Analysis: Support for, opposition to, Gaddafi is tribal in nature

government has waged to show he remains beloved by the masses. Libyan state TV frequently shows “tribal gatherings” boasting of various tribes’ backing for the man who has ruled for nearly forty-two years.

Najem says there are three rings of support around Gadhafi:

• The closest are his sons and the senior insiders who have benefited most from his rule, who come from a variety of tribal backgrounds.
• The second is the Gadhadhfa tribe itself, based in the central coastal city of Sirte with a significant presence as well in Sebha, a Gadhafi stronghold deep in Libya’s southwestern desert.
• Over the past two decades, Gadhafi has increasingly planted Gadhadhfa members in key posts, particularly in the air forces.

These are the circles that will likely fight the longest for Gadhafi, Najem told the AP, because they see their fates as tied to him personally.

Defectors and fence-sitter

• The defection of Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, who was previously an intelligence chief, was just one sign that those power centers are crumbling.
• Weeks ago, the Libyan leader’s cousin and close adviser, Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, abandoned the regime and fled to Egypt.
• A major militia commander in the southeastern desert town of Kufra also defected, said an opposition spokesman, Mustafa Gheriani. Saleh al-Zewi, commanded the Kufra contingent of the Khamis Brigades, named for the Gadhafi son who leads it, Gheriani said.
• The Zweia tribe, to which al-Zewi belongs, has already announced its support for the uprising. It dominates a vast swath of eastern Libya, from the Mediterranean coast to the southeastern borders — where many of Libya’s oil fields are located.

Fox News notes that the weaker the inner circle seems, the safer Gadhafi’s third circle of support, the allied tribes, may feel in breaking away definitively. Intimidation — and uncertainty over who will win the conflict — can have a powerful hold on those tribes.

In Sirte, for example, the Gadhadhfa tribe dominates the city, but in fact it is outnumbered by another, rival tribe, the Firjan.

As rebel forces from the east marched on Sirte last weekend, opposition figures were in contact with the Firjan within the city urging them to rise up.

Many Firjan already have, particularly their large populations in the opposition-held cities of Benghazi and Ajdabiya.

Among the opposition supporters trying to convince their brethren in Sirte to help them is Col. Khalifa Hafter, an influential Firjani who, as a commander in Gadhafi’s forces, led the army in an offensive in neighboring Chad in the 1990s. Hafter is also the brother of the chief of the Firjan community in the rebel capital of Benghazi, Najem said.

Still, with the militia led by al-Saadi Gadhafi hunkered down in Sirte, the Firjan in the city did not rise up. A powerful offensive by Gadhafi troops drove the rebels back from Sirte and sent them retreating more than 100 miles over the past four days.

The attitude among many of the tribes that continue to at least nominally support Gadhafi appears to be to wait and see which direction the conflict turns.

That applies just as much to the Libyan leader’s own Gadhadhfa brethren.

Najem said he had been told by residents in Sebha, Gadhafi’s southwestern stronghold, that some Gadhadhfa there have been buying up gold and making contingency plans to flee south across the border to Chad. The tribe is a minority in Sebha, and its prominence has fueled rivalries with local Magarha and members of another powerful tribe, the Hasawna.

“They know that without Gadhafi,” Najem told Fox News, “the state won’t give them cover any more.”