Libya's Opposition Evolving Into A Parallel Government

Libya's opposition is fast evolving from a chaotic protest movement into a parallel government, even though divisions remain over how to finally topple Moamer Kadhafi.
After the bloody early days of the revolt against his 41-year rule, dissidents in the eastern city Benghazi and other towns have organised political and military councils to map out a post-Kadhafi future.
A Libyan UN envoy said on Tuesday that a transitional government would start work even as Kadhafi stays entrenched in Tripoli, while army defectors mulled the first step towards a unified force against his regime.
But if the councils are the face of Libya in transition, it is an anarchic one, as they disagree on a host of issues ranging from the need for Western air strikes to the membership of the committees themselves. "There is a crisis, conflicting emotions between despair and hope for an international solution," said Salwa Bughaighi, a member of the coalition of lawyers, activists and military defectors trying to run Benghazi.
As they wrestle with how to get public services running again, many protesters fear their disorganised force will be outgunned by Kadhafi's militias if they try to strike out to the west from their stronghold in the east.
Bughaighi said Tuesday her coalition would demand a no-fly zone to prevent Kadhafi from reinforcing Tripoli and the coastal city of Sirte, halfway between Benghazi and the capital.
But others said the coalition was inclining towards seeking foreign air strikes on strategic targets linked to Kadhafi.
On the other side of the country in Zintan, the first city in western Libya to throw off his yoke, people dug in Tuesday after news spread that pro-regime forces were preparing an assault to retake the city. "It's panic. The city is surrounded by many armoured vehicles," said Youssef, a local official in Zintan, 145 kilometres (70 miles) southwest of Tripoli, as local militia scrambled to set up checkpoints.
Similarly Zawiyah, a dormitory town some 40 kilometres (25 miles) outside the capital, was surrounded by heavily-armed militiamen in tanks on Tuesday, days after it was "freed" by Kadhafi opponents.
And troops loyal to Kadhafi at the Wazin border post near Tunisia, which had been deserted by the police and military since Sunday, were reinforced on Tuesday, witnesses said.
Yet the cities of Misrata east of the capital and Gherian to its south appeared to remain in opposition hands, as was virtually all of the east of the country, including several key oil fields.
The east remains on edge. In Benghazi, volunteer nightwatch patrols guard against Kadhafi saboteurs and man anti-aircraft guns, fearful of more deadly air raids by the regime's fighters and helicopter gunships.
In this climate of fear and uncertainty, the emergence of a transitional authority in Libya was unsurprisingly chaotic.