Western Libya—Only about thirty volunteers of the three hundred strong Martyr Wasam Qaliyah Brigade are gathered around former Libyan army general Senussi Mohamed as he outlines the plan for the liberation of the coastal city of Sabratha, about 90 kilometers north from Qaddafi’s forces. Crouched in a pleasant pine grove in Jafara Valley, just north of Zintan, they listen intently. This morning, they struck their camp in Jadu, in the western mountains, to join the Sabratha Brigade and volunteers from other cities in what’s planned as a big operation for this Lilliputian war, where groups of 100 or 200 barely trained volunteers skirmish in the streets of rundown cities.

Sabratha is directly ahead, but the men’s main objective is moving westward along the coastline to liberate their coastal hometown of Zwara, a busy port of 47,000 inhabitants, all ethnic Amazigh or Berber. About 100 kilometers west of Tripoli, Zwara is the first town of consequence in Libya as one enters from the Tunisian border, another 65 kilometers west.