IT WAS a shopping trip with a difference, and one in which a gun says more about you than cash ever can.
Yesterday I joined a group of young, bearded Misurata rebels on a mission to pick up ammunition from the plentiful stocks lying about in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
They need all they can get for the attack everyone is expecting against Sirte, Muammar Gadafy’s birthplace and the last of his coastal strongholds.
Their battered black pick-up truck, emblazoned with a sword symbol of the Fiesal, or Sword, brigade, left Misurata at dawn. First stop was a sprawling tented encampment on Tripoli’s beachfront.
More than 100 similar trucks were parked in chaotic fashion on the grass, many with exotic looking anti-aircraft guns mounted on the flatbeds. A camel was tethered to a lone palm tree in the middle. It was like being at a rock festival – albeit one with guns and camels.
Ramadan was coming to an end and the fighters wanted to finish their work so they could be home for the festival of Eid (marking the end of the month of fasting), and the battle that everyone expects will start this weekend.
Our pick-up truck took to the streets, cruising a city that is still in shock from the fighting and sudden takeover. Rebel jeeps lord it over everyone else; forget about traffic lights and one-way streets.
Many other brigades had the same idea, and by noon the city was alive with rebels in search of ordnance.
Our brigade had a map of locations: the bombed-out army bases, which are everywhere in Tripoli, are mostly denuded of ammunition, but Gadafy had stocked it everywhere, in warehouses and schools dotted across the city.
At one warehouse, abandoned and unguarded, huge tank shells lay next to upturned boxes out of which mortar shells had spilled. Other rebels had arrived first and there were none of the prized rockets and small arms ammunition.
Next stop was a book depository not far away, but another rebel group in a car had got there first and announced the contents belonged to them. Fiesal went around the corner, waited 20 minutes, then came back. As they hoped, the other rebel group had gone off to find a pick-up truck, locking the door after them.
One rebel kicked in the door and Fiesal were in. Twenty minutes later they had filled the jeep with boxes of rockets for the RPG-7, their main anti-tank weapon.
In the manager’s office, stinking from food left on plates a week ago, were dozens of green uniforms scattered on the floor.
The fighters said that when rebel units entered the city, most Gadafy units stripped off and ran away – men in underpants melting into the population. “They are still here, they did not go away,” said 24-year-old fighter Abdullah Maiteeg. “You can see them on the streets, pretending to be thwar . But we know them.”
It was dark by the time the truck was full, and we drove across town into a Gadafy loyalist zone to break the Ramadan fast at the Rexus hotel.
This is the super-luxury hotel where western journalists were marooned for six days during the fighting earlier this month. Inside it has a “Marie Celeste” feeling; the blankets and pillows the journalists had hauled to an upstairs corridor were still there, together with big white sheets with “TV” marked out in black tape they had hung in the foyer to deter gunmen. Downstairs in the basement was one of Gadafy’s secrets – the TV studio, still with its newsdesk and interview sofa, set up in the hotel because it would not be bombed by Nato.
The staff eyed the group with contempt, but also trepidation, and seemed relieved to find a western journalist in their midst. “The hotel is closed,” said the bearded manager in crisp English. The rebels smiled and walked past him and a big sign declaring in English that all visitors should check in their weapons.
By then gunfire had erupted across the city, most of it simply men with guns having fun, but rebel jeeps sat at the gates next to an armoured luxury car full of machine gun holes which had crashed into a tree some days before.
Ramadan dinner over, our rebels faced the next problem: the jeep would not start.
In vain they tried to fix it, as the crackle of gunfire grew louder outside and the radio announced the convoy they were to join back to Misurata had already left. Finally the group gathered to jump start it.
It was a tense ride out of the pro-Gadafy part of town. The campsite was now almost deserted, with all Misurata’s rebels having been ordered home for Eid, although the camel was still there.
The atmosphere of menace changed only once we reached the western suburbs. Here, at checkpoints draped in the rebel tricolour, lines of local people stood holding baskets of bread, water, paper cups and tea pots, and spread out so that the rebel vehicles needed only to slow down to have the refreshments handed to them.
Those handing out tea and water smiled, but the smiles were mixed with tension at the thought of the Misuratan rebels leaving.
Together with units from the Nafusa mountains they have been the backbone of opposition control of Tripoli this past week – and now they are leaving.
And the pro-Gadafy forces are still there.