Hours after the UN Security Council unanimously imposed sanctions on Col. Muammar Qaddafi and his regime, his reactivated air force was flying army and tribal reinforcements from the south and landing them at the military airfields of Tripoli, Misrata and Sirte. debkafile's military sources report.  Sunday night, Feb. 27, men were immediately deployed at the main road intersections leading to the capital.
This move at the current stage of Libya's civil war lessens the military significance of the rebels' reported takeover of towns around Tripoli, including Al Zawiya to the west, from which Qaddafi's forces pulled back to guard the main road to Tripoli.
For now, the rebels face four main difficulties:
1. They lack organized military strength to stand up to Qaddafi's professionally-trained and equipped soldiers. This imbalance can only be offset by a mutiny in the army's ranks or assassination.2.  Instead of digging in and consolidating their control of the eastern part of the country after its capture, the rebels went after Tripoli in order to topple Qaddafi. Sunday night, this goal looked unattainable.
3.  They have rejected US and European offers of military assistance in the strongest terms warning that if foreign troops intervened they would redirect their guns from Qaddafi on the interlopers.
4.  The rebels are fighting without air cover, while Qaddafi's forces command enough air power and air fields in the south to keep up a steady flow of fresh fighting men in his support.