Brown Moses posted:

At this point, if Gaddafi is in Tripoli, I don't imagine the rebels will let him leave. If he's stuck in his compound they'll just surround it, secure the rest of Tripoli, and hammer the poo poo out of it.

quote:

I asked a man at the side fo the a road "where is Gaddafi" - he said "gone with the wind"
Amazing reception down Gargaresh Street for the rebels from Jalu in a huge convoy of vehicles with weaponry
Man on the street shows me his 7-year-old son who's been out with him all night, starting barricades to secure the revolution.
He says he will never forget that night
Half a dozen vehicles full of women and children driving past, giving "v" for victory signs and cheering

quote:

Doctors seriously stretched in Tripoli's only working hospital. Very few staff, piles of rubbish everywhere. 2 young children among wounded
Sound of gunfire and shelling continues. Docs appeal for pressure on both sides to stop attacking the hospital. Horrendous conditions here

quote:

Rebels telling us pro-G troops now wearing civvies and pretending to be rebels to launch ambushes

quote:

Sky Sources: Libyan rebels advancing north from Gharyan towards Tripoli

CeeJee posted:

This is all a clever ruse by the brilliant Colonel to draw the rebels into a certain defeat.


http://rt.com/news/foreign-trapped-hotel-tripoli-975/

quote:

NATO says that it will be continuing flying combat air patrols over Libya until all pro-Gaddafi troops either surrender or stand down.

The alliance's warplanes have flown nearly 20,000 sorties in the past five months,including about 7,500 strike attacks against Gaddafi's forces.

quote:

NATO has just released its daily operational media update for August 21.

126 sorties were flown on Sunday, with 46 being strike sorties.

NATO says it hit three command and control facilities, one military facility, two radar facilities, nine surface-to-air missile launchers, one tank and two armed vehicles in Tripoli.

It says it hit one radar facility near Bin Ghashir and five surface-to-air missiles near al-Azizyah.

Fifteen NATO ships have been enforcing the arms embargo on Libya in the Mediterranean. Fourteen vessels were hailed and two boardings conducted on August 21.

Sir John Falstaff posted:

That would be this Lizzie Phelan (random but representative quotes):



http://lizziesliberation.wordpress.com/

Lizzie's Liberation posted:

LIBYA/ENGLAND, WHICH IS THE POLICE STATE?

Arkane posted:

So what's the country-wide situation? What cities are in rebel control?

stereobreadsticks posted:

Does anyone have any idea what the situation is in southern Libya? I know Sabha is Qaddafi controlled and Al Jawf is rebel controlled but is there any information about the rest of that part of the country? I saw an article months ago about the southern front but since then nothing. Obviously what's happening up north, and especially in Tripoli is exciting but I've been wondering how much of the country is still Qaddafi controlled, at this point is it pretty much just Sirt, Sabha and that bit of the coast between Zawiyah and the Tunisian border? Or is most of the south still controlled by Qaddafi loyalists?

lorn Wayne posted:

Love how the first thing I see when firing up the BBC feed this morning is about Libyan oil.

e: the BBC ambush also looked pretty insane

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14613653

I can only find that, which is an audio recording, is there video somewhere?

Falken posted:

quote:

Anti-Gaddafi hackers have defaced Libya's internet domain name registry, computer security company Sophos reports. BBC Monitoring says the nic.ly site currently shows a Libyan rebel flag and the words "bye bye Gaddafi"...

quote:

bye bye Qadaffi
Feb 17 Libya
Greetz to
Dr.exe | Qnix | Rock-Master | LoverBoy | r1z
sec-r1z.com
And All Muslim Hackers
libya17fb2011@yahoo.com
anti-hacker@hotmail.com

quote:

REGISTRY WHOIS FOR NIC.LY

Registrant:
Libya Telecom and Technology
AbdulNasir A. Al-Tubuly
Abu Seta,Near Al-Furusia,
Al-Shutt St.
Tripoli
Libya
Phone: + 218 (21) 3400020
Fax: + 218 (21) 3400039
Email Masking Image@lttnet.net

quote:

@AJELive #Libya Rebels say NATO planning to strike walls of Gaddafi's Tripoli compound, advise citizens to stay clear.

quote:

Libya's Prime Minister Al-Mahmoudi and head of Libyan TV union are in Tunisia - Al Jazeera TV

quote:

FLASH: One of Gaddafi's sons, Al-Mutassim, is in Bab Al-Azizya compound in Tripoli - Al-Arabiya TV

quote:

Libya's gritty mountain rebels may have turned tide in Tripoli
The revolt against Moammar Kadafi was born in the eastern city of Benghazi, long a caldron of discontent with the autocratic ruler.

The uprising gained traction during bloody spring battles in coastal Misurata, Libya's third-largest city, where residents barricaded streets with shipping containers in ferocious urban warfare.

But it is a rebel thrust from the west that may prove decisive in bringing an end to Kadafi's more than four-decade reign.

Photos: Conflict in Libya

The push by guerrilla fighters from Libya's isolated Berber highlands, the rugged Nafusa Mountains near the Tunisian border, was one front too many for Kadafi's depleted and sometimes demoralized forces.

Before the mountain fighters made major gains, Kadafi's troops were already facing grave threats in the east, as well as intensive NATO bombardment that targeted the capital, other key locations and equipment.

NATO bombings made it almost impossible for the government to move large concentrations of troops. Airstrikes by the alliance on Kadafi's armored units in March prevented government forces from retaking Benghazi.

The regime successfully managed to thwart rebel advances into the cites of Port Brega and Zlitan, east of Tripoli, but its ranks were stretched thin, despite reported additions of young conscripts.

That was partly the result of Kadafi's own choices. His army never reached the size of those of Middle Eastern autocrats such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein or the Assad dynasty in Syria. Rebels often said that Kadafi, who led a coup as a junior officer, didn't trust military commanders.

It now seems possible that Kadafi's government, its forces overtaxed, lacking coordination and without any centralized command and control, underestimated the threat from a western rebel force that for weeks has been no more than 50 miles from the capital.

The uprising in the Nafusa Mountains was so little noticed early on that the fighting often barely merited mention as the world focused on dramatic events in and around Benghazi and Misurata.

In the end, however, the western rebels' tenacity and proximity to Tripoli seemed crucial in breaking down what the government had long boasted was a virtually impregnable wall of security around the capital.

As insurgent offensives stalled near Benghazi and Misurata, fighters made up of Arabs and ethnic Berbers, or Amazigh, tenaciously gained ground in the west. There is no indication the western fighters possessed superior firepower or were better trained than their undisciplined comrades in the east. But geography was certainly an ally.

In the east, rebels struggled to move forward in flat desert terrain that proved advantageous for Kadafi's artillery and rocket launchers, often well concealed from allied aircraft. In contrast, the western fighters engaged in a guerrilla war on turf that was intimately familiar to them. Supplies arrived via a captured post on the Tunisian border.

By June, the mountain fighters had largely gained control of the highlands and were filtering into the plains that led to the coast and the capital, the ultimate prize. Tribal links to lowland populations probably aided their advance. Government officials in Tripoli betrayed no sense of alarm.

The western insurgent ranks bulged with new volunteers from places such as Zawiya, a city just west of Tripoli that sits astride the crucial supply route between Tripoli and the Tunisian border. Kadafi's troops had brutally crushed a rebellion there in March.

In June, when renewed fighting erupted near Zawiya, the government dismissed it as the work of a handful of mountain infiltrators who would find no allies in the coastal areas.

It appears the opposite happened. Volunteers from Zawiya and other towns and villages joined the advancing mountain fighters. And the recent capture of Zawiya, which severed Kadafi's supply line, signaled that his days were numbered.

Throughout the conflict, Kadafi's government seems to have rejected the notion that a motley group of mountain dwellers could move on the leader's inner sanctum.

"We're not worried about these so-called rebels," Musa Ibrahim, the government's chief spokesman, said in June after clashes with western rebels erupted anew near Zawiya. "What is a problem for us is NATO."

Still, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization strikes near Benghazi and Misurata ultimately did not trigger what seems to be the final assault on the capital. That task would fall to the fighters from Libya's rugged west.

Arkane posted:

Young Freud posted:

I wouldn't be surprised if NATO just sent attack helicopters in this time. Bombing the complex with fighters seems too much chance of collateral. At least with helicopters you can get a degree of precision that's handy for close-in fights like this.

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

What happens if they get shot down? I'd figure the risk of that clusterfuck outweighs the fallback of a few more civilians getting killed on the cusp of victory.

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

What happens if they get shot down? I'd figure the risk of that clusterfuck outweighs the fallback of a few more civilians getting killed on the cusp of victory.

Young Freud posted:

I wouldn't be surprised if NATO just sent attack helicopters in this time. Bombing the complex with fighters seems too much chance of collateral. At least with helicopters you can get a degree of precision that's handy for close-in fights like this.

Scratch Monkey posted:

I wonder if there is a threat from Zuwarah. From the map it looks like a city that can still get resupply from Tunisia and now that the rebels are moving in on Tripoli it's in their rear. I also wonder what the NATO air cover for along the road from there to Sabratha is like. I would imagine it's not very safe to drive in long convoys on that stretch.

Dilettante. posted:

I doubt it, every man and his dog in Tripoli is packing a ZU-23-2, it would be safer to stick with bombing.

Dilettante. posted:

I would imagine a rebel looks quite similar to a Gaddafi die-hard to an Apache pilot, there must be a fair bit of friendly fire already without an Apache stumbling onto a scene and turning everyone into mincemeat.