Cyrenaica rises up against Qaddafi's Tripolitania regime DEBKAfile Special Report
February 20, 2011, 11:24 PM
Muammar QaddafiAround two million Cyrenaican protesters, half of Libya's population who control half of the country
and part of its oil resources, embarked Sunday, Feb. 20, on a full-scale revolt against Muammar Qaddafi
and his affluent ruling Tripolitanian-dominated regime. Unlike the rights protests sweeping the Middle East
and North Africa, in Libya, one half of the country is rising up against the other half, as well as fighting to
overthrow a dictatorial ruler of 42 years.
Since last week, heavy battles have been fought in Benghazi, Al Bayda, Al Marj, Tobruk and at least two other
two cities. In some places, debkafile's military sources report
protesters stormed army bases and seized large
quantities of missiles, mortars, heavy machine guns and armored vehicles and used them.
The important Fadil Ben Omar Brigade command base in Benghazi was burnt to the ground.
Our sources cite witnesses who spied Berber tribesmen among the insurgents, which bodes ill for Algerian
and Morocco and their large Berber populations.
The reports of massacres and imported mercenaries, especially in Benghazi come mainly from opposition
sources in West Europe and cannot be independently confirmed at this time. Neither could reports from the
same sources Sunday night that Qaddafi's rule had collapsed and the revolt had spread.
At the same time, there is no doubt that Qaddafi will not scruple to use brutal measures in desperation to
save his regime, if he has not already.
Hospital sources describe hundreds of dead and injured.
He has meanwhile put Ahmed Gaddaf Al-Dam, his cousin and security chief, in charge of the army's effort
to suppress the uprising in Benghazi.
Most of the city appears to have fallen to the protesters, with the
exception of its airport through which the ruler is pumping heavy reinforcements and sending them straight
into battle.
So far, the Libyan Air Force and Navy have not been deployed. Helicopters sent in action to shoot into crowds
are confirmed in only one place, Al Bayda.
Since Saturday afternoon, Qaddafi has not been seen or heard in public. According to some rumors, he
has left Tripoli and made for the Saharan oasis town of Sebha, his tribal birthplace. So far, he has kept up the
flow of military reinforcements to the six rebel cities because the towns of Tripolitania have been relatively quiet.
But
if Tripoli and its environs rise up too, he will be short of military strength to deal with trouble spots in both
parts of the country.
Some Libyan would-be go-betweens proposed a ceasefire between Qaddafi and the protesters whereby the
government would resign and the popular former prime minister Abdul Salam Jaloud be appointed caretaker
prime minister until the crisis is resolved. But Jaloud declined the offer.
It is too early to determine in advance how the showdown between Qaddafi's army and the protesters-insurgents
of Cyrenaica turns out. Before it is over, Libya's eastern provinces may be called on to sacrifice thousands more
dead and wounded. If the Cyrenaicans do manage to hold on, they will be
in a position to carve Libya in two and
break away from Tripolitania and the Qaddafi regime.
