of Saddam. The "young" (shabab) struggling to fend for themselves. Defend themselves but they can not promote offensive able to regain lost ground. Halt the advance of the enemy, it is true, give the impression of being more organized, not to act more like improvised bands, can result in even longer.
No more. The occupation of Ras Lanuf, March 10, by the troops in Tripoli, marked a turning point. Insurgents believed Ras Lanuf, a town in the desert surrounding the Gulf of Sirte, their base impregnable, able to stabilize the front line. Instead, that bastion has fallen in a few hours, opening a gap is unbridgeable.
That defeat has dealt a severe blow to the morale of the fighters, whose strength was due more to the enthusiasm that the military capability. Insurrection, generous and confused, is dissolving? Threatens to leave cities in the desert and only blood stains? It is difficult, after so many promises and encouragements Western and Arab, after having ruled the capital of our inevitable impending collapse of Saddam, do not try now some shame.
The inertia of those who would like to reach out to cowardice. Looks more and more you collect loads of resentment among the insurgents leave a mark. Perhaps it is too late. The game is not quite finished. Benghazi and Tobruk, and a large part of Cyrenaica, the overwhelming power of the traditionally unruly dictator, have not yet been submitted.
On the square in Tobruk, named Tahrir (Liberation), like that of Cairo, has gathered a small crowd. Glued to the wall of a mosque half-empty, hang the old and recent photographs of the victims of the "green dictatorship" of Gaddafi. People look at them in silence, I try to break asking provocative questions.
Wonder where the army would defend the city. I see no trace. I have not met a single gunman in all Tobruk. I answered an elderly gentleman, an engineer in the oil industry, which city has more than six thousand people. He invites me dry, not to worry. Benghazi Tobruk as will be defended house by house.
It seems to me an act of faith and do not insist. The cool look of these prevent it. That is an important chapter of the tribes. In forty years Gaddafi has reduced the political landscape in a desert in Libya. Nor has created the most basic structures that govern a State. He survived only the social and tribal.
The dictator has been able to control, with the stick and carrot, with the repression and the oil money, the mosaic of tribes. On February 17, the mosaic is skipped. The support comes mainly from Gaddafi Warfalla, installed 180 kilometers southwest of Tripoli, which form a powerful tribe, with many communities, among the most educated and influential in the capital.
The dictator also has its own tribe, with a center Sirte, 500 kilometers from the capital. Among Warfalla Kadhafa and there is an ancient "blood" and also a common adversity against many other tribes who are called Awaker in Benghazi, Tobruk to Elgobai and so on. It is a labyrinth in which the alien is lost, but it is also a maze where you can perhaps decipher many aspects of the ongoing civil war.
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