Misratah has become the Libyan war’s most infamous quagmire, despite its size and location. The rebel-held port city with a population of just half a million on the country’s western Mediterranean coast is completely isolated from the swaths of rebel-held territory in the east. As such, both sides recognize it as a symbol of the rebellion’s claims to represent all Libyans, not only those who live in the east. And the fact that the city not only took up arms against the dictatorship but also has stood its ground over two months of vicious fighting has earned it a reputation as an intractable thorn in the side of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi — and as an icon of hope for Libya’s embattled rebel movement.
“The city of Misratah has historically been opposed to Gaddafi because they don’t need his patronage,” says George Joffe, a Libya specialist at Cambridge University. “The port is the financial focus, not oil, so they are wealthy, independent of the leadership.” Joffe says Gaddafi made the mistake of neglecting Misratah and some other towns in the west, to his own detriment. “Like Gharyan [in the Nafusa mountains], they have been rejected by Gaddafi, so they have less to lose in opposing him.”
