Operation Oil Theft: Month 14, Week 4, Day 4.

Originally titled; "Operation Oil Theft: Month 13, Week3, Day 2." on 4/4/12.

The good news is that I'm developing new sources of information about what's happening in Libya. So Internet connection permitting I should soon be getting back to my usual level of coverage. This can't happen a moment too soon because it has been a particularly bloody period in the country.

The worst of the recent violence has occurred around the town of Sebha in the south-west of the country. You may remember that along with Bani Walid and Sirte Sebha was one of the areas where pro-Qaddafi forces held out long after the fall of Tripoli. Then in September 2011 the National Transitional Council (NTC) delivered a large amount of cash to the town and the elders of the Awlad Abu Seif tribe who make up the majority of Sebha's population decided to switch sides.

Last Sunday (25/3/12) a member of the Abu Seif tribe tried selling a car to a member of the Toubou tribe which fought against Qaddafi because he treated them particularly badly. Then according to who you talk to either the buyer tried stealing the car or the seller tried stealing the money. Either way the Toubou buyer ended up shooting and killing the Abu Seif seller. This simple murder fed into the growing tensions between the two tribes and acted as a flash-point for fierce inter-tribal fighting. With heavy weapons like mortars and Grad rockets involved at the end of the first day 20 people lay dead with 30 more wounded. The fighting continued until Wednesday (28/3/12) when with 50 people killed and 60 wounded NTC forces turned up to contain the violence and negotiate a ceasefire. During these negotiations Abu Seif accused the Toubou of blowing up Libyan air-force jets while on the ground and the Toubou threatened to follow the Cyrenacia region's example and declare autonomy for the Fezzan region. A ceasefire was negotiated though and lasted for a full five minutes before the fighting re-started and continued until Saturday (31/3/12) when a new ceasefire came into force. With some 147 people killed and a further 395 wounded that ceasefire appears to be holding for now.

There have also been reports of heavy inter-tribal fighting in the Zuwarah area. However I am not in a position to speculate what is causing that fighting or how many people have been wounded or killed.

Over the past week there has also been an incident in Britain which possibly reflects what's been going on Libya and has certainly been discussed in that country. Last Thursday (29/3/12) infamous British politician George Galloway was returned to the House of Commons after winning a shock victory in a by-election in Bradford-west, an area with a high Muslim population. Personally I think that George Galloway is the worst sort of self-serving political opportunist. However since Britain's first war against Iraq in 1990 he has carved out an identity for himself as a leading anti-war spokesman and opponent of western imperialism in the middle-east. Following Britain's second war with Iraq in 2003 Galloway was kicked out of the Labour Party for calling on British troops to desert rather then fight. He went on to form his own Respect Party and two of his four wives have been Muslims from Palestine and Lebanon respectively which has further ingratiated him with Muslim voters.

Obviously it's not my place to tell the 32,000 people of Bradford-west why they voted the way they did. Nor can you extrapolate their views to the 2.1 billion Muslims worldwide. However there is a feeling in Britain that Galloway's re-election indicates that there is not as much support on the so-called "Arab Street" for the interventions in Libya and Syria as there is in western Parliaments and Saudi Palaces.