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GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Qaddafi's air force is up again and ferrying fresh troops to defend Tripoli

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: DEBKAfile

28February2011 6:00amEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Hours after the UN Security Council unanimously imposed sanctions on Col. Muammar Qaddafi and his regime, his reactivated air force was flying army and Libyan Air Force AN-74tribal reinforcements from the south and landing them at the military airfields of Tripoli, Misrata and Sirte. DEBKAfile's military sources report.  Sunday night, Feb. 27, men were immediately deployed at the main road intersections leading to the capital.

This move at the current stage of Libya's civil war lessens the military significance of the rebels' reported takeover of towns around Tripoli, including Al Zawiya to the west, from which Qaddafi's forces pulled back to guard the main road to Tripoli.

For now, the rebels face four main difficulties:

  1. They lack organized military strength to stand up to Qaddafi's professionally-trained and equipped soldiers. This imbalance can only be offset by a mutiny in the army's ranks or assassination.
  2. Instead of digging in and consolidating their control of the eastern part of the country after its capture, the rebels went after Tripoli in order to topple Qaddafi. Sunday night, this goal looked unattainable.
  3. They have rejected US and European offers of military assistance in the strongest terms warning that if foreign troops intervened they would redirect their guns from Qaddafi on the interlopers.
  4. The rebels are fighting without air cover, while Qaddafi's forces command enough air power and air fields in the south to keep up a steady flow of fresh fighting men in his support.

Early Sunday, Feb. 27, US President Barack Obama called on Libyan ruler Col. Muammar Qaddafi to leave now, having lost the legitimacy to rule since "his only means of staying in power is to use violence against his own people," and the UN Security Council's 15 members unanimously slapped down wide-reaching sanctions on members of his family and regime commanders, calling for an immediate International Criminal Court probe of Qaddafi, his seven sons and daughter and military commanders, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.