20110714
Reuters
AL-QAWALISH, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan rebel fighters prepared for a new offensive south of Tripoli on Thursday but tactical errors raised new questions about whether they will be able to march on the capital.



Western states are frustrated by a five-month rebel campaign that -- despite support from NATO warplanes -- has failed to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and some governments are now looking instead to talks as a way out of the conflict.

Rebel commanders in the village of Al-Qawalish, about 100 km (60 miles) from Tripoli, said they were massing their forces and preparing to advance east towards the town of Garyan, which controls access to the main highway into the capital.

But only a day earlier, the handful of rebels defending Al-Qawalish ran out of ammunition and fled when forces loyal to Gaddafi staged a surprise attack. The rebels took back the village before nightfall, with the loss of seven men.

"We came yesterday and we stayed here and we said we are not moving until the place is secure," said one rebel fighter who was manning a machine gun and gave his name as Tommy. "This mistake is not going to happen again. We're not going home."

The fighting exposed the limitations of a rebel force which lacks a clear command structure and relies on civilian volunteers who are committed to bringing down Gaddafi but have little or no military training.

The conflict in Libya started out as a rebellion against Gaddafi's 41-year-rule. It has now turned into the bloodiest of the "Arab Spring" uprisings convulsing the region and has also embroiled Western powers in a prolonged conflict they had hoped would swiftly force Gaddafi out of power.

The Russian presidential envoy who has been trying to broker a peace deal between Gaddafi's administration and the rebels said he believed the Libyan leader was far from beaten.

"Gaddafi has not yet used a single surface-to-surface missile, of which he has more than enough. This makes one doubt that the regime is running out of weapons," Russian newspaper Izvestia quoted Mikhail Margelov as saying.

"The Libyan prime minister told me in Tripoli: 'If the rebels seize the city, we will cover it with missiles and blow it up'. I assume that the Gaddafi regime does have this kind of suicide plan," Margelov said.

PEACE DEAL?

NATO members France and Italy have spoken of the pressing need for a negotiated deal to end the Libyan conflict. France has said that a political solution is taking shape and that there have been contacts with Gaddafi emissaries.

But it was unclear how it would be possible to bridge the gap between Gaddafi, who refuses to relinquish power, and the rebels who say they will accept nothing less than the departure of the Libyan leader and his family.

Speaking on a visit to Brussels on Wednesday, Mahmoud Jebril, a senior member of the rebel National Transitional Council, dismissed the prospects for a deal.

"All this talk about negotiations taking place between the regime and the ... (rebel council) are totally false claims," Jebril told reporters in Brussels.

"There were no negotiations taking place in the past and there are no negotiations taking place right now. There are ideas flying in the air from one capital to another, but no coherent, comprehensive initiative has so far (been) put on the table."

Gaddafi says he has the support of the majority of the Libyan people and that the rebels are armed criminals and al Qaeda militants. He has called the NATO campaign an act of colonial aggression aimed at stealing Libya's plentiful oil.

In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday and told him he supported efforts to find a political solution.

But according to a White House official, Obama stressed that a condition for U.S. backing was that Gaddafi step aside.

Western powers, Arab governments and representatives of the Libya rebels are to meet in Istanbul in Friday for a session of the "contact group" which has been coordinating efforts to push Gaddafi from power.

China said it would skip the meeting because the way the group operated needed "further study." Beijing has established contacts with the rebels but it has condemned NATO air strikes and urged a compromise deal between the opposing sides.