IN DAYLIGHT there is the pretence of normality: people chatting in cafes, shops open for business, motorists on the move – if they’re lucky enough to still have petrol. But at night, Tripoli takes on a more menacing aspect.
“There are drive-by shootings at night here,” said one man in the Souk al-Juma district, an opposition stronghold.
“People are shooting at the police every night.”
Numerous witnesses tell the same story: that when night falls, out come the police checkpoints aimed at locking down restive districts, but so too do rebel militias opposed to Muammar Gadafy. Under cover of darkness, it is said, they emerge from hiding to ambush his security forces.
In some neighbourhoods the gun battles rage every night, but the bodies of those killed and all other traces are swiftly removed.
With security tight and little sign of a major uprising in Tripoli, these audacious guerrilla tactics appear to be the rebels’ best hope of chipping away at the Libyan leader’s defences.
In Souk al-Juma there have been reports of explosions, a raid on a police station and at least one public protest violently crushed.
A rebel sympathiser, pointing to a street off the district’s main road, said: “On one night a couple of weeks ago, four people were killed here.”
Libyan government officials deny such attacks have taken place, and the movements of foreign journalists are strictly controlled, making it impossible to verify these claims.
However, anecdotal evidence suggests that there are regular night-time clashes in the Libyan capital.
The size and strength of the armed opposition is unknown. It seems highly unlikely they could raise enough men to topple Gadafy without external support. Their main strategy appears to be a methodical sapping of the police state’s morale.
A man using the name Niz, who claims to represent a Tripoli rebel network known as the Free Generation Movement, said via Skype: “There are armed operations pretty much every night, normally at checkpoints. There is regular gunfire every night. It’s not an attempt to go all out. It’s an attempt to intimidate the security apparatus and show the presence of an armed group.”
Nato hopes that Tripoli would succumb to the so-called “Arab spring” were swiftly thwarted, with dissidents killed, arrested or driven underground.
Apart from occasional public demonstrations, opposition to Gadafy in the capital remains covert and fragmented, especially since access to the internet and mobile texting was blocked. Informants and secret police ensure that fear, suspicion and paranoia are thick in the air.
Niz said the Free Generation Movement, which posts regularly on Facebook and YouTube, had few members but was in close contact with several similar groups. He insisted that “activity is increasing, fear is decreasing and security is becoming fragmented” in Tripoli, making the ultimate overthrow of Gadafy inevitable.
“I believe there can be an uprising in the city,” he said. “We are moving towards that. I don’t believe a single action will bring down the regime, but the coming closer of rebels and the continued Nato campaign shows the noose is tightening. It’s going to be a combination of things. The regime will fall.”
The resilience of Gadafy’s stronghold over more than four months has already confounded many. Asked to predict when the end will come, Niz replied: “Six million Libyans are asking the same question every day.
“What I can tell you is that every day there is more and more activity in Tripoli.”
But the risks remain high. Plainclothes police reportedly go from house to house looking for real or perceived rebels. Niz, whose group performs acts of civil disobedience, says people have been kidnapped and tortured by electrocution in increasingly overcrowded prisons.
“I feel uncomfortable using the word ‘arrested’; these guys are being kidnapped,” he said.
“People I know have been blindfolded in the back of trucks and have heard on the radio prison officials saying, ‘Don’t bring them here, we’re full.’ There are thousands of people unaccounted for.”
Moussa Ibrahim, spokesman for the Libyan government, dismissed reports of underground networks in Tripoli. “Dream on,” he said.
“David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy are so embarrassed that they have to make up lies.” – (Guardian service)