Defense News - France / Libya

Blocked since a few months in Misrata and on the East front in Libya, in Brega, driven out by the Kaddafi forces of the coastal road which goes in Tunisia, in the West, the Libyan rebels on the other hand progressed these last weeks to the south of Tripoli, in the mountains of Djebel Nefousa. They owe it with an action of France which was secret until now: the parachuting of weapons “in significant amount” to the Berber tribes of this area entered in war against Kaddafi government.

According to Paris, this Southern front constitutes from now on one of the best hopes of the Western coalition “to still make the junction” with the rebel movements which work in secret in the capital and to cause a rising of Tripoli against the clan of Kaffafi.

Noting, at the beginning of May, the military risk of dead end, France decided to proceed directly parachuting of weapons in the Djebel Nefousa: rocket launcher, assault rifles, machine-guns and especially anti-tank missiles Milan. Up to that point, the weapons conveyed to the rebels came from Qatar and other emirates of the Gulf. They were convoyed by plane in Benghazi, home base of the National council of transition (CNT) to the East, then by boat to the port of Misrata, coastal town which is under the fire of Kaddafi forces.

If the French Army decided to be implied without intermediaries - and the co-operation of its allies, even British - in the armament of the rebels in the South, it is “because there was no other way of proceeding”, say a high level commander.