Libyan Rebels are not Prepared to Beat Gaddafi

The rebels are poorly equipped, lack of leadership, and no military experience. The combination will eventually lead to failure. It doesn't make a difference if the rebels are able to capture a tank or a plane because there is no one capable to work these machines. It doesn't make a difference if the rebels make a successful charge because they always retreat. This type of strategy will not overthrow Gaddafi. Instead, Gaddafi will have a ball making everybody look like idiots. The only way to solve this is with coalition ground troops to assist the al-Qaeda rebels. If Obama gave the okay, it will be the end of his presidency. The war in Libya is 14 days old and it seems it will be a long drawn out war.

(The Guardian) The revolution lacks an organised military structure in spite of several attempts to stamp its authority on the volunteer army. Discipline is bad. Few of the fighters have proper military experience and they would need training in the use of weapons such as artillery. But the revolutionaries have made a strong point of saying they do not want foreign troops on Libyan soil.

The revolution's de facto finance minister, Ali Tarhouni, claims that there are 1,000 trained fighters among the rebels but there is little evidence of it on the battlefield where the anti-Gaddafi forces appear capable of advancing only when the way is cleared by foreign air strikes.

The problem is not solely the rebels' lack of more powerful weapons. In the past two days their disorganisation has shown as they have been badly outmanoeuvred by better-trained forces that have outflanked them with sweeps through the desert. The revolutionaries lack any cohesive defensive plan. Instead they fire wildly at the enemy and argue among themselves about what to do next and who should be giving orders before turning and fleeing.

Indeed, the rebels have seized a significant number of large weapons abandoned by retreating Gadaffi forces including a handful or more tanks this week after air strikes around Ajdabiya sent the government's army fleeing. But the tanks have yet to be put to use on the battlefield in part because of a lack of expertise in fighting with them.

The lack of control over Libya's rebel army also raises questions about how it might behave as an occupying force were it to take over a town such as Sirte which has not risen up in support of the revolution and where the Libyan leader is believed to retain some support.

Killings of alleged mercenaries in Benghazi, the rebels' de facto capital, as well as the large numbers of young men who have assumed an authority over ordinary citizens apparently only granted by their guns, will raise questions about how an ill disciplined and unaccountable force will behave on taking control of a potentially less welcoming city.

It would be embarrassing, to say the least, if even some of the rebels armed by Britain or the US were to carry out the kind of atrocities the west says it is intervening in Libya to prevent.

There must be an additional concern that any weapons sent to the revolutionaries could end up arming Gaddafi.

The rebel performance in recent weeks has amounted to rapid advances followed by almost as speedy retreats. It is one thing for the revolutionaries to jump in to their cars and pick-up trucks and race back tens of miles through the desert.