George Grant 1st April 2011

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On 17th March 2011, in order to protect Libyan citizens from attack, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973, authorising the use of “all necessary measures” by the international community, short of a ground invasion.i In neither its preambulatory nor its operative clauses, however, did the resolution mention Colonel Gaddafi or the need for his removal as Libyan head of state. If the objective of the international community is to help bring about a sustainable termination of hostilities in Libya, as opposed merely to the imposition of a costly and open-ended cold peace, then this is highly problematic. From both a practical and a moral perspective, it is both necessary and right that Colonel Gaddafi be removed as Libyan head of state if he will not step down voluntarily. From the point of view of protecting civilians, the fact remains that the orders for regime forces to attack their people ultimately come from Colonel Gaddafi, and he must be culpable in that regard. Indeed, on numerous occasions since the commencement of the uprising on 15th February, Gaddafi has made explicitly clear his willingness to use violent force against civilians with a view to bringing an end to this uprising. He has spoken of opposition protesters as “cockroaches”, and has pledged to “cleanse” Libya “house by house”.ii Had the international community not intervened following the passing of UNSCR 1973, it seems highly likely that he would have carried out that aspiration in Benghazi. Colonel Gaddafi has shown no sign that he is willing to negotiate with the opposition, or to step down voluntarily. Rhetoric it may have been, but the warning given by Gaddafi’s son Saif in the early days of the uprising that his father was ready to fight “to the last bullet”, might not be far from the truth.iii Either way, what should be clear is that so long as Colonel Gaddafi remains in power he will remain a threat to his people and the international community, including the United Kingdom, will be obliged to continue enforcing UNSCR 1973 with all the cost that that entails. Clearly, there can be no sustainable peace in Libya whilst Colonel Gaddafi remains in power. Since the commencement of this uprising, a large

section of Libyan society has been making it clear that they wish for him to go, and it was the latter’s decision to respond to that aspiration with murderous force that led to the current international intervention. As recently as 29th March, the opposition leadership has made it clear that they are not willing to negotiate with Gaddafi, and this position is unlikely to change.

From a British strategic perspective, it is also important that Colonel Gaddafi does not remain in power. Allowing an embittered, impoverished and internationally isolated rogue state to fester on Europe’s southern periphery would be dangerous for all of the obvious, practical reasons that need no elaboration here. More than that, however, such a course would threaten the democratic momentum of the Arab Spring and help to bolster the resolve of still-extant dictatorships, including Iran. Furthermore, Britain and its allies must recognise that in the long-term, the best strategic partners are not dictatorships, however cowed, but democracies. It is by no means the case that the removal of Colonel Gaddafi will lead inexorably to democracy in Libya, but it is absolutely certain that there can be no hope of such an outcome whilst he remains in charge.

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Of increasing concern to the international community, however, is the legitimate question of who exactly those opposing Colonel Gaddafi are, who they are led by, and whether, by supporting their aspiration for a Libya without Gaddafi, we are not in danger of replacing one tyranny with another.

To the outside world, the Libyan opposition is represented by the Interim Transitional National Council (ITNC), a 31-member body led by former Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, headquartered in Benghazi.iv The ITNC derives its legitimacy from the decisions of local councils established by opponents of the Gaddafi regime in a large number of Libyan towns and cities since the start of the uprising on 15th February 2011. The leading figures in the ITNC are overwhelmingly secular technocrats, many of them former members of the Gaddafi regime that defected in the early days of the uprising. In addition to Mustafa Abdel Jalil, notable former regime figures in the ITNC include: Former Interior Minister General Abdul Fatteh Younis; former Economy, Trade & Investment Minister Ali al-Essawi; and former head of the National Economic Development Board Mahmoud Jibril. Key military figures formerly loyal to the regime include General Omar Hariri, who heads the ITNC’s military council seeking to coordinate opposition forces, and General Khalifa Hafter. It is important to emphasise that the ITNC is not a government-in-waiting, but a strictly interim organisation that will, as presently conceived, exist only for as long as it takes to rid Libya of Colonel Gaddafi and institute a representative government in his place. The ITNC is not a political party, and nor does it have a manifesto. The ITNC has, however, been accepted by the broad coalition of groups and individuals that

make up the Libyan opposition to articulate this specific objective to the outside world in an effort to garner international support, and to help coordinate the activity of opposition groups on the ground.

To speak of the ‘Libyan opposition’ as a single entity confronting the Gaddafi regime is at once apt and misleading. In the short-term, it is an apt description, because it accurately describes all those people and groups united by a single aspiration: to rid Libya of Colonel Gaddafi. Beyond this immediate objective, the movement

appears to be driven by an essentially liberal desire for representative government; a constitution; greater economic opportunities and ‘freedom’ broadly defined. The movement is not secessionist, but seeks a united Libya with Tripoli as its capital. Beyond this, however, the Libyan opposition cannot be understood as speaking with one voice. It is a coalition within which is to be found a broad cross-section of Libyan society, including former regime figures; lawyers; academics; journalists; taxi-drivers; tribal leaders; the

unemployed and even Islamists. Clearly, in a post-Gaddafi society, these groups will have differing priorities, objectives and allegiances, but it is important to emphasise the strong unity of feeling that runs through the vast majority that whatever policies it adopts on specific issues, and whoever it is led by, a post-Gaddafi Libya should be representative and democratic. At present, there are no opposition political parties to speak of in Libya, a consequence of the fact that they were made illegal by the Gaddafi government in 1972. Inevitably, the development of political parties capable of articulating coherent visions for Libya’s future will be a necessary component of any transition to representative government that may take place post-Gaddafi.

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As in many societies in the region, a strong influence on political allegiance in Libya has hitherto been tribal identity. It is reckoned that there are currently around 140 different tribes and clans in Libya, of which around 30 wield demonstrable influence.v Though Colonel Gaddafi eschewed tribalism as backward and counterproductive in the early years of his administration, he quickly came to recognise the utility of manipulating tribal allegiances as a means of maintaining his grip on power. Gaddafi himself comes from the historically insignificant Gaddafi tribe, which relies on a confederation with other tribes to remain in power, including the Megrahia tribe (of which Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is a member) and Libya’s largest tribe, the Warfala. Though tribal identity will play a large part in determining political allegiances in any post-Gaddafi Libya, it is notable that the opposition movement has largely succeeded in transcending tribal politics, and significant numbers of people from tribes historically loyal to Gaddafi have joined the anti-Gaddafi forces. The Libyan opposition has further been bolstered by the formal defection of a number of tribes in eastern and western Libya, including the Warfala, the Zawiya, the Toureg, the Obeidat, and the Hasawna amongst others.

Though Islamists are inevitably present amongst the Libyan opposition, they represent only a fractional minority of those fighting Colonel Gaddafi and just as in other Arab countries to have experienced popular uprisings since the start of 2011, Islamists have played an insignificant role.vi The most high-profile Islamist organisation operating in Libya at the present time is al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), a regional Islamist movement that has its roots in Algeria. The strength of AQIM in North Africa as a whole is comparatively limited at present, and it is reckoned to have drawn no more than 40 Libyans into its ranks in the last 2-3 years.vii AQIM has sought to position itself as something of a third way between Gaddafi, whom they have condemned as ‘Libya’s pharaoh’, and the ITNC, which they view as being in an unholy alliance with West and its ‘modern crusades’.viii

Aside from AQIM, much has been made of the presence of Islamist ‘Iraq veterans’ amongst the opposition, who have previously fought against American and British forces in Iraq.ix The precise number of men that fall into this category is hard to verify, but it certainly constitutes a small fraction of the overall number opposed to the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Moreover, it must be recognised that, as has also proven to be the case in Afghanistan, large numbers of those who fought against coalition forces in Iraq did so for non-religious reasons, and that includes those that came from abroad. Another significant Islamist presence in Libya is said to be represented in the form of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a movement founded in 1995 by Libyans who had fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s. However, according to Noman Benotman, a former head of the LIFG, the group has been effectively disbanded since 2009, when it renounced violence in return for the Libyan government’s release of 700 prisoners suspected of being members.x Former LIFG members have been involved in fighting against the Gaddafi regime, and in recent weeks a nascent organisation calling itself the Libyan Islamic Movement for Change has been established by former LIFG members, though it has yet to articulate a political vision for the country.xi

The Libyan opposition’s extraordinary success in capturing the eastern half of the country, along with a number of towns and cities in the west during the early days and weeks of the uprising, shocked both Colonel Gaddafi and the international community. However, as was to be made brutally clear during Gaddafi’s counteroffensive, this success was less a consequence of the opposition’s military prowess, and much more the result of regime forces abandoning their positions, or deserting outright. Having rallied those still loyal to him, Gaddafi was quick to retake much of the ground that he had initially lost, retaking the strategic oil towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf in the east in early March, before moving into Ajdabiya, the last major town before the opposition headquarters of Benghazi, on 15th March.xii It is almost certain that had the international community not intervened

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militarily in response to United Nations Security Council (UNSCR) 1973, Benghazi would have fallen and the opposition movement would have been defeated. However, the application of international airpower and seaborne strikes against regime assets judged to pose a threat to civilians quickly tipped the military balance back in favour of the opposition in eastern Libya. Within a matter of days, opposition forces had succeeded in retaking the east of the country, and threatened the strategically vital town of Sirte, the bridge between eastern and western Libya and the birthplace of Colonel Gaddafi. Any notion of a pending collapse of regime forces was proven to be horribly premature, however, by the comparative ease with which they repulsed the opposition assault on Sirte on 28th March. Though benefiting from the expertise and weaponry of a number of defected Libyan army units and generals, the fact remains that opposition forces are both weaker and less well disciplined than their regime opponents. Indeed, since the ill-fated opposition advance on Sirte, pro-Gaddafi units have succeeded in retaking the towns of Ras Lanuf, Bin Jawad and Brega.xiii

If the experience of the first phase of the UN-mandated intervention is anything to go by, coalition missile strikes can prevent Gaddafi’s forces from retaking eastern Libya and defeating the opposition outright. Advancing forces must necessarily expose themselves to prohibitively destructive attacks whilst on the open desert roads in between the country’s population centres, and it seems highly unlikely that Gaddafi will want to risk his remaining military assets in this way. In an effort to overcome this dilemma, reports have suggested that Gaddafi forces are using civilian vehicles, including cars and flat-bed trucks known as ‘technicals’ to disguise

themselves and reduce their vulnerability to aerial assault.xiv However, when combined with the fact that coalition airstrikes have succeeded in eliminating several dozen regime supply depots and munitions dumps in recent days, it seems unlikely that the regime will be able to sustain the momentum necessary to successfully reoccupy eastern Libya. A much more probable outcome, as things presently stand, is a de facto partition of the country, with the opposition holding the east, and Gaddafi holding the west. Even in their weakened state, Gaddafi’s forces have shown themselves more than capable of repulsing opposition assaults into the west of country, and so long as Gaddafi keeps his military assets inside urban centres still under his control, they will remain relatively immune from international military power also. Eliminating military targets inside an urban area cannot be done without running an unacceptably high risk of incurring civilian casualties. This problem is made doubly difficult by the fact that even a two or three-storey high building can render a tank or other military asset invisible until an aircraft is virtually overhead, reducing if not eliminating the ability to identify or designate the target. Coalition governments have made clear their reluctance to target regime assets inside urban centres for this good reason, especially since their mandate is the protection of Libyan civilians.

In order to help redress the balance of power in favour of the opposition, policymakers in both Europe and the United States have increasingly spoken of the possibility of supplying opposition forces with arms. On 24th March, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary and current chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, explicitly called for such a measure, arguing that “the overriding need is for Gaddafi to go and this will not happen without the insurgents having the kind of tanks, artillery and missiles that are, at present, being used against them by Gaddafi.”xv Since then, both the British and the American governments have indicated that they are not ruling this possibility out. Significantly, however, they have also made clear that they are not ruling such a policy in.xvi

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Arming the opposition would indeed help to redress the balance of power in Libya, and it would also send a very profound psychological message to both sides that Britain and its allies are serious about seeing Gaddafi go. It may also be necessary simply to enable the rebels to better protect civilian population centres from regime counteroffensives. Certainly, opposition forces should be assisted to consolidate a hold on eastern Libya, including the strategic oil towns of Bin Jawad, Ras Lanuf and Brega, which currently rest in regime hands. Beyond that, however, arming the opposition with a view to enabling them to take the west of the country could have very negative consequences. From a purely practical perspective, the lack of training and discipline amongst opposition forces places a limit on the sophistication of weaponry that could feasibly be supplied to them at the present time. Were such a measure to be adopted, it would in probability be restricted to the supply of small arms and armoured vehicles of a kind could help redress the military balance, but not tip it decisively in the opposition’s favour. The danger then is that a situation will have been created where both sides have the capacity to inflict serious damage on each other, and upon civilians, with neither possessing the strength to prevail outright. An additional consideration to be borne in mind is that opposition forces will likely be much less well received in western Libya than they have been in the east. It is clear that, aside from in strongholds such as his hometown of Sirte, there is little love for Gaddafi even in the west of the country, as is evidenced by the fact that a significant number of people and tribes hitherto loyal to him have publicly disowned him there, if not defected to the opposition. In spite of this, however, there is the problem that the citizenry of western Libya will view the advance of opposition forces as an invasion and not a liberation, if for no other reason than that they profoundly fear what a future under these outsiders may hold. Another important consideration is the problem of creating a situation whereby any one group or

collection of groups committed to the use of violence to attain their ends in a post-Gaddafi Libya could possess the means of doing so effectively. The international community should be alert to the very real danger of generating a situation whereby a future Libyan government does not possess a monopoly on the use of force, or even the military advantage, which could be disastrous in terms of efforts to restore order and keep the peace.

Hard power alone cannot bring an end to the Gaddafi regime and peace to Libya. By far the most desirable way forward now must be for both the international community and the opposition leadership to intelligently utilise soft power to bring down Gaddafi from within. Gaddafi cannot survive if the instruments of power upon which he depends can be persuaded to abandon him.

Such an outcome must be considered vastly preferable to a potentially protracted conflict that may otherwise ensue. Not only would it be far less costly, both financially but more importantly in terms of human life, but it may also be vital in terms of helping to maintain peace in a post-Gaddafi Libya. Rather than making the mistake of Iraq, where the regime of Saddam Hussein was replaced in its entirety, and his army disbanded, the objective must instead be to retain this apparatus to the greatest possible extent, in order to help govern and keep order in a post-Gaddafi Libya, but subservient to a democratically elected and representative government. Clearly, encouraging and enabling a coup d’état to remove Gaddafi is an uncertain strategy. Though it seems highly improbable that those beneath Gaddafi would depose him only to continue fighting in his place, it is possible that such a measure could be taken by regime loyalists in order to open up the possibility of negotiations that temporarily end the conflict, but do not move Libya towards democracy in a significant fashion, or else result in partition.

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Likewise, it is entirely possible that a coup d’état will not take place at all, not least because Gaddafi has gone to great lengths to reduce the likelihood of such an eventuality during his four decades in power, including by filling a number of key posts with members of his family. The only other ways that Gaddafi could conceivably be removed from power without a coup d’état or a full-scale conquest of western Libya would be through his elimination by a coalition missile strike, or through his choosing to leave voluntarily. Though by no means impossible, neither of these outcomes should be relied on by policymakers as the preferred option to work towards. In the case of the former, this is politically problematic, since regime change was not a part of UNSCR 1973, which authorised this intervention. There is a case to be made that Gaddafi might be a legitimate target on account of the threat he poses to civilians as the man giving orders for them to be attacked. On this rationale, however, the desirability of this option is reduced by the fact that it seems almost inconceivable that Gaddafi could be eliminated in this way without incurring significant civilian casualties, and it is by no means certain that he would be killed at all. This would reduce the legitimacy of the coalition intervention in Libya, both in the eyes of the Libyan people and the international community, particularly since their UN mandate is specifically the protection of civilians. In terms of the latter, Gaddafi has proven himself to be nothing if not resilient, and he has thus far shown no indication of wanting to leave power voluntarily. Indeed, Gaddafi will need look no further than the experiences of Liberia’s Charles Taylor, or Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic, to recognise that international justice has a knack of catching up with former leaders accused of crimes against humanity. Consequently, the best outcome to work towards at the present time is a coup d’état to remove Gaddafi as a precursor to transition towards democratic elections. The first step towards achieving this must be for Britain and its allies, along with the ITNC, to make it absolutely clear to those still loyal to Colonel Gaddafi that there can be no viable future for them or their country so long as they continue to keep him in power. The defection of Libya’s foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, on 30th March is encouraging, and serves to bolster the case for pursuing this

course. Koussa is currently being questioned by British authorities, and he will doubtless shine a light on the internal dynamics of the regime at the present time, including how best to bring about its demise.xvii In addition to whatever specific intelligence Koussa provides, the delegitimisation of the regime must be formalised through the official withdrawal of diplomatic recognition for the Libyan government by all those states that have said they wish to see Gaddafi leave power.

Another essential component of the process to put pressure on the regime will be to reduce to the greatest possible extent its capacity to finance its objectives, and to pay those needed to carry them out. The asset freezes imposed by UNSCR 1970 and UNSCR 1973 have so far succeeded in preventing the regime from drawing on tens of billions of dollars of assets and financial reserves, and the process of locating and freezing regime assets must continue for as long as Gaddafi remains in power and this conflict continues. The trade embargo imposed on Libya by the United Nations will also be putting financial pressure on the regime, in particular with regards to oil sales which hitherto accounted for fully 95 per cent of export earnings and 80 per cent of government revenue.xviii In spite of this, however, the fact remains that Gaddafi still retains significant financial assets inside Libya, and the real key will be preventing him from getting them out in exchange for all those commodities upon which he and his regime will require to survive. A potential lifeline of particular value for the regime will be its gold reserves, reckoned to be in excess of 140

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tonnes, worth more than $6.5 billion at current prices.xix Left sitting inside western Libya, this gold will be of comparatively limited value to Gaddafi. What he will inevitably be trying to do will be to smuggle the gold and other financial assets he still possesses out of the country, potentially into Algeria, Niger and Chad, in exchange for food, weapons and other commodities necessary for survival. Britain and its allies must therefore work hard with regional partners to consider ways of preventing this illegal cross-border flow to the greatest possible extent. On the reverse side, the international community must also consider ways of helping the Libyan opposition to finance itself and survive. As it was for the government, the generation of revenues from oil will be crucial for the opposition. The recapture of the strategic oil towns of Ras Lanuf, Bin Jawad and Brega by Gaddafi forces is a dangerous development in this regard, and opposition forces must be assisted to recapture and consolidate these towns as a matter of some urgency. The problem is not so much that Gaddafi will be able to start pumping and selling oil internationally, which is prohibited by UN sanctions, but that the opposition’s capacity to do so will be greatly reduced. For the opposition to start selling oil internationally would have important practical and psychological ramifications for both sides. Qatar has reportedly offered to act as a broker to help the opposition in this regard, and the US Treasury department has indicated that it may not consider oil sold from opposition-controlled areas to fall under the economic sanctions currently imposed, so long as it was done independently of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) in Tripoli.xx However, a serious practical problem exists in the fact that there is currently no one organisation or individual amongst the opposition to whom the money for this oil could be paid. The ITNC represents the opposition, but it is not a government, and endowing it with several billion dollars of oil revenue could be problematic. Consequently, the international community and the ITNC must consider the establishment of a UN-mandated body empowered to invest and disburse these revenues inside opposition-held Libya in a transparent manner, until such time as a legitimate post-Gaddafi government has been established.

Equally as important as convincing the Libyan regime that there can be no future for them whilst Gaddafi remains in place, however, must be to convince them that they will have a very important place in a post-Gaddafi Libya if they do decide to remove Gaddafi from power. Both the ITNC and the international community must make it repeatedly and explicitly clear to these individuals that, unless they are implicated and found guilty of crimes against civilians, they will not be ostracised and frozen out from a post-Gaddafi regime. On the contrary, their influence and expertise will be vital to help restore order and to put the country on a stable footing. Under these circumstances, persuading those still loyal to Gaddafi to depose him is not a remote possibility. Certainly, it is far and away the best chance to bring this conflict to a swift conclusion and to help put Libya on the path to establishing a representative government capable of serving its peoples interests and fully reintegrating the country with the international community.

Clearly, whatever course is taken in Libya, serious risks present themselves. Few things are certain in international geopolitics, and fewer still in war, but that is never an excuse to do nothing at all. By reacting with such uncompromising force to the democratic aspirations of his people, to the point that a large-scale massacre in Benghazi presented itself as a very real possibility, Colonel Gaddafi did not afford the international community the luxury of conducting a full risk assessment. This was not like Iraq in 2003, where more time could have been taken before

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taking the decision to intervene; here a decision had to be made. Britain and its allies took the decision, rightly, to fulfil their responsibility to protect Libyan civilians, and they must now be ready to stand by the consequences. There can be no question that most desirable outcome in Libya would be for Colonel Gaddafi to be removed from power as a precursor to the termination of hostilities and the establishment of a democratic and representative government. The problem, inevitably, is how this outcome can most effectively be brought about. The establishment of such a government in a post-Gaddafi environment will bring its own problems that lie outwith the remit of this briefing paper. Suffice to say that elections alone do not a democracy make, and Britain and its allies will need to remember the lessons so painfully re-learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the establishment of a civil infrastructure capable of both empowering a government and holding it to account, as well as the creation of economic opportunities that reduce the incentives to

engage in conflict, are just as important as the holding of elections. The immediate priority, however, must be the removal of Gaddafi from power, since there can be no viable future for Libya whilst he remains. Although military intervention has greatly reduced the immediate threat that Gaddafi poses to civilians in the east of the country, hard power alone will not be sufficient to bring an end to this conflict. Opposition forces do not possess the means to conquer the west of Libya at the present time, and for the reasons hitherto outlined, there is a strong case to be made against giving them the means to try and do so. Instead, by implementing policies along the lines of those recommended by this paper, those still loyal to Gaddafi must be persuaded to abandon him as a precursor to their integration into a post-Gadaffi regime as part of a balanced government representative of the aspirations of the Libyan people. It is down this road, more than any other, that the best hope for peace in Libya lies.

George Grant is the Director for Global Security & Terrorism at The Henry Jackson Society, London

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i Resolution 1973 (2011), United Nations Security Council (17/03/11), http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/268/39/PDF/N1126839.pdf?OpenElement, (accessed 01/04/11) ii Colonel Gaddafi: Instigators of the protests are ‘cockroaches’, Politics Home (22/02/11),

http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/22843/colonel_gaddafi_the_instigators_of_the_protests_are_cockroaches.html (accessed 01/04/11) iii Libya: Ready for civil war?, Aljazeera (22/02/11),

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2011/02/201122283511473839.html (accessed 01/04/11) iv The Council’s Statement, The Interim Transitional National Council, The Libyan Republic http://ntclibya.org/english/

(accessed 01/04/11) v Hatitah, Abdulsattar: Libyan Tribal Map: Network of loyalties that will determine Gaddafi’s fate, Asharq Al-Awsat

(22/02/11), http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=3&id=24257 (accessed 01/04/11) vi Simpson, John: Halt to rebel advance creates Libyan divide, BBC News (29/03/11),

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12901820 (accessed 01/04/11) vii

h Benotman, Noman and Brandon, James, Briefing Paper: The jihadist threat in Libya, Quillium (24/03/11), http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/images/stories/pdfs/libya24march11.pdf (accessed 01/04/11) viii

Ibid ix Swami, Praveen: Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links, The Telegraph (25/03/11),

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html (accessed 01/04/11) x Benotman, Noman and Brandon, James, Briefing Paper: The jihadist threat in Libya, Quillium (24/03/11),

http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/images/stories/pdfs/libya24march11.pdf (accessed 01/04/11) xi Libya: Islamists call on Air Force to bomb Gaddafi, Asharq Al-Awsat (23/02/11), http://www.asharq-

e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=24268 (accessed 01/04/11) xii

Libya’s Zawiyah back under Kadhafi control: witness, AFP News (10/03/11), http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ixCyR-WVF7l99m8SOdunWxHmzu0g?docId=CNG.27b799659739bb00ab0094711b9d039c.171 (accessed 01/04/11) xiii

Libya: Gaddafi’s fighters force rebel retreat, BBC News (30/03/11), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12906562 (accessed 01/04/11) xiv

Simpson, John: Libya crisis: Gaddafi forces adopt rebel tactics, BBC News (30/03/11), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12911904 (accessed 01/04/11) xv

Rifkind, Malcolm: Now we must arm the insurgents so that Gaddafi can be toppled, The Telegraph (24/03/11), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8404827/Libya-Now-we-must-arm-the-insurgents-so-that-Gaddafi-can-be-toppled.html (accessed 01/04/11) xvi

Libya: Obama does not rule out arming rebel forces, BBC News (30/03/11), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12902450 (accessed 01/04/11) xvii

Libya: No UK immunity for Gaddafi aide Moussa Koussa, BBC News (31/03/11), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12917315 (accessed 01/04/11) xviii

Libya, CIA World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ly.html (accessed 01/04/11) xix

Farchy, Jack and Khalaf, Roula: Gold key to financing Gaddafi struggle, Financial Times (21/03/11), http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/588ce75a-53e4-11e0-8bd7-00144feab49a.html#axzz1IG5q29lh (accessed 01/04/11) xx

Lawder, David: U.S. says Libyan rebels may sell oil, Reuters (28/03/11), http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/28/us-libya-oil-rebels-idUSTRE72R6X620110328 (accessed 01/04/11)