Almost gone, the bastard

Rebels in Libya said that they have surrounded Tripoli, the nation's capital and the stronghold of strongman Muammar Qaddafi. The New York Times reports that the announcement, which has not yet been independently confirmed, comes after rebels appear to have broken a stalemate in recent days, advancing over the weekend into the city of Zawiyah, which is fifty miles southwest of Tripoli.
There are also signs that the fighting will intensify in the weeks ahead. On Sunday, a U.S. destroyer in the Aegean Sea detected the firing of a Scud missile into rebel territory, the first such attack of the conflict so far. The missile, which is not precision-guided, landed in the desert and caused no casualties. But the attack, one official said, underscored Qaddafi's willingness to intensify the violence. "That it didn't hit anything or kill anyone is not the point. It's a weapon of mass destruction that Colonel Qaddafi is willing to train on his own people," one unnamed Western official told the London Telegraph.
In a sign of possible instability within Qaddafi's regime, Nassr al-Mabrouk Abdullah, one of the dictator's top officials, appeared to flee the country recently, arriving in Cairo on a private plane with nine other family members.