WASHINGTON – Libyan rebels have lost momentum and appear unlikely to dislodge Col Muammar Gadafy from power, US intelligence agencies have said as the United States backed further away from military action.
The US’s leading intelligence official said better equipped forces loyal to Col Gadafy were likely to prevail in the long run against the rebels, who include enthusiastic but ill-trained civilians and dissident military units fighting to end his 41-year rule.
National intelligence director James Clapper said without a decisive victory by either side it was possible the North African oil-producing country could break into two or more semi-autonomous states, with Col Gadafy retaining control of the capital, Tripoli, and its environs and the rebels holding on to the eastern city of Benghazi and surrounding areas.
“We believe that Gadafy is in this for the long haul,” he told a US Senate hearing. “He appears to be hunkering down for the duration.”
As Mr Clapper delivered his assessment, Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels shied away from direct military action while agreeing to move warships closer to Libya and continuing to plan for all options.
Even though prominent politicians like Democratic senator John Kerry and Republican senator John McCain have pressed for a no-fly zone over Libya and other military steps, there is no consensus on Capitol Hill on what to do.
If Col Gadafy does survive and hold on to Tripoli, that could hurt President Obama politically. The president would face accusations from Republicans that he allowed a dictator to stay in power and signalled to other autocrats in the region that using force to crush dissent does not carry consequences.
The US fears becoming entangled in a third Middle East war and giving al-Qaeda a propaganda coup, the officials say, and it is confident Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region are in a position to give the rebels the weapons they need.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who has called for a UN Security Council resolution to authorise any intervention, told lawmakers that unilateral US moves in Libya could have unforeseeable consequences.
Recent successes appear to have emboldened Col Gadafy, with his most prominent son saying yesterday that loyalists were preparing a full-scale offensive.
“It’s time for liberation. It’s time for action. We are moving now,” Saif al-Islam told Reuters in an interview. “Time is out now . . . we gave them two weeks .”
As he spoke, loyalist forces intensified their counterattack on the insurgent heartland, bombarding rebel positions in the oil port of Ras Lanuf. Warplanes also hit Brega, another rebel-held oil hub further east.
State television said the army had driven the rebels out of Ras Lanuf, just behind their front line but the rebels denied it.
Loyalist forces and rebels were locked in street fighting in the western town of Zawiya, which has changed hands several times in recent days. Residents described scenes of carnage, with woman and children among the dead.
With momentum appearing to turn against the rebels, who had initially hoped to charge up the coast and into Tripoli, foreign governments held more meetings but came no closer to deciding on action to rein him in.
The United States and Nato’s head expressed doubt over the wisdom of imposing no-fly zones without full international backing and a legal justification.
In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Libya had descended into civil war with increasing numbers of wounded civilians arriving in hospitals in the east. – (Reuters)
'GUARDIAN'JOURNALIST IN CUSTODY: LIBYAN AUTHORITIES CONFIRM DETENTION
LIBYAN GOVERNMENT officials have confirmed that
Guardiancorrespondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is in their custody after he went missing while reporting from the country. The foreign ministry in Tripoli said yesterday that authorities were holding Abdul-Ahad along with a Brazilian journalist, Andrei Netto. The two are believed to have been detained near Sabratha on Monday. Mr Abdul-Ahad entered Libya from Tunisia and was last in touch with the paper via a third party on Sunday. He was then on the outskirts of Zawiya, a key town west of Tripoli, the scene of fierce fighting between loyalists and rebels. Mr Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi national, is a highly respected staff correspondent who has written for the
Guardiansince 2004. He has been on assignment in Somalia, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan perviously, reporting on ordinary people in times of conflict. He has won many of the most prestigious awards available to foreign correspondents. Mr Netto is a correspondent for the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S Paulo. - (
Guardianservice)