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NATO led air operations in Libya since August 31 have concentrated on Sirt with 246 reported hits, the Hun-Waddan-Jufra triangle with 146 hits, Sabha with at least 34 hits and Bani Walid with 15 hits. Also hit were Buwayrat, 65 kilometres west of Sirt, with 15 hits in one single raid on September 3, and Zillah, a very small town on the road that leads south east from Houn and then veers north east towards Brega on the coast. Daily accounts of hits are published by NATO Allied Joint Force Command (SHAPE) at Naples. Their archive may be accessed here.
Operation ‘Unified Protector’ started in the early morning of March 31, 2011. As at Friday, September 23, the number of sorties undertaken by NATO led assets over Libya amounted to 23,682, of which 8,865 were defined, in NATO terminology, as strike sorties, understood as “intended to identify and engage appropriate targets, but [that] do not necessarily deploy munitions each time”. For an analysis of the distribution of targets between March 31 and the midnight of July 31, 2011 see Watching Libya August 4, 2011 below.
Evidently, strikes during September have been focused along the “corridor that traverses a variety of desert terrains that connect the Gulf of Sirt […] and the border with southern Algeria, Niger and Chad”. Read more about the political significance of this corridor in Watching Libya September 7, 2011 below. With the liberation of the Fezzanese towns of Birak (and its air base) on September 17 and Sabha – where loyalists are still holding out in the al-Manshiya district – those regions where Gheddafi could still count on tribal loyalties have shrunk to practically nothing.
As we said in our previous update “The earliest possible resumption of oil production and export is vitally important. Although it would not, alone, be sufficient to ensure the economic and social conditions required for a politically stable reconstruction of the country, it is necessary if these conditions are to be at all possible. Surprise attacks on oil fields by Gheddafi diehards […] may delay the resumption of production, hence the importance of capturing or eliminating loyalist militias at the earliest. The sooner Gheddafi and his closest associates are out of action and shown to be out of action, the sooner will remaining supporters give up.” See Watching Libya September 22, 2011 below.
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