Defense-Technology News: DTN News - RACE FOR POWER AMONG LIBYAN REBELS: Can The NTC Unite A Divided Libya?

DTN News - RACE FOR POWER AMONG LIBYAN REBELS: Can The NTC Unite A Divided Libya?

**A senior commander of one of Libya's most powerful rebel brigades has made an outspoken attack on a key rebel minister in the latest sign of growing divisions in the rebel ranks.

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Andrew Gilligan, Richard Spencer and Ruth Sherlock in Tripoli - Telegraph UK

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - September 4, 2011: Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph from his Tripoli headquarters, the commander of the Misurata Brigade, Suleiman Swelhi, hit out and instructions from the country's new interior minister that his fighters should now return to the western port city from which they take their name.

The brigade, who fought some of the fiercest street battles against government troops when Misurata came under siege, travelled to the Libyan capital to assist with this month's uprising that finally toppled Colonel Gaddafi.

But their motive was not just to lend an experienced hand to the rebellion - they were also concerned at the presence of prominent Islamists within the rest of the movement, and were anxious to ensure that they did not get a stranglehold on the instruments of power once the capital fell.

Now, however, the instructions from the National Transitional Council's interim interior minister, Ahmed Darrad, have left them on a potential collision course with the country's de facto new authorities.

"Mr Darrad's declaration that we should leave touches the dignity of the revolutionaries," he said. "It shouldn't be done like this and it's not the way to talk to us. We still have a job to do here, the battle is not finished yet. There are still threats from pro-Gaddafi forces. It is not right, only five days after the fall of Bab al-Aziziyah (Gaddafi's main compound), to announce something like this."

Mr Darrad had given the Misurata Brigade and other provincial units their marching orders in what was seen as an attempt by the NTC's civilian leadership to exert control over the fissiparous rebel forces.

He said: "Tripoli is free, and everyone should leave this town and go back to their own towns. Starting Saturday, there will be a large number of security personnel and policemen who will go back to work. Now the revolutionaries of Tripoli are able to protect their own city."

That his commands have not yet been obeyed underlines the fact that the despite their efforts to portray a commont front on the international stage, the rebels have never had a unified army.

Their forces are made up of about 40 independent brigades, or katibas, each privately financed, independently commanded and based on a particular town.

Misurata, the only place in western Libya which never fell to the regime and which withstood a two-month siege by Gaddafi's forces, is seen as the toughest and most prestigious brigade.

A source of tension within the rebel factions is the role of Islamist elements of the revolutionary forces.

At a barracks in Sabratha, to the west of the capital, Omar Mukhtar al-Madouni, assistant head of the Sabratha Brigade, was greeting his men this week as they returned from the front with the traditional kiss on both cheeks.

Most of the men were bearded - a regular if not infallible sign of Islamist tendencies - and many wore the more reliable indicator of being followers of Salafism, Saudi-style absolutism, the beard worn with no moustache.

They referred to Mr al-Madouni by the religious honorific, "Sheikh".

He himself had spent eight years in jail under Col Gaddafi until pardoned along with many other Islamist prisoners in 2008-9 under a deal brokered between Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and the Libyan Islamic Fighing Group, a group that once had ties with al-Qaeda.

Like other Islamist leaders, "Sheikh Omar" insisted that he had long broken with al-Qaeda and wanted a democracy in the Libya. "I don't think Libya will be run by Islamic groups," he said. "I want Libya to be free and democratic. We want to be like Dubai or Qatar.

"We are used to living side by side. We are welcoming people from the past regime. We have churches. We don't have a problem with foreigners."

But not all Libyan revolutionaries appear to accept these assurances.

Masud Buisir, a rebel fighter that The Sunday Telegraph first met in February, said: "I am happy, but I am afraid of the Islamic groups. On the front lines there are a lot of them, they are jihadists, dangerous, militant in their beliefs and they want to rule. The Islamists say they made this revolution. They didn't. We made it, these young men made it," he said, pointing to the youthful khaki-clad rebels sitting behind him.

Mr Swelhi's response to the demand may be ominous for the future of rebel unity, although many observers agreed that he had a point.

"The police and other security forces here in Tripoli are not ready yet," Mr Swelhi said. "Your enemy, when he sees you have a good force, he will be afraid. But Gaddafi will exploit weakness. If we give up or weapons or withdraw from Tripoli, that will help Gaddafi."

On Saturday the NTC announced that Mr Darrad's interior ministry would run a new supreme security council tasked with protecting Tripoli.

Ali Tarhuni, vice chair of the NTC, admitted that not all the revolutionary groups in the capital had joined the new body, but said it included the "majority" of them. He said the new council would incorporate the other groups as well, insisting that there would be "no problems" about this.

Divisions are also emerging over the increasingly pressing task of restoring basic services. Members of the NTC's own Stabilization Task Force lost their first fight with hardline members of the NTC and the Tripoli Council over something as mundane as the city's rubbish collection.

In the days after the revolution, garbage continued to be collected, albeit on a less efficient basis than before. But in the last few days it has begun piling up along main roads in the city, sending a powerful stench over the suburbs as the city suffers a late summer heatwave.

One key official said that the NTC had insisted that the company which ran the garbage collection on behalf of the city be sacked, as it was run by Gaddafi loyalists who had been favoured with the contract.

"I was flatly disappointed," the official said. "There was a power struggle over the garbage. My approach was for whoever is managing something to be left there if he's doing the job properly, and deal with him at a suitable time.

"The Tripoli council felt the manager was a Gaddafi crony and he should not be managing the garbage collection company."

Since the start of the war, NATO leaders have pledged that Libya would not "turn into a new Iraq", where attempts to remove all Ba'ath Party officials led to a power vacuum from which the country has still to recover.

"But now they are saying Libyan "debaathification" is OK because we are not Iraq," the official said, saying that many members of the council were keen to remove as many Gaddafi-era officials as possible.