Libyan rebels on June 13 broke through the Qaddafi-loyalist forces besieging Misrata and once again advanced toward Tripoli, some 140 miles to the east. Meanwhile, rebels are reported to have pushed Qaddafi's forces out of several villages in the Jebel Nafusa, the mountain range southwest of Tripoli, where they had been carrying on an offensive for weeks. If the advances from both Misrata and the Nafusa continue, Tripoli could be besieged by the rebels soon.

We've already noted claims that mercenaries recruited by an Israeli firm are fighting for the embattled regime of Moammar Qaddafi in Libya. Now a Reuters report of June 3 cites unnamed officials saying that "private contractors" are hiring mercenaries for the rebels. Although the officials asserted that no actual US government funds are involved, the report cites a classified "covert action finding" signed by President Barack Obama earlier this year as authorizing the CIA to conduct a wide spectrum of operations in support of the rebels. From the report:

From the New York Times, June 2:

The Libyan woman whose mistreatment by the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi made her a symbol of its brutality has been deported against her will from her temporary refuge in Qatar to the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Eman al-Obeidi gained international attention in March when she told foreign journalists that she had been abducted and gang raped by Qaddafi militia. She was arrested, and later smuggled out of the country by a defecting soldier. She was in Qatar awaiting asylum elsewhere. A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said she was deported Thursday by force and without explanation. A spokesman for the rebel authority in Benghazi said she was free to leave if she wanted.

A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron denied there are any British combat troops on the ground in Libya folloing press reports claiming SAS forces have been spotted in Misrata. The spokesman said: "Any military activity we undertake will be in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1973. I am not making any statement about people who have been photographed." The Daily Mirror ran photographs on its front page purporting to show 11 former SAS and Parachute Regiment men aiding the rebel forces in Misrata. The Guardian said it had learned from its own sources that ex-SAS soldiers were helping NATO to identify targets in Misrata. But the prime minister's office insisted that the only British personnel in Libya were a joint Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Ministry of Defence team in Benghazi. The spokesman said: "I don't think it would be right for me to go into details about the security arrangements for the team. But clearly we take their security very seriously and have arrangements in place. We have been very clear about what the MOD/FCO team is there to do. They provide various forms of support for the Transitional National Council, to help them in the organisation of their internal structures, helping them with communications." (BBC News, June 1)

NATO stepped up air raids on targets in Tripoli May 24, carrying out more than 20 strikes—many near Moammar Qaddafi's compound, the Bab al-Aziziya. A regime spokesman said at least three were killed and dozens wounded in the raids, which targeted buildings used by volunteer units of the Libyan army. NATO said in a statement that a number of the raids hit a vehicle storage facility adjacent to the Bab al-Aziziya that has been used to supply regime forces "conducting attacks on civilians." The regime made a show of support for Qaddafi, with loyalists filling the streets outside hotels where Western journalists stay, declaring their love of the dictator, honking horns and firing guns in the air. (The Guardian, May 24)

Following a regional summit in Bamako, the leaders of Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger agreed May 20 to form a 75,000-man security force to police the Sahel and Sahara regions against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and trans-border organised crime networks linked to terrorism. A new body based in Algiers, the Joint Military Staff Committee of the Sahel Region (CEMOC), will co-ordinate the military force. The participating nations also agreed to hold regular ministerial meetings every six months, with the next gathering set for Nouakchott, and a summit external partner states is to be held in Algiers. "Our partners from outside the region, such as the European Union and the United States, will be invited to this meeting that will be probably held during the last quarter of this year," said Abdelkader Messahel, Algerian Minister for Maghreb and African Affairs. "Our countries have started to take action. Today, it is about enhancing the path that was kicked off to confront the terrorist threat and its branches."

We just noted how Barack Obama's celebrated speech on the Middle East two days ago was actually driven by the imperative to control the political trajectory of the Arab Spring. Now, not surprisingly, al-Qaeda attempts to do the same thing—which indicates again that imperialism and the jihad alike have been relegated to playing catch-up as the Arab masses themselves have seized the initiative. CNN informs us that an unnamed "jihadist website" posted an audio message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, presumed successor to Osama bin Laden, in which he hails the "winds of changes" in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen—but also warns of that "crusader enemies" led by the United States are attempting to colonize Libya: "NATO is not a goodwill organization—it is an aide to the hegemonic powers in this world. They aim to end the corrupt Qaddafi regime, but then install their own ideals. They want to steal Libya's resources and relics because of their greed and politics."

Moammar Qaddafi's forces are carrying an offensive into Libya's western Nafusah Mountains that is not only targetting rebel training camps and supply routes that have been established there, but villages of the indigenous Amazigh (Berber) population. Local hospitals are reportedly overwhelmed, with casualties having to be loaded onto donkeys and smuggled past government blockades to get treatment elsewhere. Since the uprising began in February, some 50,000 Libyans have fled through the mountains to Tunisia, where a refugee camp has been established near the Dehiba border crossing. Berber refugees interviewed there by Human Rights Watch report that their homes in the villages of Nalut and Takut were shelled and livestock destroyed by Qaddafi's forces. Said one refugee from Nalut: "They were killing everything, the troops. They kept some [sheep] to eat, and they killed the rest. They shot them.... I saw the dead sheep." Grad missiles have targetted homes, mosques, water facilities, a school, and hospital compounds, refugees said. (AP, May 19; HRW, May 18)