Three groups with claims to power
The Benghazi rebels
The rebels of the east consider themselves the founding fathers of the revolution. Within a week of their violent uprising in Benghazi, which started on February 17th, they had formed the first of a series of organising committees, which eventually morphed into the National Transitional Council (NTC). The body steadily won international recognition despite infighting and disorganisation. The initial torch-bearers were mainly middle-class, educated members of the Benghazi establishment.
“We were lawyers and doctors last week and now we find ourselves as revolutionaries,” one lawyer said in the early days in Benghazi. But jostling for power in the new authority soon threatened solidarity. The military leadership appeared particularly disorganised, unable to defend Benghazi as Gadafy’s forces advanced in April, and unable to hold a position beyond the oil city of Brega, 240km south of Benghazi, despite months of Nato bombing.
The Misurata rebels
Misurata’s rebels have fought the toughest and longest engagements of the war. Gadafy’s siege of Misurata was brutal and lasted for many months. The city and its fighters, mostly new recruits, took a pounding. Their advances west towards Tripoli were hard. And, until recent days, they did not get far.
The central rebels have now taken the town of Zlitan and are around 80 miles east of Tripoli, where they will lay a claim to having broken the siege of the bitterly contested Gadafy heartland and seek a prominent role in the new Libya’s affairs.
The western rebels
The western rebels see themselves as the heroes of the campaign, having burst into Tripoli late on Sunday before the other two groups. They hail from the western mountains, where they were isolated and besieged by Gadafy’s forces for more than five months. Nato played a decisive role in freeing them from the blockade, but the group, made up of ethnic Berbers and Arabs, was able to gain the most ground and do what their rivals were unable to: break Gadafy’s supply lines to Algeria and to Tunisia.
The taking of Zawiya, 30 miles west of the capital, was decisive. And when they surged into Tripoli on Sunday they won bragging rights and gratitude that they will expect to translate into a lead role when the NTC relocates to Tripoli.