Volunteers to the resistance gather at the Salmani weapons maintenance depot in Benghazi.
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In the wake of several reports in recent days of air strikes or attempted air strikes on weapons depots, pipelines and oil fields around Benghazi and Ajdabiya, local commanders say they are on high alert and have spread their antiaircraft guns out, "because these guns keep the planes flying high," al-Mahdawi says.
On Monday afternoon, airmen and volunteers at the Benina air base attached to Benghazi's airport say they saw two warplanes pass overhead. There are three military camps in the area and witnesses there believe the planes had been sent to bomb their weapons depots. Firing artillery at the planes forced them to divert, the men at the base say, but they're worried they might return. On Monday night, they shot at another plane they feared had gone to bomb them as well; they later said it turned out to be a French aid plane that was forced to turn around.
And on Tuesday, dozens of volunteers readied themselves for the possibility of more air assaults, as men took turns at a row of five antiaircraft guns on the Benina base, shooting them skyward. "These are volunteers to protect the airport because there is no protection," says one soldier, Youssef Saad, who also says he's the media coordinator. The men have started training in light-weapons use for self-defense purposes as well, he adds. The smell of gasoline, used to clean the machines, fills the air. And a man in civilian clothes sprays bullets from an FN 76 into the air. Spirits are high.
Of course, it's unclear just how well armed the rebels are. Commanders there say they would like to have more weapons, but they also claim they're well enough stocked to be targeted.
Within the walls of a grassy compound, where sheep have been left to graze, outside al-Rajmah, near Benghazi's airport, a series of storage bunkers is built into the hillsides. Most of the storerooms were emptied as rebels overran the base and Gaddafi's forces defected, retreated or were killed in the uprising nearly two weeks ago. But, according to locals, there is still enough of an arms cache to warrant armed guards at night — and the constant fear of an air strike. By day, just a handful of young men from the surrounding farmland guard the place; one carries a spear he has fashioned by lashing a blade to a wooden pole with a string of twine. The weapons that remain are far too little to bring down a regime: a cache of explosives in one bunker and stacks of boxes marked "display shells" in another.