Libyan Rebels Gain in Fight for Oil Town
Moises Saman for The New York Times
Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi has offered to preside over his country as it moves to a democracy.
By C. J. CHIVERS and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: April 4, 2011
BREGA, Libya — As evening fell Monday, rebel fighters were engaging the main body of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces in an intense battle for the oil town of Brega, trading fire at close quarters and sending volleys of rockets into the town.
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Bryan Denton for The New York Times
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Qaddafi forces holding the university and oil installations in Brega proper came under steady machine gun and rocket fire from the rebels after an apparent airstrike by the NATO-led alliance. In contrast to Saturday, there was little or no artillery and mortar fire from the loyalists.
The rebel gains followed days of inconclusive fighting, as the rebels at times since Friday have managed to gain a toehold, only to withdraw under fire. But the main body of rebel fighters, apparently including the experienced special forces soldiers, has steadily moved closer to the center of the town, after seizing two ridges that provided a vantage point for firing on the loyalists.
On the diplomatic front, at least two sons of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi have proposed a resolution to the Libyan conflict that would entail pushing their father aside to make way for a transition to a constitutional democracy under the direction of his son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, a diplomat and a Libyan official briefed on the plan said Sunday.
The rebels challenging Colonel Qaddafi as well as the American and European powers supporting them with air strikes have so far insisted on a more radical break with his 40 years of rule. And it is not clear whether Colonel Qaddafi, 68, has signed on to the reported proposal backed by his sons, Seif and Saadi el-Qaddafi, although one person close to the sons said the father appeared willing to go along.
Speaking in Rome, a representative of the rebels, Ali al-Essawi, the former Libyan ambassador to India, said on Monday that it was unacceptable to replace Colonel Qaddafi with one of his sons. “There’s no way to replace Qaddafi with a small Qaddafi,” he said in an interview.
But the proposal offers a new window into the dynamics of the Qaddafi family at a time when the colonel, who has seven sons, is relying heavily on them. Stripped of one of his closest confidantes by the defection of Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa and isolated by decades of attempted coups and internal purges, he is leaning on his sons as trusted aides and military commanders.
The idea also touches on longstanding differences among his sons. While Seif and Saadi have leaned toward Western-style economic and political openings, Colonel Qaddafi’s sons Khamis and Mutuassim are considered hard-liners. Khamis leads a fearsome militia focused on repressing internal unrest. And Mutuassim, a national security adviser who also commands his own militia, has been considered a rival to Seif in the competition to succeed their father. But Saadi, who has drifted through careers as a professional soccer player, a military officer and a businessman, firmly backs the plan, an associate said.
The two sons “want to move toward change for the country” without their father, one person close to the Seif and Saadi camp said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “They have hit so many brick walls with the old guard, and if they have the go-ahead, they will bring the country up quickly.” One son, this person said, has said many times that “the wishes of the rebellion were his own.”
The proposals are the latest turn in a drama between Seif and his father that has played out for years on the stage of Libyan public life as the son has alternately pushed forward with calls for political reforms and then pulled back. During the recent revolt he appeared to march in lockstep with his father in vowing to stamp out the rebels. “We are coming,” he declared to a crowd of supporters who chanted, “Seif al-Islam, step on the rats.”
The proposals are also the latest sign that the Qaddafi government may be feeling the pressure from two weeks of allied airstrikes that have severely diminished the advantage in equipment of the Qaddafi militias. A senior Libyan official arrived in Athens for talks about a potential resolution to the conflict, Reuters reported. And Mohamed Ismail, a top aide to Seif, is returning from a trip to London, where, a Libyan official said, he presented the proposal for Seif to take over from his father.
Mutuassim may be particularly resistant because of his longstanding rivalry with Seif.
After Seif made a high-profile trip to Washington to meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2008, a WikiLeaks cable reported, the attention paid “exacerbated tension with his siblings.”
When Mutuassim visited Washington the next year, the American ambassador to Libya wrote, “Mutuassim’s desire to visit Washington this spring and his seemingly overweening focus on having meetings with senior U.S. government officials and signing a number of agreements are driven at least in part by a strong sense of competition with Seif al-Islam.”
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Libyan rebels on a road outside Brega on Sunday. The fighting remained locked in a stalemate.
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Rebel Leadership in Libya Shows Strain (April 4, 2011)
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But a diplomat familiar with the proposal said discussions remained in the initial stages. Despite the evidence of deep internal discontent Colonel Qaddafi appears to believe that rebellion against him is a foreign conspiracy of Islamist radicals and oil-hungry Western powers trying to take over Libya, the diplomat said. And the rebels, who have set up their own provisional government, continue to insist on the exit from power of Colonel Qaddafi and his sons.
“This is the beginning position of the opposition, and this is the beginning position of the Libyan government,” this diplomat said. “But the bargaining has yet to commence.”
At least two rebels were killed and others wounded on Sunday in the Brega fighting. At the hospital in Ajdabiya, where casualties are first taken, a team of doctors rushed to help a wounded government soldier who had been shot through the left calf, the right arm, and twice through his right chest and out his back. The soldier, whose documents listed him as Akhmed Awad Omar, from Surt, died on the table, his blood pooled on the floor.
The attendants covered him with a cloth. “He is a Libyan, and we are sorry for him,” said Dr. Habib Mohammed el-Obeidy, before the body was wheeled to the morgue. “Qaddafi is using Libyans against Libyans.”
In Tripoli armed checkpoints throughout the streets have kept the capital in an anxious lockdown with no signs of any renewed uprising since the revolt that shook the city six weeks ago. Noting that the United Nations resolution authorizing the air strikes also precludes “a foreign occupation force of any form” in Libya, the diplomat familiar with the proposal backed by the two sons said he wondered how the fighting could end without a negotiated solution.
“They will continue until the ammunition is finished, this stupid fighting along the highway,” the diplomat said.
Proposals and counterproposals for a cease-fire exchanged between the Qaddafi forces and the rebels appeared deadlocked as well, the diplomat noted. “For Qaddafi a cease-fire means everyone should cease firing but the Qaddafi forces should stay where they are,” the diplomat said. “But for the rebels it means that the Qaddafi forces should withdraw.”
Rebels said Sunday that the Western airstrikes had begun hitting the heavy weapons of the Qaddafi forces even within cities. But on Sunday morning Qaddafi forces outside the city continued shelling an area near the port, while Qaddafi gunmen occupied rooftops along the central Tripoli Street, said the spokesman, Mohamed, whose last name was withheld for the protection of his family.
In an interview in Tripoli, Levent Sahinkaya, the Turkish ambassador, said a Turkish hospital ship had left the Misurata port loaded with 250 patients seriously wounded in the fighting. The Qaddafi government had sought to direct the ship first to Tripoli or to postpone its trip, Mr. Sahinkaya said, but instead the Turkish government sent it directly to Misurata with an escort of 10 F-16 fighters and a warship.
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