DEBKAfile's




military sources report that British, French, Jordanian and Qatari Special Operations forces are Tuesday, Aug. 23, spearheading the rebel "killer strike" on Muammar Qaddafi's regime and Tripoli fortress at Bab al-Azaziya, Tripoli. This is the first time Western and Arab ground troops have fought on the same battlefield in any of the Arab revolts of the last nine months and the first time Arab soldiers have taken part in a NATO operation.
Our military sources report that the British have deployed SAS commandoes and France, 2REP (Groupe des commando parachutiste), which is similar to the US Navy DELTA unit, as well as DINOP commandos. Fighting too are Jordan's Royal Special Forces, specialists in urban combat and capturing fortified installations like the Qaddafi compound in Tripoli, and the Qatari Special Forces, which were transferred from Benghazi where they guarded rebel Transitional National Council leaders.
According to our military experts, even after getting through into the compound, this combined force must overcome four obstacles to before reaching its military heart which is largely underground:
1. Because it is too small to carry the two tasks of breaking into the heart of the Bab al-Azaziya complex which covers some 6 square kilometers and at the same time overwhelm Qaddafi's 12th Tank Division also underground, this force will need to be backed by larger trained contingents armed with anti-tank weapons, which would advance into the labyrinth under close air cover from assault helicopters.
Britain and France transferred Apaches to Libya two months ago but never used them in Tripoli where they would be vulnerable to Qaddafi's anti-air missiles.
2. The main body of the rebels to the rear of the combined foreign force is nowhere near being a unified military force.

The rebels who took part in the first major push into Tripoli Sunday, Aug. 21, turn out to be mostly Berber tribal fighters from the Nafusa Mountains in the West, who are divided into small groups of no more than 100, each representing a different village. They have never trained together or acquired experience in urban warfare. NATO is trying to import better-trained fighters by sea from Benghazi and Misrata.
3. The great black clouds seen over the compound and caused by NATO jet bombardments and anti-tank fire may look menacing but they are not evidence of heavy fighting in or around the compound.
The NATO commander in Libya, Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, prefers to lay the facility to siege and wait for Muammar Qaddafi and his family and top officials to surrender. There is no certain evidence that Qaddafi himself is inside the walled compound although a Russian official reported a conversation with him Tuesday in which he said he was in Tripoli and would fight to the end.
But the Bouchard strategy is not plain sailing either. As NATO spokesman Colonel Roland, speaking from NATO headquarters in Naples admitted after the shock of Saif al-Islam Qaddafi's sudden appearance before foreign reporters early Tuesday, landing the killer blow in Tripoli is proving "far more complex."
4. NATO is short of specific intelligence about what is going on inside the military nucleus of Bab al-Aziziya. Most of its key facilities are underground and proof against bombardment.
Western alliance warplanes pummelled the compound month after month from March 19. They flattened the surface residential buildings and command centers, but their ordnance never reached the buried facilities. Our military sources say these chambers are interconnected by a network of corridors, some broad enough to accommodate tanks. The network branches out to the sea and locations outside Tripoli.
Sunday, Aug. 21, DEBKAfile's military sources reported that the Qaddafi regime has fallen in Tripoli, but there is quite a way to go before the war is over.