On the one-year anniversary of the start of the Libyan revolution, the NTC seems to have just lost control of Libya's west to a new federation of militias. From AP, Feb. 13:

Representatives of about 100 militias from western Libya said Monday they had formed a new federation to prevent infighting and allow them to press the country’s new government for further reform. The move was a blow to the Transitional National Council, which helped lead the eight-month uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and has sought to govern Libya since. The council has largely failed to decommission or bring under its control the hundreds of militias that fought in the war. The leader of the new federation, Col. Mokhtar Fernana, said the council’s committee in charge of integrating revolutionary fighters was taking in men who had fought for Colonel Qaddafi. "This committee is an attempt to hijack the revolution," Colonel Fernana said. One militia commander, Ibrahim al-Madani, said the fighters would not give up their arms to a corrupt government." [Sic]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay charged Jan. 27 that Libya's transitional government must take control of all makeshift prisons to prevent further atrocities against detainees. Pillay says various brigades are holding as many as 8,000 prisoners in 60 detention centers around the country. Pillay added that she is particularly concerned about Black African detainees who are apparently assumed automatically to be Qaddafi-loyalist fighters. She said detainees have been subject to "torture, extrajudicial executions, rape of both men and women." Pillay's statement follows a statement by Amnesty International that "several detainees have died after being subjected to torture in Libya in recent weeks and months... The torture is being carried out by officially recognized military and security entities as well by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework." Detainees told Amnesty they had been beaten for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains, bars, wooden sticks and given electric shocks.

The deputy head of Libya's National Transitional Council stepped down Jan. 22, a day after anti-government protesters stormed the ruling body's offices in the eastern city of Benghazi. The protesters denounced Ghoga's presence in the NTC, calling him and other former Qaddafi-loyalists “opportunists.” Ghoga was a belated defector to the Libyan rebels from Moammar Qaddafi's government. (VOA, Jan. 22) The following day, a flurry of media reports said that Qaddafi-loyalist fighters had taken the former Qaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid, raising the late dictator's green flag after a battle that left four dead. But on Jan. 24, Col. Salem al-Ouaer, identified as a tribal leader from Bani Walid, told AFP: "The situation is under control and calm is returning." (AFP, Jan. 24; The Guardian, Jan. 23)

Mali's army says 47 were killed in ongoing clashes this week with a new Tuareg rebel group, whose members include former pro-Qaddafi fighters. "Our armed forces have bravely beaten back the attacks of the former Libyan fighters and the MNLA rebels," the armed forces said in a statement Jan. 19, using the acronym of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. But MNLA spokesman Moussa Ag Acharatoumane denied the government's account, telling the Reuters that his fighters had killed around 30 to 40 soldiers. Both rebel and government forces claim to be in control of Aguelhoc. The MNLA spokesman said fighting was suspended in Tessalit to allow for the withdrawal of Algerian soldiers who had been helping Mali. Sources told Al Jazeera that the army is conducting house raids and arrests in the northern towns of Gao and Kidal, targetting Tuareg tribal sheikhs, as well as Tuareg military and political figures.

One solider was killed in northern Mali Jan. 17 in a clash with Tuareg fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA)—who authorities said were backed up by former pro-Qaddafi Libyan soldiers. The army said it beat back the Tuaregs and Libyans with a helicopter assault, destroying six vehicles in the skirmish at Menaka in the Gao region. (Reuters, Jan. 17) National Transitional Council forces in Tripoli are meanwhile preparing an offensive against Qaddafi-loyalist strongholds in Libya's south. Rival militias clashed near the town of Gharyan left four dead and 50 wounded before a prisoner swap was brokered to end the fighting. The clash began when a man was stabbed and stripped naked at a vegetable market. The fighting pitted the Martyrs Brigade of Gharyan against the Assaba militia, said to be Qaddafi loyalists. (AFP, BBC World Service, Jan. 17)

Hundreds of Libyan soldiers protested Jan. 5 in the eastern city of Benghazi, demanding payment of overdue wages and complaining that militia groups have taken over their bases and resist joining a new national army. "The revolutionaries don't want to join an organized military, they want to keep their current situation," Mabrouk Abdullah al-Oraibi, who formerly worked in the military's accounting department, told Reuters. While the Reuters account emphasized that the army had been "marginalized" by Moammar Qaddafi (presumably in favor of mercenaries in his direct pay), Algeria ISP reports that the protesting soldiers chanted "Yes, yes, yes, Moammar is alive!"

The Germany-based Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) warns of a further destabilization of post-Qaddafi Libya. "Libya is threatened by a Berber revolt," said the STP's Africa expert, Ulrich Delius. "The country's new leadership is not prepared to honor the help of the Berber militias during the overthrow the Qaddafi regime by recognizing the basic rights of the non-Arab minority. Libya is about to fall back into times as bad as during the Qaddafi regime, if there is no end to the general arabization and racism against non-Arabs." This month has seen scattered skirmishes between Berber and Arab militias and the nascent national army.

The website Algeria ISP reports (citing unnamed "Arab" sources) Dec. 11 that the US and France have jointly established a secret drone base in the Libyan desert, near the area of Katroune. Craft from the secret base are allegedly flying missions to Niger, Mali and Mauritania, with the ostensible objective of seeking out Saharan arms trafficking networks of al-Qeada in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Algeria has reportedly refused to allow the drones to fly through its territory.