KAREN STATE, Myanmar – At first light, a haze from dry-season fires hung low over the Moie River, which marks the border between Thailand and Myanmar (also known as Burma).

It was a good time of day for a discrete crossing from one of the many small clearings in the thick tropical undergrowth lining the Moei's muddy waters.

It took just moments for our long-tailed boat to reach the Myanmar side, where after making our way over a rickety make-shift bridge and climbing the steep river bank we were welcomed to the seventh brigade headquarters of the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the military wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), which has been fighting the Myanmar government for decades.

We were greeted by Saw Hla Hgwe of the KNU, a short bespectacled man, wearing a red Ferrari baseball cap.

"We have two big problems in this country, ethnic rights and democratic rights," he said, "and until both these problems are solved there can be no peace and stability."

The mostly Christian Karen people have been fighting against Myanmar’s central government for 62 years, which makes this one of world's longest-running – and most brutal – civil wars.

It's also one of the world's great forgotten conflicts. Not even Rambo could change that; his last movie was set here (though filmed in Thailand), with Sylvester Stallone taking on what appeared to be the entire Myanmar Army in an effort to rescue a bunch of Christian missionaries kidnapped by soldiers as they were taking aid to Karen villagers.

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New era?
In January, though, the KNU signed a ceasefire deal with the Myanmar government, and KNU leaders are in Yangon this weekend for further talks. They are also planning to meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose election to parliament last weekend is just the latest and most significant development in a fast-moving reform process.

But it’s a reform process that has been greeted with extreme caution by the KNU.

"Right now I think that they are not trustworthy," Saw Hla Hgwe told me. "We have heard this kind of talk many times, but it never comes to reality, so this time we are being careful and cautious."

It doesn't help that the KNU itself is faction-ridden and has been much weakened by successive army onslaughts. It is also just one of a patchwork of ethnic groups that make up 30 percent of Myanmar's population. Most have their own militias, and the U.S. has said that ethnic peace is a precondition for fully lifting sanctions on Myanmar.

"For genuine peace, the government must prove that it is willing to share power," said the KNU's Saw Hla Hgwe.

Soldiers in flip flops
The seventh brigade camp consisted of a series of small wooden buildings, set around a dusty parade ground, where their commander, Saw Jorny, gathered about 50 members of his rag-tag army for a pep-talk, reminding them not to break the ceasefire – but to remain on their guard.

His soldiers carried a variety of weapons – from ageing AK-47s to newer-looking M-16s. Many wore only flip flops on their feet.

One young soldier had a prosthetic foot, and when I asked him what had happened he just shrugged. "Landmine," he said. "Over there, behind the mountain."

In fact I was surprised not to see more missing limbs, since this is one of the most mine-infested areas on the planet.

The Myanmar army has been accused of gross human rights abuses against the country's ethnic minorities – ranging from rape and forced labor to torture and murder.

Tens of thousands of Karen have been forced from their homes, their villages destroyed. Many have fled across the Moie River to take refuge in sprawling camps that cling to the Thai side of the river.

Aid groups say there are around 160,000 refugees in Thai camps and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced inside the country. The biggest single group is the Karen people.

‘Hope to go back’
Most Karen refugees we met said they wanted to return to Myanmar – someday. Few had heard about the reform process in Yangon, and for many the horrors they'd experience were still raw.

"They came to our village, shooting at us and planting landmines," said Ma Aye, who fled to Thailand with her children two years ago. "We just couldn't stay anymore."

Nearby, Wee Thwa was building a new home from wood and dried leaves. "We were afraid. We couldn't stay after the army came to our village," he told me. He too had heard nothing of the reforms sweeping Myanmar, but he added: "I hope to go back when the situation is good."

By all rights, Karen State should be a prosperous place, sitting on a wealth of raw materials and minerals, including rich deposits of gold. But the conflict has impoverished the area, now riddled with malaria and malnutrition.

The success of Myanmar's reforms may well be determined here, and in other ethnic areas, rather than in Yangon or Naypyitaw (the newly created capital city), and by the government's ability – and willingness – to make a lasting peace and overcome decades of conflict and mistrust.

"It's all about trust," Saw Jorny, the seventh brigade commander, told me. "The Karen people want peace – but genuine peace."

By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Correspondent

MISRATA, Libya – It was a sign that perhaps life was getting back to some kind of normal in Libya. 

Last weekend, Turkish Airlines resumed direct commercial flights from Istanbul to Tripoli.  One week later, the Boeing jet was packed with families with very small children returning to the Libyan capital, despite the fact that the NATO no-fly zone remains in effect.

On the ground, it wasn’t quite normal yet.

The drive from Tripoli to Misrata, which is only 120 miles, takes between two and three hours these days because of the series of checkpoints that dot the main road, slowing traffic down every few miles.  The rebel militiamen are still on the look-out for pro-Gadhafi supporters.  Some are more diligent than others, stopping vehicles to ask for IDs; others wave them on with nary a glance.

In Misrata itself, life was definitely not quite normal.

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The main strip that runs through the town, Tripoli Street, was a key battleground and the site of fierce fighting that broke out in February and lasted three months.  Burnt-out buildings line both sides of the thoroughfare today; those that remain somewhat intact bear scars from gunfire and heavy artillery.

“It was scary,” said Mohammed Abdul Majid, a Misrata-born native whose parents came from Sudan.  “We saw all the firing everywhere.”

His home is just off Tripoli Street, on the second floor of a building pockmarked with bullet holes, but the fire damage was so bad that he moved to his sister’s place across town.

When we ran into him, he and a friend were trying to open the roll-down steel gate to the first floor storage room – the fighting had bent it out of shape, and they couldn’t roll it back up.

Abdul Majid wanted to store some new appliances, including a refrigerator he said he’d bought before the war.  “This is for me.  Before, I needed [to have a] party,” he laughed.  “I will fix the current home.  And then have a party.”

Down Tripoli Street, Mahmood al Gazil was fixing up a photo studio also badly damaged by the fighting earlier this year.  The owner had hired him to repair the store, and he was working alone.

“A lot of the guys who own the shops are on the frontline, so they are busy,” he said.  In the meantime, he’s working without pay.  “There is no money right now.”

And what if the people who are supposed to pay him die fighting on the frontline before he gets paid?  He smiled and shrugged, “I
am not worried, because then they died for our country.”

In the meantime, al Gazil said he has enough savings to see him and his family through for the foreseeable future. 

Mahdi al Toumy, a university student, was sitting in the shade of a corner building on Tripoli Street; his family is one of the few still living there.

“There is maybe one other family in the area still living here,” he told us.  “All the neighbors have gone, staying with relatives in other neighborhoods.”

Traffic appears normal even if the buildings don’t. At one intersection there was even a policeman in a pristine, though slightly wrinkled, white uniform directing cars.

At a villa now housing the office of Doctors Without Borders, Mohammed Hasb el Rasoul said that despite the heavy fighting in nearby Sirte, they did not have any injured from the frontlines coming through the hospitals or clinics in Misrata.

“It was a kind of a big mess back in July,” said el Rasoul, a Sudanese man who has been living in Misrata since 1993 and now works as a radio operator for MSF. 

But perhaps the most bemusing sight is one that suggests just how much Libya teeters between normal and not normal.

Everywhere there are pick-up trucks driving around with mounted anti-aircraft guns or 50-calibre guns in the back, wrapped in some sort of covering, their tell-tale barrels pointing toward the sky.  It suggests that the fighting is done.

At least for now.

By Charlene Gubash, NBC News

NALUT, Libya – The people of Nalut, a quiet town in the mountains of Libya, gathered together to grieve on Friday.  “There is no God, but God and martyrs are beloved by God,” boomed several hundred men standing in long rows, some crying softly. 

They prayed before the bodies of three young men who died in Thursday’s offensive against pro-Gadhafi soldiers. The thin faces encircled by white shrouds were young. 

“One of them was my friend.  I studied with him for two years in Malta.  This is the biggest loss for me,” said Nadar, a fellow rebel.

“They are all under 30,” said another man who recently arrived from Tripoli.  “But all of this is for freedom,” he said.

Nalut has just gained its freedom from four months of almost nightly rocket fire. Gadhafi’s troops had used villages in the valley beneath Nalut to lob deadly Soviet-era Grad missiles into the town and toward the border with Tunisia.  Victory was sweet.  

After less than a day’s fighting, rebel fighters pushed Gadhafi’s troops out of two cities and a handful of hamlets.  The commanding officer in Nalut attributed their success to good planning and the cooperation of rebel fighters from several mountain cities. Rebels mounted a simultaneous attack on Gadhafi forces from several different directions. 

The commanding officer saw the latest operation as a blueprint for success, but one to be improved and refined.  “Next time it will be much better,” he promised. He recalled with a smile, “We had only 20 hunting rifles made in Nalut in our first battle.” 

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Progress
Thursday’s battle showed just how far they had come.  Rebels used sophisticated artillery, captured from Gadhafi’s weapons stores, against his loyalists.  They loaded missile after missile into Grad rocket launchers and fired at government forces in the valley below. Seized T 55 Russian tanks took turns blasting enemy positions. 

Although the primary complaint of military and civilian leaders throughout the region has been shortage of weapons, fighters seemed to have no lack of artillery shells in Thursday’s battle.

Late into the night on Thursday, young men fired automatic weapons into the air in celebration.
Women, rarely seen outside the home, marched through town and cars screeched through the otherwise orderly streets. Families that had fled Nalut for the safety of Tunisia began to flood back across the border to their now-safe city on Friday.

What’s next?   
The latest rebel advance secured Nalut, but has it moved the rebels any closer to the ultimate goal, Tripoli and the overthrow of Gadhafi?

The answer is a qualified “yes.”  Rebels have achieved some critical strategic aims. 

They have now secured their border with Tunisia and the only supply line for fighters and civilians alike in the arid hills and plains of western Libya.  The rout of enemy forces from the border area is part of a broader plan to allow rebels to push up through the desert to Zawiyah, cutting the regime off from its western supply line, and bringing them within a half-hour drive to Tripoli.

Newly victorious rebel fighters are already working their way up north. Whether success can be duplicated in the critical city of Garyan, Tripoli’s supply line to weapons and mercenaries from the south, remains to be seen. 

Attempts to advance appear to be stalemated to the untrained eye.  But military commanders suggest plans are in place and an offensive, possibly an all-out offensive, is imminent. “Zero hour” has not been determined yet, an officer in Zintan said.  

Although weapons are said to be in short supply, optimism and determination are not. 

When asked if rebels can reach Tripoli before the end of Ramadan, the minister of defense, Omar Hariri, responded, “Maybe before Ramadan.” The Muslim month of fasting begins next week.

 NBC News’ Mike Taibbi has been reporting from Libya’s western mountains for three weeks and provides an account of a battle he witnessed between rebels and pro-Gadhafi forces.

NAFUSA MOUNTAINS, Libya - More than five months into Libya's civil war, rebels in the western mountains who've seen their advance on Tripoli stall 50 miles from the capital dealt with a new challenge Thursday. 

They launched an all-out assault on Moammar Gadhafi’s forces to protect strategic ground won months ago, an offensive that had been rumored for days. 

Nalut is one of the cities the rebels controlled almost from the beginning of the war, but Gadhafi’s army continued to bomb it nightly.  Government forces have also threatened to try and retake the nearby border crossing with Tunisia, the only such crossing rebels control. 

At around 4:30 a.m. today we saw a convoy of 30 or 40 heavily armed trucks roll out to join the forces already in position.  Our first visit was to a spot overlooking the valley just north of the mountains.  The rebels’ objective was to push Gadhafi forces out of two towns where, protected by landmines and human shields, the government’s guys continued to send scores of grad rockets into Nalut where casualties were increasing. 

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The Gadhafi forces were also rumored to be planning a move on the border crossing at Wazin.  In the two Gadhafi-held towns of Takut and Gazayeh we saw the smoke puffs of rockets fired toward Nalut and toward suspected rebel positions. Answering artillery was fired off at a fast pace.

We then went to a rebel position where they'd amassed dozens of Soviet-made grads from seized Gadhafi stockpile armaments and we watched as they were fired at targets on the approach to the towns to clear the way for ground forces to move in. 

What was apparent to us was that the rebels (in the mountains at least) are not only improving in terms of training and numbers, but they are also leveling the playing field by deploying Gadhafi’s own most fearsome weapon – grad rockets with their 20-mile range – right back at his own troops.

We then went to the most forward position, where we were told no other journalists had been allowed to go, and watched supplemental tank fire going off as part of the task of plowing the road for ground forces.  We saw those forces moving in and then went down the mountain into the valley where.

The rebels have retaken the town of Takut and were on the way to Gazayeh today.  At the time of writing, they'd suffered 19 wounded and three killed.  We couldn’t confirm what the losses were among Gadhafi’s forces but we saw some brought back as prisoners.  By the time we worked our way there, a sort of victory celebration was underway. 

The rebels clearly scored a victory today and afterwards morale was high.  They cheered each other on, gave each other the high-five signs and shouted Allahu Akbar, or “God is Great,” when their missiles hit their targets.

Still, it's a good news-bad news story. 

First the bad.  Four months after supposedly asserting control over this part of the country, rebels find it necessary to win control over the same ground again (losing the border would be a disaster). 

The good news is that they pulled off a coordinated artillery and ground attack in a matter of eight hours, and just like they planned it.

This was a victory although not THE victory, of course.  That would be Tripoli.

By Mike Taibbi, NBC News Correspondent
 
AR RUJBAN, Libya – We’ve spent 10 days among the rebel fighters in Libya’s western mountains, the ancient plateaued hills of the Nafusah range.

On Tuesday we reached an overlook above the next target, in the Jefara Plain below the northeastern edge of the range, a dense gypsum-mining town called Bi’r al Ghanam where the Gadhafi army is dug in with Schilka tanks and Grad rocket launchers. 

We were given permission to go to the overlook by Gen. Mokhtar Khalifa, the regional commander of rebel forces. He assigned a soldier to take us there in an all-wheel drive pickup truck, a 23-year-old named Ahmed who’d been studying engineering in Liverpool, England, before leaving to join the fighting three months ago. 

Ahmed, a genial presence with soft-spoken English who looks younger than his years, said he had already been involved in three pitched battles at close range, one of them was a chaotic shootout that drove out the Gadhafi forces in the nearby town of Ar Rumayah.

“We were waiting where they could not see us,” Ahmed told me, pointing to the hillocks beyond an intersection where he’d stopped to tell the story.  “We saw four Gadhafi army men in their vehicles stop by a house, they told the man there they would take his house; then we shot at them. We killed three of them, the other we took as prisoner – then the big fighting happened.”

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There was evidence of the “big fighting” everywhere. We saw several disabled Schilka tanks, one rolled over into a dried-out riverbed. The houses were all empty, as they are in one routed town after another, pockmarked by small arms fire or half-collapsed by bigger weapons – some of them appeared to have been scorched by fire. 

Human Rights Watch issued a report last week charging that rebel forces have been torching houses indiscriminately, arbitrarily detaining civilian prisoners, and allegedly abusing some of them, during their slow advance toward Tripoli.

Ahmed pointed to one burned house, by way of explanation. “That one, they help Gadhafi army, we have no choice.” 

I asked him if he was aware of the Human Rights Watch charges. He nodded, “Yes, because they do not understand. We only attack Gadhafi army…” 

He pointed to another house about 50 yards up a hill, the house was untouched, he laughed. 

“That one,” he said, “he makes the best liquor in all of Libya! Very strong!” 

I asked him how as a Muslim he could be familiar with liquor. “In Liverpool,” he replied, “with other students. Sometimes we drink much liquor, then I don’t remember anything.”

A clear view of the enemy 
An hour later we picked up an escort, another soldier at an outpost near the front who led the way to the strategic overlook in one of two Grad launcher trucks recovered from retreating Gadhafi forces weeks earlier. 

We headed off-road, bouncing over dirt tracks cleared of mines – another category of detritus the Gadhafi army has been leaving behind in every abandoned town.  On the approach to another village now controlled by rebels, al Qawalish, mine-clearers collected more than 1,300 anti-personnel mines and more than 90 anti-tank mines, slowing the rebels’ slow march even more.

We drove slowly, trying at our escort’s urging to keep the plumes of dust to a minimum so as not to signal our position to anyone watching from below. We walked the last 100 yards, past scores of spent artillery shells. When we get to the top of the ridge – with our heads lowered and on all fours at the end – I could see the need for caution. 

Just below us, clearly visible to the naked eye and visible in specific detail through field binoculars, was Bi’r al Ghanam.  If we could see them, of course, they could see us, if they knew where to look. 

We crouched in what appeared to be a foxhole made for four, with a crude wall of stacked rocks for forward cover.  I looked through the binoculars, toward the big white buildings on the east side of town where one of the soldiers on post told me most of the heavy fire had been coming from.

“All night,” he said with Ahmed translating. “Just rockets. We don’t use our rifles.” Our position, elevated in the hills, was a couple of lateral miles south of the town, well within the 12-mile range of the Grad rockets Gadhafi forces have in abundance.
               
I asked the soldier if he and his fellow fighters were ready to make a move on the town. The soldier shook his head to say, “no.”

I asked him how long they’ve been manning this observation post, where they’ve taken fire every night, where several rebel fighters have been killed and a greater number injured.
               
“Weeks,” he answered, through Ahmed. “Weeks…”
               
From where we sat, crouching and  watching, we were just 50 miles from Tripoli, closer to the capitol than any engaged rebel force in Libya.
 
Rebels wait, and wait, for the ‘go’ signal
Gen. Khalifa, the commander of rebel forces in the region, is a careful man. He deftly deflected some of our questions.

No, we’d have to ask a politician whether the French have in fact air-dropped weapons to aid the rebel cause, as has been reported, he said.  Yes, it’s true that he commands his forces without the benefit of any direct communication with NATO.

“We only get NATO information through intermediaries in the East, from Benghazi,” he told, NBC News Producer Charlene Gubash who was translating. “And only where we must stop to wait and not go further.”
               
We asked if the recognition last week by 40-plus nations, including the United States, of the rebels’ Transitional National Authority as the new governing authority of Libya has translated to a specific promise of practical help for his fighting forces yet. For example, did he expect to see any of the $34 billion in frozen Libyan funds turned quickly into equipment and a real arsenal for his badly under-equipped forces?
               
He shook his head, drawing on the third cigarette of our conversation.
               
“You’ll have to ask a politician about that…”

His office is in a building still adorned by the bright green of the Gadhafi regime. The painters haven’t gotten here yet to replace the green with the tri-colors of the old – and potentially new – Libya as we’ve seen has happened in towns throughout the Nafusah Mountains. 

The general’s men have moved through those towns methodically, and in some towns like Jadu and Zintan, some semblance of life is returning. Water and electricity are more available then before, volunteers are being trained to staff new civilian police forces, a few markets are open, a café here and there. There are watermelons for sale, gasoline from plastic tanks in the back of small trucks; tomatoes, peppers, onions.

But at the forward edges of the rebels’ advance, outside Garyan on the east side of the mountain range, and in the lookout perch above Bi’r al Ghanam in the Jefara Plain, men with too few weapons, but with dreams of freedom, sit and wait for a “go” signal even their commanders cannot solicit from NATO, whose air cover alone would make a credible advance on Tripoli a real possibility. 
Weeks have turned into months.  More than five months now, since it all began here Feb. 17. Fifty miles from Tripoli, and waiting.
 
NBC News Producer Charlene Gubash contributed to this report

Related links:

Conflict in Libya slideshow

Daily life in Libya slideshow