Uprising in Libya

[PeZook]

I can only imagine that the NATO governments are directing and paying guys like that arms dealer from Lord of War to quietly ship them guns.

That story bas loosely based on the life of a real Ukrainian arms dealer, so that's not very far fetched. Publically say you're doing nothing, in order to avoid criticism, but use back channels to funnel weapons where needed.

[Sea Skimmer]

The only large fuel storage facility in Misratah was burned to the ground following what rebels claim was an air raid by slow flying pro Qaddafi crop dusters; pro Qaddafi helicopters also scattered some anti tank mines on the port area and it appears some may have been scatted by 122mm rockets as well. The only part of this which is well confirmed is the mines are certainly real from photos, and the video blew sure shows the oil tanks burning.

Whatever the means, with the repeated artillery bombardments alone Qaddafi is clearly attempting to prevent resupply of the city while his much vaunted 'tribal' forces arm up around Zlitan, a small city about 40km to the west. The assault of this force, if it exists which I assume it does, Qaddafi surely has at least thousands who will fight for him, is going to be a big deal. It will really show what support Qaddafi has; and a big question has to be how many if any of these people have accepted arms simply with the intention of defecting when they get the chance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvb3oG3j ... r_embedded
Video of burning oil tanks

Also it looks like 100+ rounds of artillery have fallen on and mostly around the Tunisia town Dahibah, which was already attacked twice by Qaddafis ground troops and is currently home to about a thousand Libyan refugees. Tunisia has some crazy internal problems going on right now, but they aren't going to ignore this forever. If push came to shove Tunisia could put several hundred tanks and artillery pieces into action.

[That NOS Guy]

Also it looks like 100+ rounds of artillery have fallen on and mostly around the Tunisia town Dahibah, which was already attacked twice by Qaddafis ground troops and is currently home to about a thousand Libyan refugees. Tunisia has some crazy internal problems going on right now, but they aren't going to ignore this forever. If push came to shove Tunisia could put several hundred tanks and artillery pieces into action.

Would the Tunisians go further than the border or would it largely be a border skirmish?

[Sea Skimmer]

Skirmish, maybe a very shallow raid, Tunisia may be about to have a second internal revolution so no one is going to want to drag it out more then it has to be, but if Qaddafi won’t stop attacking them on this scale then I don’t see how they won’t do something.

[Raj Ahten]

As far as scattering anti tank mines into a harbor by helicopter goes, would that even do anything? It seems like a fairly worthless tactic if its meant to attack shipping or are Qaddafi's forces mining harbor facilities like piers?

I know an earlier attempt was made by his forces to place real anti ship mines in the harbor but it was intercepted by NATO. If those type of mines get deployed in any number then the rebels are in real trouble.

[Sea Skimmer]

NATO only intercepted the naval mining boats after at least three moored contact mines were planted. It took NATO about three days to deal with them after one of them broke free and could not be located. The anti tank mines were scattered on the docks and roads to disrupt road traffic, most were destroyed by rebels with rifles but not until after at least one vehicle was blown up. One attack like that isn’t such a big deal, but repeated attacks, or sustained mining by artillery rockets could shut down the port.

Only two supply ships have docked in the past two weeks when it had been more then one every two days in the two weeks before; Qaddafi's blockade is becoming effective. The city has about one month of food and may soon face a major attack that could include a whole lot more artillery fire and other attacks compared to now in which 200-300 rounds of artillery a day seem to be impacting the city and port. The rebels had retaken the city and are fighting for the airport still; but things could become very bad for them shortly. NATO might finally be forced to take this seriously. Five times as many aircraft were used to bomb Serbia in 1999. The main hope now is Qaddafi's offensive turns out to be a paper tiger. All and all though the war is escalating in employed massed firepower; but seemingly not in numbers of pro Qaddafi forces.

[Talk738kno]

Rebels push back government forces to outskirts of Misrata.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13341143

[Thanas]

*snipped due to already being posted in own thread*

[Sea Skimmer]

So the rebel columns have pushed at least 15km east of Misrata into a farming area called Qaryat az Zurayqi. It’s hard to think they’ll be able to hold it, but they’ve overrun pro Qaddafi camps and fortified road blocks along the way already. The fact that this advance was possible at all certainly reinforces the notion yet further that Qaddafi needs more warm bodies. Fighting is ongoing in the south much closer to the city in the airbase complex but it seems not to be much favoring Qaddafis troops; the complex sprawls so it will take a while for the rebels to clear it out even if they are clearly superior on the ground for the moment. But counter attacks may come at any time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/world ... wanted=all
With Help From NATO, Libyan Rebels Gain Ground
By C. J. CHIVERS
QARYAT AZ ZURAYQ, Libya — Rebel fighters made significant gains Monday against forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in both the western and eastern areas of the country, in the first faint signs that NATO airstrikes may be starting to strain the government forces.
In the besieged western city of Misurata hundreds of rebels broke through one of the front lines late on Sunday, and by Monday afternoon were consolidating their position on the ground a few miles to the city’s west.
The breakout of what had been nearly static lines came after NATO aircraft spent days striking positions and military equipment held by the Qaddafi forces, weakening them to the point that a ground attack was possible, the rebels said.
While not in itself a decisive shift for a city that remained besieged, the swift advance, made with few rebel casualties, carried both signs of rebel optimism and hints of the weakness of at least one frontline loyalist unit.
Early Tuesday morning, NATO aircraft flew low and fast across Tripoli, the capital, the roar of their passage followed by several loud explosions and the rattle of antiaircraft fire. Libyan officials took foreign journalists to two bombings sites, one near the Parliament building and the other a hospital that sustained minor damage from the bombing of a government building, identified by a man in the street outside the hospital as a stronghold of the country’s intelligence service.
The bombing near the Parliament was the second at the complex in the past week and struck the same building as the previous attack. It blasted what remained of the building’s interior into a cavernous pile of crumpled concrete and steel, without any apparent casualties. Libyan officials identified the principal office there as the Center for the Study of the Green Book, a compendium of Colonel Qaddafi’s idiosyncratic political ideas. But more potential signs of loyalist weakness emerged in a battle near the eastern oil town of Brega, where rebel fighters killed more than 36 Qaddafi soldiers and destroyed more than 10 vehicles, according to a senior rebel military official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about military operations. Six rebel fighters died in the battle, the official said, adding that the rebel troops retreated east from Brega after the attack on orders from NATO, presumably in advance of airstrikes.
While the rebels’ tally of the dead could not be independently verified, if accurate it would seem to represent — after the protracted battle for Tripoli Street in Misurata last month — one of the largest tolls of Qaddafi soldiers killed in a single battle since February. The battlefield success, if confirmed, might also signal a change in tactics — or at least fortunes — for the reorganized Free Libya Forces, as the eastern fighters now prefer to be called.
In an effort to prove their reach is nationwide, and not limited to eastern Libya, rebel leaders arranged a meeting Monday of 25 local council leaders, representing areas of central, western and southern Libya. The leaders, meeting in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, expressed their support for the uprising and their recognition of the rebel National Transitional Council and its leader, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, Libya’s former justice minister.
Signs of an enemy in disarray were evident in Misurata as the rebels moved west — abandoned green uniforms, abandoned food and houses along the road with interiors full of human waste, as if the Qaddafi soldiers, under threat of air attack, had been afraid to venture outside.
Inside the shattered ruins of one compound, a petting zoo and poultry-breeding center, the unburied body of a Qaddafi soldier, at least several days old, was sprawled face down on the ground not far from a rotting ostrich, still in its cage.
The rebels had stopped in the afternoon just short of the town of Ad Dafniyah, where they took up positions with rifles and machine-gun trucks against a Qaddafi position that blocked their way.
The Qaddafi soldiers raked the air over the rebels’ heads with machine-gun fire and dropped mortar rounds, grenades from automatic launchers and rockets in the field and stands of trees around the rebels, to little effect. The rebels said they had surrounded a few holdout Qaddafi positions and would soon push on, to Ad Dafniyah.
In recent weeks, the siege of Misurata has been fought on four principal fronts — the one here is to the city’s west. The others include a wide and winding front line around the airport, which the Qaddafi soldiers still occupy, and two to the east and southeast, from where Qaddafi forces have been firing ground-to-ground rockets on the seaport, the city’s lifeline to the world.
The breakout in the west did not appear to have an immediate effect elsewhere. At the front near the airport, a commander there said that his fighters were in a strong position, but that he wanted them to move methodically because the Qaddafi soldiers had taken up strong defensive positions on both sides of the main road.
“Even now we could push them out,” the commander said. “But we are careful because we would lose many lives. So we will wait until we finish our plan.” The commander, a former lieutenant colonel in the Qaddafi military, asked that his name be withheld to prevent retaliation against his relatives elsewhere in Libya.
Hafed Makhlouf, the port’s supervisor, said late on Monday that the harbor had not been shelled in more than a day, and that the port was open.
A few minutes after Mr. Makhlouf spoke, three mortar or artillery rounds exploded nearby — a reminder that no matter the success at the city’s western front, at the eastern front the Qaddafi forces remained within range.
Later in the evening, more shells landed in the city, apparently fired from the vicinity of the airport. One of them struck a civilian neighborhood, wounding four women and two children.
Rebel fighters said the advance to the west was significant. On at least this front, the Qaddafi forces were now outside of mortar range of the city, they said, and approaching the edge of the range of many of their heavier weapons.
The rebels have said that pushing the Qaddafi forces out of the range of Grad rockets has been one of their immediate tactical goals. That would be about 12 miles for the varieties the loyalists are known to possess.
And as more rebel forces flowed westward — hundreds of fighters were on the road outside Ad Dafniyah on Monday afternoon — they spoke of pushing even farther, and trying to connect with supporters in towns to the west, and demonstrating to other Libyans that the Qaddafi military could be broken.
Outside the airport, the commander dared a sentence that mixed prediction with hope. “I think the days of Qaddafi are now shorter,” he said. “Maybe he has only a few weeks more.”
Kareem Fahim contributed reporting from Benghazi, Libya.

The above article also has a photo slide show to go with it proof of the claimed advance.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/0 ... BYA-8.html

[Thanas]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... n-migrants

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Already posted in N&P.

[Sea Skimmer]

So it turns out NATO finally decided it can use all those guns on the blockade warships to blow up rocket technical-BM-21 class pro Qaddafi cannon fodder. Took long enough. The fun thing is since Qaddafi's state TV already claimed NATO was conducting naval bombardments on civilian areas weeks ago; he can't even generate fresh propaganda value out of this. The article mentions 'another Nato warship' as being involved; this was a Canadian destroyer.

Friday 13 May 2011
HMS Liverpool’s captain speaks of gun battle with Gaddafi forces

By Michael Powell
Published on Friday 13 May 2011 04:42

THE captain of HMS Liverpool has told of the fierce gun battle his ship waged with Colonel Gaddafi’s troops – and won.

The Portsmouth-based destroyer was just six miles off the coast of Gaddafi-held territory when she came under a barrage of rockets and heavy calibre machine gunfire yesterday.

But the Libyan forces were no match for her 4.5in gun, which silenced the attack within half an hour with no casualties or damage to the ship.

Commander Colin Williams said: ‘It was a good old fashioned ding-dong. The enemy fire was coming in pretty close. It was fairly close-range stuff but we’ve trained for this and we were ready to win the fight.’

Liverpool and two other Nato warships were operating off Zlitan, a coastal town 85 miles east of the capital Tripoli when they spotted two inflatable boats suspected of laying sea mines in the area.

Cdr Williams said: ‘We had a couple of contacts moving down the coast. The other two ships went in to investigate and we sent up our helicopter in support.

‘Then they started getting fired on by the vessels and from the shore and it all got a bit hairy from there.’

As her helicopter dodged gunfire, Liverpool fired an opening salvo and manoeuvred into position to take on the shore battalion.

The captain said: ‘It took us about 20 or 30 minutes to bring it to an end. But there was no jingoism, no shouting, the atmosphere was cool as people went about their jobs.’

He revealed he was actually asleep when the attack began at 2am yesterday.

He said: ‘I was woken as we prepared and it was very humbling to see my ship’s company working so calmly and quietly. There was a calm, professional atmosphere, but understandably some concern about what was going on.’

The ship was back on patrol off Libya last night, trying to stop pro-Gaddafi forces threatening the rebel-held port of Misrata.

Cdr Williams said: ‘We’re back at work, a little bit more experienced than before, but still determined to do a good job.

‘It’s tough for my ship’s company that their families are worried for them. We want to say we miss them.’

ATTACK IS SIGN OF MORE TO COME - MP

THE attack on HMS Liverpool demonstrates an escalation of the fighting in Libya, an MP has warned.

Portsmouth South MP Mike Hancock fears Colonel Gaddafi is likely to attack Nato forces more as the war continues. He said: ‘There’s clearly been an escalation in the war, which is inevitable because Gaddafi is like a wounded animal – he’s striking out wherever he can.

‘He is desperate to show his people that he’s winning and pulling something off like sinking a warship would play right into his hands.’

Last week, Gaddafi forces shelled a ship carrying tonnes of aid into Misrata.

The News understands French frigate Courbet retaliated this week by shelling Gaddafi positions near Zlitan and Misrata, which may have prompted the attack yesterday.

Liverpool, a French frigate and another Nato warship were operating just 85 miles east of Tripoli when they came under heavy fire.

The ships were enticed into dangerous waters just six miles off the coast of Gaddafi-held Zlitan by two inflatable boats suspected of trying to place sea mines in the area.

Then a hail of rockets and heavy machine gunfire came their way from the shore.

Liverpool fired a single shot from her 4.5in gun and manoeuvred quickly out of the way of incoming fire before firing several more times at targets pointed out to her gunners by her airborne Lynx helicopter. Her 190-strong crew were at action stations, dressed in anti-flash gear and had the deadly Sea Dart missile system primed and ready to fire before Gaddafi’s guns stopped.

MOST SIGNIFICANT ACTION FOR 20 YEARS, SAYS HISTORIAN

HMS Liverpool’s tangle with Libyan forces was the Royal Navy’s most-significant war action since the First Gulf War, a leading historian said.

Top naval historian Professor Andrew Lambert, of King’s College London, said: ‘In 1991, a silkworm missile was fired at a US warship and HMS Gloucester intercepted it with a Sea Dart missile. That was the last big thing until now.’

Prof Lambert argues yesterday’s attack demonstrates the increasing desperation of the Libyan regime.

He said: ‘It’s a highly unusual thing to happen. I sense Gaddafi is feeling the pressure and lashed out.

‘The role navies are playing is destroying Gaddafi’s Libya. Libya exports oil and the blockade has meant he has lost his ability to make money from the sea. This would not have been a random attack. These ships are squeezing the life out of Gaddafi’s regime and he’s fighting back.’

[Sea Skimmer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0bJxRPk ... r_embedded
This quick video shows Pro Qaddafi tank burned after getting stuck in a text book; and kind of obvious, anti tank ditch somewhere in Misrata. The rebels in the east are far less organized in respects like this, for whatever reasons.

[Thanas]

Maybe less defecting officers/troops? Considering where Ghaddafi's forces were based before, I think it would be easier for them to get to Misrata then to the other side of the country.

[Phantasee]

Which CF ship was that?

[Sea Skimmer]

The ultimate technical has been created by grafting a BMP-1 turret onto a Toyota
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmZyqjLjx5U

[Kryten]

Which CF ship was that?

None of them; this was a British ship-more info here under 'air attacks'.

[SpaceMarine93]

Breaking news, apparently rumors abound that Gaddafi himself had been wounded in a very recent airstrike, and is himself hiding from the capital.

[Sarevok]

Her 190-strong crew were at action stations, dressed in anti-flash gear and had the deadly Sea Dart missile system primed and ready to fire before Gaddafi’s guns stopped.

Sea Dart ? I read the system shot down artillery shells before in trials. Were they going to try now under real world conditions ? Would it be effective against the type of rocket artillery used ?

[Sea Skimmer]

Sea Dart ? I read the system shot down artillery shells before in trials. Were they going to try now under real world conditions ? Would it be effective against the type of rocket artillery used ?

Sea Wolf did, not Sea Dart but Qaddafi has truck mobile anti ship missiles that could appear anywhere. Some were destroyed in depot by US cruise missiles early in the war, but even in that strike the media clearly filmed one launcher and missiles as surviving. You never know where a helicopter might appear either or similar threats, and Sea Dart is the ships primary heavy anti ship weapon. Sea Dart might be able to shoot down a Grad rocket, but evading the rockets at high speed with numerous turns is a far better option. A single BM-21 Grad launcher has forty tubes after all, which is more rockets then a Type 42 has Sea Dart missiles. Never mind the absurd disparity in cost.

[Kryten]

Breaking news, apparently rumors abound that Gaddafi himself had been wounded in a very recent airstrike, and is himself hiding from the capital.

Mentioned briefly in this article;

Italy's foreign minister said earlier on Friday that Col Gaddafi had probably been wounded in Thursday's air strike on his Bab al-Aziziya compound and had fled Tripoli.

[Sea Skimmer]

Which CF ship was that?

HMCS Charlottetown, Halifax class. Looks like she only used machine guns in the engagement. The French ship in this incident has not been identified but was described as a gunboat not under direct NATO command. The earlier one way bombardment that may have sparked this engagement was conducted by MN Courbet with her 100mm of doom.

Breaking news, apparently rumors abound that Gaddafi himself had been wounded in a very recent airstrike, and is himself hiding from the capital.

People have been saying this for days, and that he might no longer even be in Tripoli, but no one really knows. Basically the timeline is two weeks ago a bombing raid killed his son and the Libyan government claims, he was present in the same building. Since then we have had one video, which had nothing to date it and in which Qaddafi only spoke to ‘tribal leaders’ rather then addressing the nation, and then more recently one audio tape in which he denied anything was wrong with him. So for about two weeks now we have not seen verifiable proof that Qaddafi is uninjured. The more recent bombing raid on Thursday could have wounded him or he may already have been wounded earlier.

However as much as I’d love to believe he is wounded given the lack of credible video, the lack of messages might be attributed to him simply being too afraid of being bombed again to even risk displaying a background on TV (after all people pretty damn close to him may be feeding NATO targeting info, and they might recognize backgrounds no one else would) while he gives a speech. But then… he could just have Bin Laden style curtains hung up as a background anyway. One theory is he is now hiding in the same hotel that hosts all the western journalists. His bunkers are clearly at least mostly not proof against the mere 2000lb class bombs the European NATO powers have; not surprising since many are old and meant more to withstand nukes/chemical attacks then PGMs, and many were built by western companies that have compromised the plans to NATO just as they compromised Saddams bunkers to the Coalition in Iraq.

Additionally… the fact is Qaddafi has nothing to say. His supporters are simply limited as shown by the growing list of critical military failures, and he’s just about exhausted the possibilities for generating new anti NATO propaganda. He can rave to the masses but other then proving he is alive it doesn’t gain him much.

I figure though, if we don’t get a verifiable video (Qaddaif could mention recent events or just hold up a newspaper if nothing else) within the coming week it’s pretty much certain something happened to him. Of course, even if wounded could be wounded in a fairly minor way, such as flash burns to the face, that make him unsightly on TV, but won’t kill him or even seriously threaten his life if he is forced to go hide without access to a full hospital for medical care.

[Sea Skimmer]

This is the latest libyafeb17.com rebel propaganda map of the Misrata situation. Other people have a number of ha videos on youtube already linked to that AT ditch one which verify these lines of advance into the 15-20km range. The 'armed' uprising in Zlitan however is an exaggeration as far as I can tell. It looks like people in the city might have burned a few rocket launcher vehicles; but its not open rebellion. It looks more like everyone pro Qaddafi left from battle in Misrata is already deploying to defend the city from its buildings. Logical; they stand no chance in the open between the cities if NATO is willing to shell as well as bomb them.

[Raj Ahten]

Thanks for the updates Sea Skimmer. You are usually able to bring up interesting information; such as details of the naval engagement; that are hard to find elsewhere.

[Sea Skimmer]

Latest video of the rebel advance west from Misrata
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Zklzmp ... ideo_title

A pair of buildings close beside the road, I think a police checkpoint from peacetime, can be seen at 1:53 into this . I have located these buildings on Google Earth as being at 32°24'56.66"N 14°47'31.10"E. This town is indeed 40km due west of the all important harbor docks of Misrata but its more like 27km from the city center. This verifies the claimed advance in the map above too; which shows the rebel front line as being a few kilometers yet further west, and we see further advance in the video.

So this means the port area is now physically out of range of the roughly 40km range of BM-21 rockets and 155mm artillery fire from Qaddafis forces in the west. Any of his forces south or south west would still be in range, but seem to be lacking such weapons as no artillery fire fell on the city today, or I think yesterday.

[Sarevok]

Gaddafi's Libyans seem to be very heavy users of artillery and extensive combined arms in general. This seems to be in stark contrast with their reputation as so incompetent they can not defeat technicals with tanks. Did they suddenly improve since the debacle of Chad invasion ?