[D66] Fwd: [Marxism] Libyan rebel army in utter disarray

[Antid Oto]

NY Times April 19, 2011
As British Help Libya Rebels, Aid Goes to a Divided Force
By ROD NORDLAND

BENGHAZI, Libya — As NATO struggles to break a deepening stalemate in
Libya, the British announced on Tuesday that they were sending military
advisers to help build up a rebel army that has stumbled against the
superior forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The first question the British will face is, “Whose army?”

For they will find themselves advising a ragtag rebel force that cannot
even agree on who its top officer is, amid squabbling between two
generals who both come with unsavory baggage.

The dysfunction was on full display here this week. “I control
everybody, the rebels and the regular army forces,” said one of them,
Gen. Khalifa Hifter, in an interview on Monday. “I am the field
commander and Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes is chief of staff. His job is to
support us in the field and my job is to lead the fighting.”

The rebels’ civilian leadership, the Transitional National Council, has
insisted, however, that General Younes remains in overall charge of the
military. “This is not true,” an official close to the council said
Tuesday when told of General Hifter’s claims. “General Younes is over
him, this is for sure, and General Hifter is under him.”

General Hifter made it clear that he viewed General Younes as an officer
who was serving in a support or logistical role, and he explicitly
blamed him for a string of humiliating retreats by rebels along the
see-sawing front line between Brega and Ajdabiya, most recently on
Sunday, when seven rebels were killed during a counterattack by
government forces that turned into a near rout.

“All of what happened there resulted from the command of Abdul Fattah
Younes,” he said. “That’s why I came back to take charge, and in the
next couple days I will take charge of every unit, not one unit. I am
getting ready to lead the forces from now on.”

>From the beginning, the NATO military effort has been hampered by the
rebels’ disorganization and lack of training, equipment and experience,
which have left them unable to capitalize on the damage NATO airstrikes
inflicted on Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. The British mission is aimed at
addressing these shortcomings, improving the rebels’ organization,
communications and logistics.

In recent weeks, as the Qaddafi forces have adapted to the air attacks,
using camouflage and mixing with civilian populations, it has become
increasingly difficult for NATO pilots to hit their targets without
killing civilians — precisely what the United Nations sent them there to
stop.

In the ensuing standoff, as the Qaddafi forces continue to shell the
rebel-held city of Misurata, killing hundreds of civilians, NATO’s
credibility is suffering, with critics saying it risks looking weak and
ineffective — particularly in comparison with the blistering,
American-led attacks in the first weeks of the air campaign.

The Western powers have been looking to the rebel fighters to break the
logjam, hoping they can be built into an effective fighting force. But
the continuing disorganization and infighting within the rebel
leadership is an obstacle; even countries that have expressed support
for the rebel cause are balking at arming them, at least in part out of
concern over the disarray.

All of which casts doubt on the ability of Britain’s advisers to create
an effective rebel military, if the rebel leaders cannot stop fighting
among themselves.

The first concrete report of weapons from foreign donors reaching the
Libyan rebels came Tuesday, but significantly, those 400 AK-47 rifles
did not go through either of the two generals claiming to be the leader
of the rebels’ forces. Instead, they went directly to a civilian, Fawzi
Bukatef, a petroleum engineer who has been training other civilians and
sending them to the front lines.

Mr. Bukatef said he had just sent 400 freshly armed volunteers to the
front with the new weapons he had received from the unnamed donor —
widely believed to be Qatar, which has freely acknowledged its intention
to send weapons to the rebels. He knows both generals, he said, and
feels let down by both.

“These guys are making a problem for us on the front because we don’t
know who is in charge,” Mr. Bukatef said. “They are not coordinating
with each other, and I don’t think they even like each other.”

On Tuesday, a compromise of sorts was suggested by Col. Ahmed Bani, the
official spokesman for the Libyan rebel forces. “They are both at the
same level, and both answer to Omar Hariri, the minister of defense,” he
said. But that held little promise of resolving the situation.

General Hifter claimed that his new authority over the forces in the
field came from the Transitional National Council, and he said it was
not true that the council had removed him from military command after a
contentious meeting late in March, handing the top position to General
Younes, Colonel Qaddafi’s former interior minister.

“That was only a wish on their part,” he said.

A high-ranking officer on his staff said the civilian officials did not
dare to remove General Hifter. “If they so much as thought of doing
that, the people would kill them,” he said.

General Hifter is widely popular among rebel fighters as a hero of the
Chad war, when he was a colonel in charge of Libyan troops who invaded
their southern neighbor in an expansionist war that Colonel Qaddafi
eventually lost. Later he fell out with the colonel and went into exile
in the United States for 20 years, returning about a month after the
rebellion began and appointing himself field commander. When his removal
from command was announced late in March, scuffles broke out involving
his supporters angry at the council action.

General Younes, on the other hand, was Colonel Qaddafi’s friend and
interior minister until he resigned and defected to the rebel side on
Feb. 22. “Younes spent his whole life behind Qaddafi,” said an officer
close to General Hifter.

The rebels’ civilian leaders see matters differently. “To tell you the
truth, Khalifa Hifter arrived a little late,” said a civilian official,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature
of the subject. “As far as we’re concerned, he is just one of the field
commanders.”

Other rebel leaders would demote him even further. “Khalifa Hifter is a
Libyan citizen,” said the former rebel spokesman, Mustafa Gheriani, on
April 16. “He doesn’t appear on the Transitional National Council
organizational chart.”

“He was only made a general two days ago,” added the official close to
the council, who also spoke anonymously because of the political
sensitivities of the issue. “Younes has been a general much longer.”

The Transitional National Council’s leadership role has also been
diffuse and unclear. A self-appointed body that claims to have 31
members from around Libya, the group has only formally divulged the
names of 10 of its members, claiming a need to protect them and their
family members from retaliation by Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. For the
same reason, council members say, their meetings are held in secret.

That has led to repeated confusion, however, in the council’s decisions
on crucial issues like the leadership of the rebel forces.

The Obama administration maintains that the rebels are making progress,
albeit slowly, toward creating a coherent chain of command. “It was a
group of disparate individuals that has formed in the face of Colonel
Qaddafi’s onslaught and oppression and has done a good job, frankly, at
coalescing, at forming a leadership, at creating certain values and
communicating those values and ideals,” said a State Department
spokesman, Mark C. Toner, on Tuesday. “We’re encouraged by what we’veseen.”

For many here, that remains to be seen. The interview with General
Hifter was held at the well-guarded Benghazi offices of a Libyan oil
company, where he has established his personal headquarters. He also
expressed concern that he had had no contact with American
representatives since he arrived in Libya, although he said he had often
talked to the Central Intelligence Agency while he lived in exile in
suburban Virginia.

“I thought America was going to help Libya’s citizens, but I’m
displeased with what they’ve done so far,” he said.

The United States has sent an envoy to the Transitional National
Council, working out of a hotel here, but General Hifter says they have
never met.

The general also said he wanted NATO to make a greater effort to
coordinate its air strikes with rebel advances on the ground. “I need
air support from Nato,” he said. “When I lead, I want NATO to defend my
front line so we can move forward.”

While NATO’s mandate calls for protecting civilians, not aiding rebels,
General Hifter said the best way to protect Libya’s citizens was to
assist rebels in liberating those cities that are still controlled by
Colonel Qaddafi.