A violent government crackdown has broken out in Libya during the last few days as Muammar Gaddafi tries to hold onto power. Almost as soon as the protests began, Gaddafi deployed the Libyan Army to beat back the protesters with reports of more than 200 people killed so far, mostly in the second-largest city of Benghazi.

On Monday, Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi declared in a 40 minute rambling speech, “We are not Tunisia or Egypt.” Gaddafi’s son is correct in that regard. The Libyan conflict will not end nearly as peacefully as Tunisia or Egypt.

In recent days, there has been a deluge of information written about Libya in the open source. How can we succintly package this information in order to increase our situational awareness of the Libyan conflict? Using Recorded Future’s open source intelligence tools, we can analyze and draw inferences about how the crisis may unfold without having to read hundreds of news articles.

Consider these questions. What is Gadaffi saying in the press and what is being said about him? In what policy areas is he most active?

The following is a treemap representing the online momentum of entities and phrases related to Gaddafi within news articles. The higher the recent online momentum, the larger the blocks.

Click to View Live Timeline

We find that discussion of Gaddafi often features co-occurring mentions of international organizations (African Union, European Union), nearly 50 other individuals, and, to no real surprise, oil.

Oil is a major factor in this crisis considering both the wealth it brings to Libya as well as the country’s role as a critical supplier of crude to Italy and other European Union countries.

Another important factor in the crisis is that most of Libya’s oil wealth is in the eastern part of the country, currently under the control of the protesters.

In this political situation, Col. Gaddafi is a reasonably predictable actor. He has never shied away from supporting terrorism (Pan-Am Flight 103) and brutally crushing dissent in Libya. Gaddafi and his regime appear set on keeping power at any cost, as evidenced by recent news of his security forces killing funeral mourners of protesters.

The following timeline is a representation of Gaddafi’s statements made over time. Click on the image and you will notice that in recent days there has been a sharp uptick in his rhetoric of maintaining power supporting the notion that Gaddafi will pull no punches in retaliating against attacks on his regime.

Click to View Live Timeline of Gaddafi Quotations

Libya is a much different situation than Tunisia or Egypt. Recall that Mubarak made some concessions to the protesters, including declining to run for re-election in September. It is highly unlikely that Gaddafi will make similar concessions. The question is, does this raise the stakes for civil war?

Some of the ingredients necessary for civil war are present in Libya. People near Benghazi have been opposed to the regime for years, and have just taken control of the city with the help of a defecting military that is joining the protesters. However, Gaddafi still maintains strong support in Tripoli and other cities. There has been substantial chatter over the past few days regarding a potential civil war.

Quotations about Civil War in Libya

Conclusion

Gaddafi and his son both mentioned the possibility of civil war on Libyan state TV Monday night. Though the statement was almost certainly a communications play in trying to alleviate unrest, civil war likely would not have been mentioned it if they did not think it was a real possibility.

At this point, the prospect of civil war or foreign intervention seems far more likely than Gaddafi stepping down.