By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ROD NORDLAND
Published: August 30, 2011
TRIPOLI, Libya — Fighters from the western mountain city of Zintan control the airport. The fighters from Misurata guard the central bank, the port and the prime minister’s office, where their graffiti has relabeled the historic plaza “Misurata Square.” Berbers from the mountain town Yafran took charge of the city’s central square, where they spray-painted “Yafran Revolutionaries.”
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Libyan rebels discovered weapons hidden under a building in Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's compound in Tripoli on Tuesday.
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Photos: Battle for Libya
Seven months of images from the fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
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Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
Rebels climbed down into a demolished building in a Qaddafi compound in Tripoli on Tuesday to remove weapons, mostly rifles, that were found in a crawl space.
The top civilian officials of the Libyan rebels’ Transitional National Council — now styling itself as a provisional government to be based in the capital — are yet to arrive, citing personal safety concerns even as they pronounce the city fully secure.
There are growing hints of rivalry among the various brigades over who deserves credit for liberating the city and the influence it might bring. And attempts to name a military leader to unify the bands of fighters have instead exposed divisions within the rebel leadership, along regional lines but also between secularists and Islamists.
They were all signs, one influential member of the council said, that point to a continuing “power vacuum” in the civilian leadership of the Libyan capital. But the jockeying for power also illustrates the challenge a new provisional government will face in trying to unify Libya’s fractious political landscape.
The country was little more than a loose federation of regions and tribes before Colonel Qaddafi came to power. His reliance on favoritism and repression to maintain control did little to bridge Libya’s regional, ethnic and ideological divisions. Nor did the rebels who ousted Colonel Qaddafi ever organize themselves into a unified force. Rebels from the western mountains, the mid-coastal city of Misurata and the eastern city of Benghazi each fought independently, and often rolled their eyes in condescension at one another.
And although the transition so far has been surprisingly orderly — almost no looting and little violence — Tripoli has become an early test of the revolution’s ability to bridge those divisions because in contrast to other Libyan cities liberated by their own residents, Colonel Qaddafi was ousted from Tripoli by brigades from other regions, and most remain in the streets.
Early steps toward unifying the brigades under a common command have brought out latent divisions among rebel leaders. Some became apparent when a fighter named Abdel Hakim al-Hasadi, sometimes known as AbdelHakim Belhaj, was named commander of a newly formed Tripoli Military Council.
Several liberals among the rebel leadership council complained privately that Mr. Hasadi had been a leader of the disbanded Libyan Islamist Fighting Group, which rebelled against Colonel Qaddafi in the 1990s. Some said they feared it was the first step in an attempt at an Islamist takeover. They noted that Mr. Hasadi was named commander by the five battalions of the so-called Tripoli Brigade, rather than by any civilian authority. And they complained about the perceived influence of Qatar, which helped train and equip the Tripoli Brigade and also finances Al Jazeera.
“This guy is just a creation of the Qataris and their money, and they are sponsoring the element of Muslim extremism here,” another council member from the western region said. “The revolutionary fighters are extremely unhappy and surprised. He is the commander of nothing!”
Mixed with the ideological concerns, however, was an equal measure of provincial rivalry over who did more to liberate Tripoli. Not only was Mr. Hasadi an Islamist, the council member argued, but he had done less than the western rebels in the fight for the capital.
“People in the west were saying to each other, ‘What? This kid? This is rubbish! What about our top commanders?’ ” the council member said.
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