Misratah, Libya proves new strength

A Libyan rebel stands guard in the severely damaged Tripoli street of the besieged city of Misratah on April 26, 2011.

Christophe Simon / AFP / Getty Images

Misratah produced more martyrs for the revolution than any other Libyan city. It is a point of pride for Misratah and a distinction the country's interim leaders like to highlight. The coastal city fended off months of heavy bombardment by Muammar Gaddafi's forces — and Misratah's commanders proclaim that their fighters eventually battled all the way to the gates of Gaddafi's own capital, contributing to the collapse of the regime.

Among the rubble of Misratah, that pride remains fierce — and tangible. After so many months of fighting, Misratah can now muster some 30,000 volunteer fighters and 1,200 gun trucks, as well as tanks, rocket launchers, and thousands of small arms, its commanders say. "The strongest military council in the center of Libya is Misratah," says Adel Ibrahim, an official at the city's media center. The city's fighters are playing a key role in the siege of Gaddafi's hometown of Sirt. And many in Misratah feel that the devastating bombardments wrought on their city by Gaddafi's forces has entitled them to the lion's share of power in the new Libya. "The revolution started in Benghazi. But here in Misratah, we paid the price," says Mohamed Shami, the head of one of the city's many militias. "Seventy percent of all the damage and martyrs was in Misratah. Therefore the next government should be 70% from Misratah." (See pictures of the rebels fighting for Libya.)

Local military commanders like Shami have already begun to implement their own rules and regulations to fill the void of governance in Libya's third largest city. And it's not the only place where that is happening. Incipient city-states are emerging in areas across the vast North African country over which the interim government has so far not been able to exert effective control. In recent days, Misratah's military council has started issuing its own series of border and approval stamps for those — foreigners and Libyans alike — who wish to enter the city, visit the "liberated" sections of Sirt, or even transit through Misratah en route to Tripoli. At checkpoints and displaced persons' camps on the road between Sirt and Misratah, hundreds of families fleeing the conflict there sit in lines or wait in temporary shelters for days as Misratah's authorities determine whether they will be allowed to pass.

The militias wield considerable power. Shami proudly displays the 200-or-so prisoners that his City Center Brigade — one of about 180 militias operating in Misratah — has captured. "God is Great," he says to each of the men, who range in age from teens to the elderly, as they line up obediently along the walls of the stuffy, residential apartments that the brigade uses as its prison. "God is Great," they repeat in unison — the universal declaration of Islam, but now also the cry of solidarity in the free, post-Muammar Gaddafi Libya. (See why Sirt is the rebels' toughest fight yet.)

Shami's brigade is hardly the only militia in Libya holding its own prisoners. Scattered across the country there are, perhaps, hundreds of others. Tawfiq al-Fudaysi, Shami's aide, estimates there are at least 1,800 prisoners in Misratah alone. Libya's interim government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), has pledged fair treatment for the war's captives, as well as the eventual disarmament of the militias — but only after the war, still raging on at least three fronts, is finished. The budding autonomy of the city-states has alarmed international rights groups who warn that retribution and arbitrary arrests will only serve to hamper post-Gaddafi Libya's quest for justice, and fuel future resentment among its tribes and factions in the aftermath of the dictatorship.

Many of Misratah's prisoners hail from loyalist towns, including nearby Tawergha, whose predominantly black residents fled amid fears of race-based reprisals from Misratah. But perhaps more crucial than the question of whether or not Misratah's fighters have a penchant for revenge, is whether or not Libya's weak transitional government will be able to control them. "My biggest concern with Libya is: we're starting from scratch," says Christopher Boucek, a Middle East and North Africa expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. Boucek says he's worried about the potential for more violence in a country now awash with small arms, and which possesses few tools for governing in a post-Gaddafi system. "There is no state to inherit," he says. "For 42 years, Gaddafi dismantled the organizational structure of the state. There are no ministries, no civil society, no trade unions, no nothing. So this is a huge project."

See pictures of Gaddafi's 40 years in power.

Libya: Towns That Loved Gaddafi Face an Uncertain Future

Men carry bodies found in a mass grave to a cemetery overlooking the Libyan town of al-Qala on Sept. 30, 2011

Three children crowd around the parked car, thrusting their little heads through the open window on the driver's side. "Do you love Gaddafi?" they demand to know from a foreign reporter. When the question is turned around, they nod vigorously. "Yes," they all say. Then, with an almost intimidating seriousness: "What are you doing here?"

Unlike their neighbors in nearby communities, the residents of al-Asaaba are not happy with the way things in Libya are going. It used to be the favored town of the area; now its residents are the losers. The kids are an important indicator of this twist of fate. They are Ahmed Ramadan's grandchildren. They went up to the car when it pulled up onto Ramadan's driveway. Ramadan was Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's personal secretary. According to other security chiefs captured by former rebels who now control the country, he was also responsible for relaying the Libyan leader's most important security commands throughout the country during the bloody six-month uprising. (See photos over the fight for Gaddafi's hometown.)

When Ramadan was captured in late August, Tripoli rebel fighters say he tried to kill himself. He survived the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head only to wind up a prisoner at the rebels' main military base in Tripoli instead. "The rats took him," one of his grandchildren now says from the car window. And around these parts, the children aren't the only ones still using the ousted Libyan leader's slurs for his enemies.

Ramadan's hometown of al-Asaaba is one of several towns on the fringe of western Libya's Nafusa Mountains that two months after the fall of Tripoli have found themselves on the wrong side of history, struggling to survive in a post-Gaddafi period of unmanaged retribution and vigilante comeuppance. "Most of the people who worked for Gaddafi's forces were from Mashashiya, Gawaleesh and al-Asaaba," says Colonel Suleiman Shenbar, a military commander from the transitional government in the regional capital of Gharyan, enumerating nearby towns that were loyal to the fallen regime. "Between 70% and 80% supported Gaddafi," he says of the people of those towns. But, he adds, they have been subdued. Still, submission there came grudgingly. On Sept. 10, loyalists killed eight Gharyani forces when they entered the town to seize weapons, and Shenbar says they're still working on seizing the rest.

In the center of al-Asaaba, the tricolor flag of Free Libya is now painted on some of the storefronts, but it's unclear who put it there. The fighters from Gharyan who man the checkpoints on the town's approach are suspicious of anyone arriving from within al-Asaaba — and perhaps for good reason. "We were the only mountain town that was with Gaddafi," says Hussein Masbah, one of Ramadan's neighbors. (See TIME's video on Libyan teenagers speculating about life after Gaddafi.)

Although most Libyans opposed Gaddafi, the former rebels say, there are still those who benefited from his 42-year rule. Those who hated him — from the political Islamists of Benghazi in Libya's east to the indigenous Amazigh fighters of the Nafusa Mountains in Libya's west — said they did so because of his cruel repression, his cronyism and his neglect of most communities. Those who loved him did so not because he represented a certain politics but because he favored them with jobs or development, the rebels say. The readjustment of fortunes may be hard to digest.

In al-Asaaba, residents speak of their nostalgia for Ramadan and his favors. "This house is not like what you'd imagine," says Hussein Masbah, unlocking the green gate to the former Gaddafi aide's compound. "It's a simple house. He took a bank loan to build this house," he says. Ramadan would spend summers there, doting on the locals, he adds. "We loved him like our father. He always gave money to help poor people." When Gharyani fighters raided the compound a few weeks ago, they caused severe damage, Masbah says, shooting up the walls and arresting several who were guarding the compound, including Masbah's brother, whom he hasn't heard from since.

Read why Gaddafi survived the rebellion.

Libya: Towns That Loved Gaddafi Face an Uncertain Future

Men carry bodies found in a mass grave to a cemetery overlooking the Libyan town of al-Qala on Sept. 30, 2011

Three children crowd around the parked car, thrusting their little heads through the open window on the driver's side. "Do you love Gaddafi?" they demand to know from a foreign reporter. When the question is turned around, they nod vigorously. "Yes," they all say. Then, with an almost intimidating seriousness: "What are you doing here?"

Unlike their neighbors in nearby communities, the residents of al-Asaaba are not happy with the way things in Libya are going. It used to be the favored town of the area; now its residents are the losers. The kids are an important indicator of this twist of fate. They are Ahmed Ramadan's grandchildren. They went up to the car when it pulled up onto Ramadan's driveway. Ramadan was Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's personal secretary. According to other security chiefs captured by former rebels who now control the country, he was also responsible for relaying the Libyan leader's most important security commands throughout the country during the bloody six-month uprising. (See photos over the fight for Gaddafi's hometown.)

When Ramadan was captured in late August, Tripoli rebel fighters say he tried to kill himself. He survived the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head only to wind up a prisoner at the rebels' main military base in Tripoli instead. "The rats took him," one of his grandchildren now says from the car window. And around these parts, the children aren't the only ones still using the ousted Libyan leader's slurs for his enemies.

Ramadan's hometown of al-Asaaba is one of several towns on the fringe of western Libya's Nafusa Mountains that two months after the fall of Tripoli have found themselves on the wrong side of history, struggling to survive in a post-Gaddafi period of unmanaged retribution and vigilante comeuppance. "Most of the people who worked for Gaddafi's forces were from Mashashiya, Gawaleesh and al-Asaaba," says Colonel Suleiman Shenbar, a military commander from the transitional government in the regional capital of Gharyan, enumerating nearby towns that were loyal to the fallen regime. "Between 70% and 80% supported Gaddafi," he says of the people of those towns. But, he adds, they have been subdued. Still, submission there came grudgingly. On Sept. 10, loyalists killed eight Gharyani forces when they entered the town to seize weapons, and Shenbar says they're still working on seizing the rest.

In the center of al-Asaaba, the tricolor flag of Free Libya is now painted on some of the storefronts, but it's unclear who put it there. The fighters from Gharyan who man the checkpoints on the town's approach are suspicious of anyone arriving from within al-Asaaba — and perhaps for good reason. "We were the only mountain town that was with Gaddafi," says Hussein Masbah, one of Ramadan's neighbors. (See TIME's video on Libyan teenagers speculating about life after Gaddafi.)

Although most Libyans opposed Gaddafi, the former rebels say, there are still those who benefited from his 42-year rule. Those who hated him — from the political Islamists of Benghazi in Libya's east to the indigenous Amazigh fighters of the Nafusa Mountains in Libya's west — said they did so because of his cruel repression, his cronyism and his neglect of most communities. Those who loved him did so not because he represented a certain politics but because he favored them with jobs or development, the rebels say. The readjustment of fortunes may be hard to digest.

In al-Asaaba, residents speak of their nostalgia for Ramadan and his favors. "This house is not like what you'd imagine," says Hussein Masbah, unlocking the green gate to the former Gaddafi aide's compound. "It's a simple house. He took a bank loan to build this house," he says. Ramadan would spend summers there, doting on the locals, he adds. "We loved him like our father. He always gave money to help poor people." When Gharyani fighters raided the compound a few weeks ago, they caused severe damage, Masbah says, shooting up the walls and arresting several who were guarding the compound, including Masbah's brother, whom he hasn't heard from since.

Read why Gaddafi survived the rebellion.