

The world has declared victory over Moammar Gadhafi. Only no one told Gadhafi he was defeated. Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Fighters loyal to Gadhafi killed 17 guards at an oil refinery near Ras Lunuf on Monday. They drove to the refinery in a convoy of more than a dozen vehicles. Witnesses reported that the attackers used hand grenades to kill the guards.

And the attack occurred less than two hours after Libya's post-Gadhafi oil minister announced limited oil production had resumed. The refinery itself was undamaged, though it's unclear if that's by design or incompetence. Still, the message sent seems clear: Gadhafi loyalists will target the revolutionary government's ability to exploit the sources of Libyan wealth, weakening its ability to stabilize the country. Then, presumably, comes the restoration.

That last part may be unrealistic, given how deeply Gadhafi is hated in Libya. But in the near term, all that Team Gadhafi needs to do is distance the people from the Transitional National Council. And the revolutionaries may not make that difficult.

Rebel fighters are torching houses and conducting revenge killings in the loyalist town of Tawergha. Council Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril shrugged when asked about the offensive, pleading that there's nothing he can do. There's a racial element to the revenge, the Wall Street Journal reports: "On the gates of many vandalized homes in the country's only coastal city dominated by dark-skinned people, light-skinned rebels scrawled the words 'slaves' and 'negroes.'"

The revolutionaries managed to drive Gadhafi out of Tripoli thanks to on-the-ground training by Qatari Special Forces. Those western Libyan fighters – the same who are attacking Tawergha – are more effective fighters than the ragtag, DIY army assembled in the old revolutionary capitol of Benghazi. Those fighters relied on a five-month air war prosecuted by NATO to attrit Gadhafi loyalists.

NATO's war continues. On Monday, NATO warplanes conducted 37 airstrikes, battering a radar system, surface-to-air missile systems and other targets in Gadhafi's unconquered hometown of Sirte. But at some point, NATO's war will stop. What happens to the revolutionary forces then, if the refinery attack was a prelude of things to come?

The Gadhafists have the opportunity. Libya is practically swimming in unsecured rockets and missiles from Gadhafi's weapons stockpiles. As early as April, Gadhafi loyalists experimented with insurgent tactics, dispersing their weapons and logistical supply chain and hiding amongst the population to strike at a time of their choosing.

Sound like Iraq yet? One difference, at least, is that neither NATO nor the revolutionary government appears to want foreign troops to help stabilize Libya. But if an insurgency develops, will the U.S. Congress – which demanded a No-Fly Zone before balking when President Obama actually enforced one – demand further U.S. involvement to secure a "victory" over Gadhafi? If this decade of war has two lessons, it's that insurgencies escalate quickly – and so does cheap political rhetoric demanding a forceful U.S. response.

Photo: Flickr/al-Jazeera English

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