Libyan revolt runs out of steam, Gadhafi hangs on

BENGHAZI – Libya’s rebels may have won over the international community but a decisive victory remains elusive against Moammar Gadhafi who is clinging to power in Tripoli six months on despite a NATO bombing blitz.

Following France’s lead, dozens of countries have recognized the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC) as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

Russia and China have so far held out, although Moscow has finally backed the UN sanctions regime imposed on Tripoli.

Africa, despite its resistance to Western interference and its economies having received large cash injections from Gadhafi, has also turned its back on the strongman who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1969.

“We are witnessing a desertion,” said a foreign observer.

Only a handful of Libyan embassies around the world continue to represent Kadhafi while in Tripoli the sting of sanctions – power cuts, fuel shortages, price hikes – is taking their toll on the population.

Militarily, the rebels have made advances on three fronts but they are moving at a snail’s pace despite concerted efforts to better train, organise and equip its volunteer army.

In a military spurt on Saturday, on the eve of the six-month mark, the rebels claimed gains on the ground in the port city of Zawiyah, a report denied by Tripoli.

They also said they strengthened their grip on the town of Tuarga in a bid to create a buffer zone between Kadhafi’s forces and the city of Misrata, and advances in the government-held oil town of Brega.

Breaking the siege of Misrata marked the rebels’ finest hour.

But they have since got bogged down in Zliten, also western Libya. In the east, Gadhafi’s forces have so far held on to the oil hub of Brega despite punishing NATO air raids.

In the western Nafusa mountains, rebels have managed to push their adversaries down into the plains towards Tripoli.

Gadhafi still holds sway in the arid south, keeping a tight grip on the strategic Sabah, home to a major military garrison and vital node connecting supply lines between loyalist troops.

While air strikes by the Western alliance have inflicted heavy losses on Gadhafi’s forces, rebels have failed to turn this to their advantage, despite an influx of weapons from Qatar and, to a lesser extent, France.

But the ragtag rebel fighters who at the outset of the revolt advanced and retreated at whim are now organized into katibas – or brigades – that theoretically fall under one central command.

However, experienced officers who defected and joined the rebellion’s embryo army are suspected of being double agents.

The rebel army commander, Abdel Fatah Yunis, a former interior minister and early defector, was murdered last month under mysterious circumstances, raising tribal tensions and prompting a leadership crisis in the NTC.

Tripoli may be reeling under sanctions but the regime is still standing. And Gadhafi has made good on his promise to stay put in defiance of widespread expectations.

“Every day is a victory” for the Libyan leader, according to a local journalist.

“The wind of revolution is losing momentum,” in the rebel-held east, he said. “It lacks an orator, a man capable of mobilising the masses.”

The NTC – an improbable mix of technocrats, regime apparatchiks, expats and Islamists – lacks cohesion and its credibility was badly compromised by the murder of General Yunis.

It relies heavily on its few English-speakers to reassure the international community that the revolt which broke out in mid-February is not at risk of becoming derailed by Islamists.

The local press in Benghazi, which has bloomed with its new freedom, is slowly replacing revolutionary poetry and prose with down-to-earth criticism of the NTC’s performance.