The War Between The Libyas

In the east, rebels dream of life without Muammar Gaddafi. In the west, people revere him as a man who has given them dignity

  • Yuri Kozyrev/NOOR for TIME

    The rebels, in Ras Lanuf on March 9, moved from easy victories to fiery clashes with the regime

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    The rebels realized that after their week of bracing conquests. Almost as soon as they captured Ras Lanuf, their militias were repulsed when they pushed into Bin Jawad, a town 50 miles (80 km) west on the coastal road. On March 6, regime forces bombarded them with tank shells, rocket-propelled grenades, gunfire and air strikes from planes and helicopters, sending the disorderly force fleeing east, back to Ras Lanuf, pursued by Gaddafi's air force. Says al-Tahawy: "What you see is a mix of the normal people of the streets and the normal soldiers. No generals. I know we're missing discipline." Unless they can muster leadership and master military discipline — as well as improve the quality of their armaments — a spirited anarchy may remain the defining characteristic of eastern Libya's fledgling army. The rebel city closest to Tripoli, Zawiyah, surrounded by loyalist territory, put up a long defense against the regime, with terrifying stories of tanks against flesh making it out of Gaddafi's information cordon. But spirit, no matter how heroic, is not enough to win wars.

    Especially when the looming obstacle on the highway is Sert, Gaddafi's hometown. His government has made it clear that it has no intention of letting the rebels get there. Behind the rebel lines, talk of an impending battle for Sert makes even optimistic opposition leaders nervous. "The difficulty is that Sert is well armed and the revolutionaries have only light weapons," says Colonel Lamin Abdel Wahab, a member of the rebels' military council in Benghazi. The anxiety in Free Libya has grown so much that an earlier aversion to foreign intervention on its behalf has given way to an enthusiastic plea for a no-fly zone to be imposed by NATO or the U.S.

    In America, the fact that some rebels call themselves mujahedin — holy warriors — has raised the specter of the Afghan fighters who, after being armed by the U.S., turned from fighting the Soviet Union to abetting Osama bin Laden. Most of the rebels in Libya say that fear is nonsense. Hamid Gabayli, a ground engineer turned fighter says the regime wants the world to think "we are Taliban or al-Qaeda because they want to fool the Americans. But we are just religious. That's all." Others echo him. "We don't like bin Laden, and we don't like al-Qaeda," says Idriss, at the Ajdabiyah checkpoint. The men around him nod. It's another reason al-Tahawy apologizes for his and his friends' facial hair. "It's not necessarily what you see on the TV," he says. "It's not necessarily that the man is al-Qaeda" because he has a beard.

    Islamist extremism does have a recent history in Libya. The town of Darnah, east of Benghazi, was the site of a failed Islamist uprising against Gaddafi in the 1990s. Later it became known for the young men who left it to join the insurgency in Iraq after the U.S. invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein. "If you asked any of the mujahedin from Libya in Iraq where they're from, they said Darnah," says al-Tahawy. He adds that Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the fearsome leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in 2006, once said, "I will go to Darnah to see what is this city that is sending so many." But few among the Libyan rebels have Iraq fighting experience, al-Tahawy says. Most of those veterans are dead.

    Downplaying the role of piety, however, may be a disservice to those who have taken up arms against a despot. Islamic scholars in eastern Libya say pious Muslim men in particular were persecuted under Gaddafi, and they are determined to bring down the dictator. "He tried to stop people from going to dawn prayer because people who do this are very devout," says Sheik Abdel Hamid Ma'toub, a religious leader in Benghazi. "He knows that the most dangerous people in Libya are those who go to dawn prayers." Men who pray, he says, fear God, not Gaddafi.

    In Brega, a sandstorm whips dust through a checkpoint as trucks full of fighters pass. The men in them fire their guns into the air, shouting "God is great." Nearby, Wanis Kilani, an engineer, reflects on the use of the word mujahedin. "We are mujahedin in Libya only," he says. "We don't have any interest outside Libya." Then he pauses. "Actually, don't use the word mujahedin. Use revolutionaries."

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