Watching Libya July 13, 2011

Visitors to Watching Libya will recall how, well before the international media discovered it, we drew attention to the strategic importance of the Nafusa range. On April 25, responding to a report in the New York Times about the efforts by the regime’s forces to recapture Wazin, a small town close to the Tunisian border – an effort that the correspondent found surprising – we argued that, on the contrary, we had expected the regime to attempt to control the heights of the Jabal Nafusa all along their length from the Tunisian border in the west to close to Homs to the east of Tripoli. On that occasion as well as in other editions of Watching Libya, we pointed to at least four reasons why the highlands marking the southern extremity of the Jefara – the coastal lowland in Libya’s north west dominated by Tripoli – worry the regime more than the advance of Transitional National Council (TNC) forces from the east along the coastal road that links the Tunisian and Egyptian borders. 

Firstly, Gheddafi was never comfortable with the largely Berber communities of the Nafusa. Secondly,  the steep escarpment overlooking the Jefara – and Tripoli – constitutes a veritable defensive bastion for anyone guarding the approaches to the Jebel. As did the Italian colonial forces from 1911 right up to World War Two, the regime’s military planners dread a scenario wherein even a lightly armed guerrilla enemy enjoys the benefit of high ground so close to the capital. It is not surprising that officers in the regime’s army and security forces involved in the campaign to re-take the high ground are reportedly unhappy with the orders they have from Tripoli. They do not need SunTzu to tell them “never [to] launch an upward attack on the enemy who occupies high ground; nor meet the enemy head-on when there are hills backing him”.  Not surprisingly, they are not winning.

Thirdly, on March 25 – a whole month before the regime’s assault on Wazin – we drew attention to the fact that: “Important oil and gas pipelines cut across the Nafusa range on their way to the Mediterranean coast. The gas pipeline that connects the Wafa field south of Ghadames close to the Algerian border and the Mellitah production and export gas hub east of Tripoli, as well as the oil pipelines that stretch from the Elephant oil field to the east of Sebha and Murzuk in the deep south of Libya, as well as the Al Hamra field further north and to the east of Ghadames, to the Mediterranean east of Tripoli, cross the Nafusah range between Zentan and Jadu.” Now that these are the only pipelines leading to export hubs under the regime’s control, it is to be expected that Gheddafi will do his utmost to ensure that they do not fall in the hands of the opposition. Although the regime is currently unable to export any gas and oil, it has not yet given up hope of a scenario whereby it will retain control of at least what used to be called Tripolitania. See our map from the March 25 update below.

Fourthly, we argued that it was imperative that insurgency in the east should link up with the resistance against Gheddafi in the mountain communities of the Nafusa, as this “would lay a strong foundation for national unity in the post-Gheddafi period of reconstruction”. Hence our high estimate of the importance of the visit of today, July 13, by representatives of the Benghazi-based TNC to Zentan, one of the most important of the Jabal Nafusa’s liberated towns. The visit, reported visually by the BBC’s Arabic service, will strengthen the resolve of fighters in the Nafusa to liberate Gharyan as the next step towards Tripoli.

[For more on the Nafusa range, see Watching Libya June 11/12, 2011, Watching Libya April 29, 2011, Watching Libya April 25, 2011, Watching Libya March 25, 2011, Watching Libya March 16, 2011, and Watching Libya March 11, 2011 below.]