by Patrick Appel
Babak Dehghanpisheh fears that loyalist forces still have some fight left in them
Fierce clashes broke out around the Bab al Aziziyah compound, Gaddafi's Tripoli stronghold, early Monday morning, raising concerns that the pro-government forces were trying to launch a counteroffensive. There were reports of further clashes around the city later in the day. The worry is that the easy march into Tripoli may have been a ruse: loyalist forces may have gone to ground and could start guerrilla attacks against the rebel forces with or without Gaddafi's direction.
Joshua Tucker sees a possible silver lining:
From the perspective of the question of what happens to the Qadaffi security forces, the fact that there is renewed fighting in the capital today paradoxically might not be as bad a development as it seems. Last night, the big story seemed to be how the expected fights with Qadaffi loyalists in Tripoli were not materializing, suggesting that Qadaffi forces might be trying to melt away, i.e., take their weapons and quietly leave Tripoli. The problem with this scenario is the question of how you engage the existing security forces becomes much harder if you can not find them. And while it is possible that this would just lead to these people exiting the security game and trying to quietly make a new life for themselves in a post-Qadaffi Libya, experiences in Iraq show that the more likely scenario is that these are exactly the kind of people – armed, with military experience, and loyal to the previous regime – who could form the basis of an armed insurgency. Thus the fact that Qadaffi loyalists have not completely disappeared yet may have some positive long-term benefits, or, at the very least, may make certain negative scenarios slightly less likely to unfold
The Dish 