Vol. 75/No. 36      October 10, 2011

The U.S. Africa Command was established in 2008. Before the Libyan civil war, it “never thought of itself as leading [offensive military] operations,” its commander, Army Gen. Carter Ham, told The Hill. Ham said the command has been strengthened through its combat experience in Libya and stressed his opinion that it should make more use of special forces. “The demand for special-operations forces of lots of different flavors is pretty significant in Africa.”

In the opening weeks of the assault, the U.S. military knocked out Gadhafi’s air defenses. Since then the bulk of NATO’s airstrikes have been launched by Paris and London. Washington, however, continues to provide essential surveillance support and munitions.

Since March NATO has conducted more than 8,700 sorties against Libya. On September 21 it extended these attacks for at least the next 90 days.

U.S. tanker planes have pumped nearly 150 million gallons of fuel into NATO combat aircraft, U.S. Air Mobility Command chief Gen. Raymond Johns told the media September 20. These “flying gas stations” have serviced 11,000 aircraft so those planes can “schwack somebody when they need to be schwacked,” Johns told The Hill.

Washington announced the reopening of its embassy in Tripoli, the capital, September 22. Two weeks earlier, U.S. ambassador Gene Cretz “participated in a State Department conference call with about 150 American companies hoping to do business with Libya,” reported the New York Times.

At the same time the Pentagon dispatched 16 military personnel to embassy grounds, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. This is in addition to special units of CIA operatives who have been operating on the ground in Libya along with special forces troops from France and the United Kingdom, helping NATO target its airstrikes.

Washington is also sending “weapons experts”—government contractors who are often former members of U.S. special operations forces. The National Transitional Council, which functions as Libya’s interim government, has requested more be sent to “embed within units of rebels” to destroy “man-portable air-defense systems,” reported The Atlantic.

“Now that we have the official letter of request, we’re ramping up,” an unnamed State Department spokesman told the National Journal.

Stiff fighting continues in several remaining Gadhafi strongholds a month since the fall of Tripoli. Though rebel forces claim to have seized the port of Sirte, Gadhafi’s hometown, they’ve been unable to take full control of the city despite NATO bombardment. Residents face deteriorating conditions with no water or electricity and dwindling food supplies, fleeing civilians told the media.

Migrant workers from Sub-Saharan Africa, long discriminated against under the Gadhafi regime, have faced some of the most difficult conditions during the civil war. Many have been targeted by rebel forces and accused of being pro-Gadhafi mercenaries.

“Many black men—perhaps thousands, no one knows for sure—have been arrested and warehoused in improvised jails in the capital and elsewhere,” reported the September 2 Los Angeles Times.

“We are workers, we are not soldiers,” Godfrey Ogbor, 29, told the Times at one of the squalid encampments where hundreds have been crammed into an abandoned port facility just outside Tripoli. Armed men have raided such camps and looted residents’ belongings, “snatching life savings at gunpoint,” reported the Times.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the National Transitional Council, said he supports renewing the 2008 Italian-Libyan “Treaty of Friendship” that existed under Gadhafi. Under the pact African migrants were blocked from leaving Libyan shores and Italy’s coast guard would intercept and immediately deport asylum seekers traveling by boat back to Libya.
 
 
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