The pro-Qaddafi forces' offensive to recover Libya's most important towns and oil centers, launched Friday, March 4, resulted Saturday in the recapture of the key town of Zawiya and most of the oil facilities around the Gulf of Sirte.  In Washington and London, talk of military intervention on the side of the Libyan opposition was muted by the realization that field intelligence on both sides of the Libyan conflict was too sketchy to serve as a basis for decision-making.

Obama is at odds with his two top officials on the Arab revolt, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gates opposes president's drive for military action to unseat Qaddafi. Clinton opposes the president's pro-Iran drive.

Middle East intelligence chiefs believe the Libyan uprising exposed for the first time the cogs of the machinery manipulated by its wire-pullers to foment unrest. This revelation will color America's reputation in the region for many years to come.

Barring changes in the military situation, Muammar Qaddafi looked Wednesday, March 2, like averting the immediate danger of his regime's collapse by dint of a successful counter-offensive against rebel forces. During the day, his armored forces and commandos supported by the Libyan Air Force recaptured parts of Brega, Libya's refinery city, and sections of the Bay of Sirte town of Ajdabiya. In Washington, the Pentagon poured cold water on the prospects of military intervention.

The US is weighing military intervention to break the standoff between Muammar Qaddafi's army and rebel forces over the towns commanding the roads to the capital Tripoli where Qaddafi is barricaded. Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan stated Monday, Feb. 28 that the US "is repositioning its naval and air forces around Libya." His reference to "various contingency plans" related to the USS Enterprise and USS Kearsarge with 1,800 marines aboard soon to be redeployed off Libya.

Hours after the UN Security Council unanimously imposed sanctions on Col. Muammar Qaddafi and his regime, his reactivated air force was flying troop and tribal reinforcements from the south and landing them at the military airfields of Tripoli, Misrata and Sirte, debkafile's military sources report. They were immediately deployed Sunday night, Feb. 27 at the main road intersections leading to the capital.  This move lessened the military significance of the rebels' reported takeover of towns around Tripoli, including Al Zawiya. 

Iraq's biggest oil refinery at Baiji, 180 kilometers north of Baghdad, was blown up early Saturday, Feb. 26, by an Al Qaeda cell activated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Al Qods Brigades, debkafile's Middle East sources report. Tehran is using the Middle East turbulence to generate fuel shortages in Iraq and boost oil prices worldwide. Thursday night saw the first signs of unrest in Saudi Arabia with demonstrations by young people and by Shiites living and working in the kingdom's eastern oil regions..

Hundreds of US, British and French military advisers have arrived in Cyrenaica, Libya's eastern breakaway province, debkafile's military sources report exclusively. This is the first time America and Europe have intervened militarily in any of the popular upheavals rolling through the Middle East since Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution in early January.  The advisers, including intelligence officers, were dropped from warships and missile boats at the coastal towns of Benghazi and Tobruk Thursday Feb. 24, for a threefold mission:

Failing European will or capability for military action to halt Libya's civil war and remove Muammar Qaddafi, Washington has approached Egypt to undertake a limited operation. Hesitant at first, the military rulers saw the perils continuing Libyan unrest posed Egypt.

Qaddafi was the only Arab ruler fully prepared for a street protest against him – not only with conventional military forces but by secret "Revolutionary People's Army" militias, which number about 55,000 troops from tribes and clans loyal to Qaddafi and are commanded by his son Mutassim Qaddafi,  More...