The road to Tunisia, for months Tripoli’s main conduit for smuggled petrol, food and other necessities, has been essentially cut off since Saturday, when rebels entered the coastal city of Zawiyah, just 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli.
Rebels have also captured areas to the south, leaving Tripoli hemmed in on three sides on land and by the Mediterranean to the north.
The city’s growing isolation promises to intensify already severe shortages of petrol and electricity caused in large part by sanctions imposed after Libya’s uprising began in February.
While some sea commerce continues at ports under Qaddafi’s control, the road closure is a psychological blow to a city that has been pounded by NATO warplanes for months and had seen the Tunisian border a few hours’ drive away as an escape valve.
Now, Tripoli residents are calling off trips abroad to visit relatives or to undergo medical treatment; even diplomats have been turned back on Tripoli’s western outskirts.
In downtown Tripoli, Ahmed Abdul’s dry goods shop is packed with imported milk, Italian crackers and other goods. But Abdul, like other residents, expects supplies of such staples to dwindle if the fighting along the coast continues.
“We’re at war. It’s not a soccer match,” he said with the fatalism typical of Tripoli residents. “We’ve got problems left and right.”
There is no sign that the government will soon push rebels back in the west.
If the situation continues, Tripoli residents fear that already scarce cooking gas will become even more difficult to find and that government stocks of rice, flour, cooking oil and other essentials - sold to Libyans each month at highly subsidized prices — could run short.
“If people want to buy something, they should buy it now,” said Khaled, a Tripoli merchant who said he would shut his shop down once supplies run out.
But the food supplies are likely to be the least of the problems in Tripoli, already grappling with a severe fuel shortage.
In recent months, travelers at the Ras Jdir border crossing had seen rickety old cars packed with plastic jugs of fuel brought into Libya — a black-market pipeline that has likely been severed by fighting along the coast.
In areas around Tripoli, lines wind for kilometers at the few functional petrol stations and those unable to purchase black-market fuel must queue for three or four days.
Now, already sky-high prices for available fuel have gotten even more exorbitant since the road closure.
One Tripoli resident said the cost of filling up his car had reached over $150 for a tank of gas. Rebels’ seizure of the country’s sole remaining functional fuel refinery in Zawiyah on Thursday will exacerbate those problems.
The fuel crunch has contributed to long power outages across Tripoli and other areas, compounding frustration at the height of summer heat and as Libyans fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Days after the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that sanctions could prompt serious health problems, power cuts threaten to deepen the crisis if they deprive Tripoli residents of water supplies.
Such hardships only fan tension in a city that is both Qaddafi’s base of support and also the site of an underground opposition that has been awaiting its opportunity for months.
Across Tripoli, security has intensified as police and armed volunteers search residents at numerous checkpoints, taking special care to scrutinize young men.
Many Tripoli residents shrug off advances by rebels and promise they will fight them to the death.
“I’m not afraid — Muammar will protect us,” said Lutfiya Abdullah Mohammed Qabor, a divorced woman who said she was grateful for the monthly pension from Qaddafi’s government.
Yet Qaddafi’s opponents hope to take advantage of the rebels’ momentum. Every morning there are reports of clashes or protests in various parts of Tripoli, and in other areas under Qaddafi’s control, but they cannot be independently verified.
Clashes have also been reported east of Tripoli toward the city of Zlitan, which rebels have been trying to capture for months. One Tripoli resident named Suleiman, buying food just before the evening meal, spoke with unusual vehemence in a city where foreign journalists are accompanied at all times by government minders and people risk being hauled off for criticizing the government.
“We have nothing in Tripoli - no electricity, nothing,” said the man. “Everything is lacking; everything is empty.”
