— Muammar Gaddafi has suffered military setbacks in recent days in western Libya, a sign that his grip may be slipping in the very region he needs to cling to power.
His loyalists were driven out of the center of the city of Misratah, a key rebel stronghold in Gaddafi-controlled territory. A NATO airstrike turned parts of his Tripoli headquarters into smoldering rubble. And rebel fighters seized a border crossing, breaking open a supply line to besieged rebel towns in a remote western mountain area.
Front lines have shifted repeatedly in two months of fighting, and the poorly trained, ill-equipped rebels have given no evidence that they could defeat Gaddafi on the battlefield. The Libyan leader has deep pockets, including several billion dollars in gold reserves, that could keep him afloat for months. And his forces continue to bombard Misratah from afar, unleashing a fierce barrage Tuesday on the port — the city’s only lifeline to the world.
Yet Gaddafi appears increasingly on the defensive. And some see the past week as a turning point in the fighting, citing mounting military and political pressure on Gaddafi.
Hundreds of coalition airstrikes over the past five weeks have steadily eroded his fighting power. NATO says it destroyed one-third of his military equipment, pinned down troops and cut off supply lines.
The introduction last week of armed Predator drones — agile low-flying aircraft better suited to urban combat than high-altitude warplanes — has made it harder for the army to hide his tanks and rocket launchers in civilian areas.
NATO appears increasingly willing to go beyond purely military targets and strike at symbols of the regime, such as the library and reception hall in Gaddafi’s residential complex badly damaged by two powerful bombs earlier this week.
At the same time, international sanctions and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers have disrupted daily life on the home front, including in Tripoli, the Libyan capital and Gaddafi’s power base. Motorists wait in line for days to fill up their tanks. Prices are up, cash is in short supply and the economy is largely paralyzed.
Even if most Libyans were to blame NATO, the hardships send a strong message that life won’t return to normal so long as Gaddafi remains in power. It’s impossible to gauge the level of popular support for the regime because of government restrictions on reporting. But there are signs — hushed comments to reporters on the streets of Tripoli, for example — that the Libyan leader’s popularity is waning.
If government troops lose more ground in coming days, “we could be witnessing the beginning of the end” for the Gaddafi regime, said Riad Kahwaji of the Dubai-based Institute for Neareast and Gulf Military Analysis.
It might not necessarily be quick or play out on the battlefield.
Instead, the regime might collapse from within if military victory or hanging on to western Libya seems no longer possible. “The key to the next stage of this conflict will be the psychology of those still supporting the regime,” said Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.
One turning point was the Libyan military’s withdrawal from the center of Misratah, a city of 300,000 and the main rebel stronghold in western Libya. Over the weekend, Gaddafi’s troops pulled back to the edges of the city, with government officials claiming it was a voluntary redeployment to enable tribal leaders in the area to negotiate with the rebels.
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