Allies guided rebel ‘pincer’ assault on Tripoli
By Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller, Monday, August 22, 6:48 AM
The rapid weekend advance of Libyan rebel troops into Tripoli was the result of an opposition strategy put in place two weeks ago with the advice of British, French and Qatari special forces on the ground, along with an earlier decision by the Obama administration to share additional intelligence on the positions of Libyan government forces, according to NATO and U.S. military and intelligence officials.
The strategy included coordinated rebel attacks on three critical areas: the oil port of Brega to the east of the capital, the refinery city of Zawiyah to the west and the strategic southern approach to Tripoli at Gharyan.
The objective, a senior NATO official said Monday, was to create a “pincer” that would drive forces loyal to Moammar Gaddafi back from all directions to protect Tripoli. In the process, government troops would provide clear targets for NATO airstrikes and the roads would clear for the rebel advance.
“The targeting shifted toward Tripoli over the last four or five days as the regime forces moved back .?.?. and the target set [in the capital] became larger,” said the official, one of several NATO and U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters. NATO said air strikes had hit 22 targets in and around Tripoli on Saturday.
Although Gaddafi issued several calls for the leaders of Libya’s tribes to defend the capital, his precise whereabouts are unknown. “We believe he’s still in the country,” said Marine Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. “We don’t have any information that he’s left the country.”
Even before the pincer movement began, the United States had begun to provide its allies with expanded imagery from satellites and armed drones on the locations and capabilities of government forces.
At the same time, CIA operatives inside the country and intercepted communications within the government provided a deeper understanding of just how badly Gaddafi’s command structure had crumbled, U.S. officials said.
The collapse could be traced to “two things,” said a high-ranking U.S. military official. ”One was the knowledge that we had on the disintegration of the command structure of the Gaddafi forces.”
The rebels were emboldened by that information, officials said, gaining confidence that the war was turning in their direction.
“The second thing, in the lead-up into Tripoli we really provided a lot of imagery on the locations of the Gaddafi forces,” the official said. “So as the rebels were getting into their positions when they came around the south and up into the west side of Tripoli, we had a good sense of where [Gaddafi’s] forces were at.”
That intelligence flow had been obstructed for most of the early months of the conflict, officials said, in part because of restrictions on the amount of information that could be given to NATO allies.
But the administration reached a decision about six weeks ago that enabled the sharing of more sensitive materials with NATO, including imagery and signals intercepts that could be provided to British and French special operations troops on the ground in addition to pilots in the air.
The NATO allies and “particularly the Qataris” on the ground were “working very closely” with the rebels’ military and political command “to help them think this one through and also provide them with the capabilities,” the NATO official said.
NATO, whose United Nations mandate is limited to the protection of Libyan civilians, has been anxious not to be seen acting as the rebel air force in a coordinated strategy. But the NATO official acknowledged that “the effect of what we were doing was not dissimilar. What we saw was sort of the collapse of the regime and its capability to direct its forces.”
The speed of the collapse appeared to take aback even those who had planned it. After withdrawing from Zawiyah and other towns, government forces seemed to melt away as the rebels approached Tripoli. One commander confronting rebel troops in Tripoli stood aside and invited them in, according to a report reaching NATO.
U.S. intelligence agencies have not been able to corroborate independently claims by the rebels that they have captured three of Gaddafi’s sons, but noted that the International Criminal Court has confirmed that one of them, Saif al-Islam, is in opposition custody.
“There is still some fighting in the capital, but for the most part the Libyan regime forces seem to have just not engaged,” a U.S. intelligence official said. “Somehow this seems to have literally passed them by.”
The remaining questions, officials said, are Qaddafi’s location and the extent to which he retains any ability to control or communicate with his troops.
Even as rebels seized control of large swaths of Tripoli, the U.S. military official said it was unclear how long the fighting in the capital would continue, and expressed concern that loyalists could employ terror tactics in a final urban battle.
“The challenge now is that you’ve got a city of 2 million, and we’re into urban warfare,” the official said.
But the dramatically improved rebel position could enable the United States to expand its diplomatic and intelligence presence inside the country.
“You’re going to see a larger agency footprint,” as well as an expanded presence by the National Security Agency, which monitors e-mail and cellphone traffic, the military official said. “This won’t happen this week, but it will happen in the next month.”
Staff writer Craig Whitlock contributed to this report.
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