Watching Libya October 19, 2011

As US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Tripoli yesterday – pledging US aid (including assistance to diversify Libya’s economy with a view to decreasing its total dependence on oil and gas exports), calling for unity amongst the various regional militias, and looking forward to the dictator’s capture or elimination – loyalists were still holding on in Sirte’s District 2.

That this very small area on the coast (see our map above) continues to resist is a matter of concern. There are probably a number of factors at play. The Gheddafi loyalists trapped within District 2 – an area that has over the past week achieved global notoriety – are evidently more motivated than most observers would have ever imagined. Certainly, their fear of revenge by the attackers – a fear that probably grows stronger with every new death they inflict on an enemy they still arrogantly refer to as ‘rats’ – is a major incentive to die fighting.

Other factors explaining the slowness of the anti-Gheddafi militias is their military amateurishness, but, and this is politically more serious, it is the apparent lack of any central coordination of the battle that is more worrying.  Apart from the tragic fact that these two elements translate into unnecessary deaths on the part of doubtlessly committed and often recklessly courageous patriots, it also suggests that the Transitional National Council is as yet unable to convince ‘its’ fighters that a central command is necessary. If this defect is a reflection of the political situation in the country as a whole – we will know this for certain when Sirte finally falls – then it is to be hoped that the TNC  is giving the issue priority attention.
District 2’s importance is not one of military strategy – the most important strategic points, the National Electrical Control Centre and the Arabsat centre only a few hundred meters down the road from the south eastern corner of the embattled area  (see the map above) have already been liberated – but, rather, it is a test (albeit one of several along the way) of the TNC ability to lead the way to national unity.