With the situation fluid on the ground and defections from the Gaddafi regime continuing, the fate of Libya may be in the hands of the Libyan Air Force. The Air Force is the elite branch of the Libyan Armed Forces and there have been few defections. Germany’s Der Spiegel has an important article on the Libya Air Force. An excerpt:
“Libya’s air force is made up of roughly 18,000 men and women, most of whom are staunch supporters of the regime. The elite military branch recruited from followers who were 100 percent loyal to the regime, and members of Gadhafi’s Gadhadfa tribe and its closely allied Magariha tribe were given preference during the selection process for recruits. They have shown a blind obedience to their commander in chief. Only a handful of pilots and officers have switched sides to join the opposition.
In return for their loyalty, Gadhafi has always made sure that members of the air force received the best training and equipment. The fighter wing is reportedly made up of roughly 100 MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighter jets as well as 15 Mirage F-1 and 40 SU-22 planes. The arms depots are thought to be filled to the rafters with munitions.
For the moment, however, Gadhafi has held back from sending his elite troops into the fight. Granted, on Thursday, his warplanes bombed the eastern port city of Brega for the second day in a row. But that is only a small taste of what the Libyan air force is capable of.
Experts see Gadhafi’s apparent decision to hold his pilots back in a reserve capacity as a tactical maneuver. “There have been no large massacres, air power is being used in a calculated way and he is launching probing attacks,” Shashank Joshi, a military specialist at London-based think tank the Royal United Services Institute, told theNew York Times. Even if Gadhafi has appeared somewhat mentally unstable during his recent televised appearances, Joshi believes Gadhafi’s tactical maneuvers do not show “the decision-making of a man totally out of touch with reality.”
Be sure to read the whole thing.