• Crucial tribes and military units desert the president
• Uprising edges closer to his only remaining bastion
Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 February 2011
"Muammar Gaddafi was looking increasingly isolated after damaging defections by senior regime figures and key military commanders and units as the uprising spread closer to Tripoli.
Malta denied a report that Gaddafi's daughter, Aisha, was on board a Libyan plane refused permission to land on the island on Wednesday. But Menas, a respected London Middle East consultancy, said the leader's wife, daughter, daughters-in-law and grandchildren had left Libya for an unknown destination.....
Al-Jazeera TV reported that tribes in the Azzintan and Nalut areas, also in the west, had come out against Gaddafi. Oil facilities were now under their protection.
Libyan and Arab sources said the biggest blow to Gaddafi so far had been the defection of his interior minister and veteran loyalist, Abdel-Fatah Younes al-Obeidi, who called on the army on Tuesday to "serve the people and support the revolution and its legitimate demands".....
Libyan exile sources also confirmed the defection of a senior figure in the revolutionary committees, Ali al-Sahouli, who warned that Gaddafi would sabotage the country's infrastructure including oil installations, power stations and banks.
Scores of Libyan diplomats across the world have also now resigned – taking the opportunity to distance themselves from the regime while there is still time......
In one possible pointer for the future, al-Saiqa (Thunderbolt) special forces battalion is said to have attacked Gaddafi's revolutionary guard in Benghazi.......
Libya's Quryna newspaper reported that a pilot and navigator bailed out and ditched their fighter plane rather than carry out an order to bomb Benghazi.....
Many Libyans say they expect him to go down fighting if the situation continues to deteriorate. It was unclear last night whether he would be able to leave his headquarters at Bab al-Aziziyah in Tripoli. "He is surrounded by his guards and is too scared to come out," said one opposition supporter. Gunfire was heard nearby on Wednesday.
"Gaddafi could hole up in his own tribal area around Sirte with a substantial back-up of military hardware or do the same thing at the al-Aziziyah complex," said the Menas consultancy......"
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