Nicole Tung in Eastern Libya. Next Stop: Qadaffi's Hometown

With what appeared to be surprising ease, Libyan rebel forces broke through on the western and central fronts and began to liberate Tripoli, and scenes of ecstatic celebration broke out both in the capital and in Benghazi. Hopes are high that the seesaw battle between the Qaddafi regime and the uprising against him has finally ended with his downfall and a decisive victory for the rebels and NATO.

But once again, there is the lurking and troubling reality that such jubilation may be premature, as Qaddafi remains at large and defiant, while son Seif mocked reports of his arrest by publicly appearing in an armored limousine and grandstanding for foreign journalists.

Photographer Nicole Tung has been covering the Libyan Revolution since it began with similar peaks of enthusiasm and high emotion in March. She filed these images yesterday from Benghazi and the eastern front, where it all started, but from which there is now little reporting as the focus shifted so dramatically to Tripoli.

Near the front line, Nicole saw that the rebels regained and advanced beyond their previous furthest points west on the coastal towns of Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad. Their next objective is the Qaddafi stronghold of Sirte, where he was born and where it is feared that his most loyal supporters will continue to fight and hold out.

She found a dozen tanks and hundreds of rebel soldiers congregating near the recently retaken Brega oil refinery, waiting for reinforcements. Compared to now-ubiquitous images of disparately armed young men in civilian clothes on board pick-up trucks, it appears that the rebel forces have at last become better organized.

But these fighters, as she noted over the phone, even the tank crews, are mostly former civilians with only a month of training for their heavy weapons and complex war machines. “I could feel their adrenalin and their excitement to advance, but they don’t know if Sirte will resist. They don’t really want to have to fight. News is that the rebels are negotiating with heads of tribes to surrender in Sirte, including the Qaddafa and Ferjani tribes. Ferjani is not loyal to Qaddafi, and some of Qaddafa tribe not loyal to him either. But the latest reports indicate that they are facing resistance at Bin Jawad, a hundred miles before Sirte.”

From the beginning, as in Iraq under Saddam, the fractured political culture of disinformation and dictatorship under Qaddafi has bequeathed a legacy of exaggeration, fear, lies, and rumor. Victories and defeats come quickly in the desert terrain with little cover from which to hide or hinder military movement. The emotional upheavals are equally extreme.

Six months into the war, Benghazi without Qaddafi has had time to restore some rhythms of daily life, which may give a taste — in the best case scenario, of what a post-Qaddafi Libya might be like — a normal country again. At the moment, though, unfurling “Mission Accomplished” banners may be naive.

–Alan Chin

PHOTOGRAPHS by NICOLE TUNG

To see entire BagNews series on Egypt and Libya: Middle-East Uprising 2011

To see Nicole’s previous BagNews posts on: Libya, Pakistan, and 9/11.