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Threats to kill women and babies, while corpses of fighters paraded in grotesque incidents

Banned anti-personnel landmines planted in civilian homes, with Russian military company Wagner implicated

Commanders must publicly condemn these acts - Diana Eltahawy

New evidence obtained by Amnesty International indicates that war crimes and other violations may have been committed between 13 April and 1 June by warring parties in Libya during the latest surge in fighting near Tripoli.

Amnesty has examined scores of incidents through witness testimonies, satellite imagery and analysis of open-source photos and videos - providing mounting evidence oflooting, the indiscriminate shelling of civilian neighbourhoods, the planting of anti-personnel landmines in civilian buildings, and the parading of corpses (see details below).

A recent escalation in fighting in Tripolis suburbs and in western Libya - with several towns changing hands between armed groups affiliated with the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord and the self-styled Libyan National Army - has seen a recent escalation in unlawful retaliatory attacks.

On 13 April, the Government of National Accords Surman command issued a statement warning its troops against such retaliatory acts, committing itself to investigating such individual incidents. However, to date, no commanders or fighters implicated in these crimes have been held to account or removed from active duty.

Amnesty is calling on all warring parties and associated forces in Libya to immediately halt attacks against civilians and other violations of international humanitarian law, including those being carried out to punish civilians for their perceived affiliations with rival groups. Amnesty is also calling on members of the UN Human Rights Council to urgently establish a Commission of Inquiry or similar mechanism to investigate violations of international humanitarian law and other human rights violations, determine responsibility and preserve evidence of crimes in order to secure justice for the victims.

Despite a comprehensive UN arms embargo in place on Libya since 2011, the UAE and Russia have provided significant military support to the Libyan National Army, while Turkey has backed the Government of National Accord. There have been numerous illicit arms transfers and direct military support, and Amnesty is currently carrying out investigations into this influx of military equipment and foreign fighters.

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty Internationals Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director, said:

Civilians in Libya are once again paying the price, as all parties escalate retaliatory attacks and other grave violations showing utter disregard for their lives and the laws of war.We are calling on all parties to the conflict and affiliated militias and armed groups to immediately halt indiscriminate attacks and other serious violations carried out against civilians associated with rival groups. Commanders must publicly condemn these acts.

Countries such as Turkey, Russia and the UAE must cease violating the UN arms embargo.

On 13 April, Government of National Accord-affiliated forces using Turkish arms and equipment captured the cities of Surman and Sabratha, and several towns west of Tripoli. Witnesses told Amnesty that these forces looted several civilian houses and public buildings, including the Sabratha main hospital, setting homes on fire. Amnesty also verified a photo published on social media by a Government of National Accord fighter, showing fellow fighters celebrating next to the corpses of several Libyan National Army combatants.Video footage analysed by Amnesty shows further incidents of retaliation against civilians for their perceived affiliation to one side or another. One video shows armed men looting civilian property in the town of Al-Asabah, 75 miles south of Tripoli, after Government of National Accord forces took control on 21 May.In another video posted on social media on 30 April, again verified by Amnesty, a Government of National Accord-affiliated fighter is seen threatening Kaniyat forces (aligned with the Libyan National Army) that they would not to leave a single woman alive when they capture the town of Tarhuna, south-east of Tripoli. Meanwhile, Kaniyat forces have themselves committed serious violations against civilians in Tripoli and Tarhuna.Meanwhile, another video on the personal page of a Libyan National Army fighter examined by Amnesty shows him threatening to kill anyone in Benghazi, along with those in his house even if babies, if they mourn those who died fighting with the Government of National Accord. Amnesty verified one video showing the Libyan National Army first infantry brigade parading fighters corpses in a pick-up truck, while calling a captured Government of National Accord fighter a Syrian dog on 18 April.

There is mounting evidence of the use of anti-personnel landmines in flagrant violation of an international ban on their use.

Residents told Amnesty that on or around 22 May, forces aligned with the Libyan National Army placed anti-personnel landmines as they withdrew from the neighborhoods of Ain Zara and Salah el-Din south of Tripoli. At least one civilian was killed by a landmine when he returned to his house on 22 May, according to his family.

There is evidence that Libyan National Army-affiliated forces have laid extensive tripline-activated anti-personnel landmines and other booby-traps in homes and other civilian objects. Photos and videos verified by Amnesty show Russian and Soviet-era anti-personnel landmines - including MON-50s, MON-90s, OZM-72s and MS3s - prohibited by international law due to their indiscriminate nature. Foreign personnel employed by the Russian military company Wagner were observed leaving areas shortly before landmines were discovered.

During the course of April and May, Libyan National Army forces shelled civilian neighborhoods in Tripoli, resulting in civilian casualties and damage to property in the neighborhoods of Ain Zara, Tariq el-Sour, Souq al-Talata, and Souq El-Joma. Amnesty has verified images of the aftermath of these attacks, showing civilians who had been killed and wounded. Witnesses and a medical source confirmed to Amnesty that an attack launched by Libyan National Army forces on Souq Al-Talat on 31 May left at least three civilians dead and 11 wounded, including a child whose leg was amputated.Meanwhile, Government of National Accord-aligned forces carried out indiscriminate attacks during April and May in Tripolis suburb of Qasr Bin Ghashir, Beni Walid, Tarhuna and close to Ash Shwayrif village - again with civilian casualties reported. At least one girl was killed by shelling in Qasr Bin Ghashir on 1 June, according to witnesses, while several buildings were damaged, with photos of the damage verified by Amnesty.An Amnesty investigation last year into the fighting in Libya found that both sides and their affiliated forces had been responsible for indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, as well as the use of a range of inaccurate explosive weapons in populated urban areas.

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Libya: shocking new evidence of retaliatory attacks on civilians - Amnesty International UK

CAIRO (Reuters) - A grassy area used as a park in the Libyan capital Tripoli was hit by shelling on Sunday that left five people dead and 12 others wounded, an official and a medic said.

The incident highlighted a continuing risk to civilians despite a relative lull in fighting around Tripoli since eastern-based forces staged partial withdrawals earlier this month.

The U.N. mission to Libya has condemned indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas of Tripoli which it says are mostly attributable to forces affiliated with eastern commander Khalifa Haftars Libyan National Army (LNA).

The LNA has been waging an offensive on Tripoli since April 2019, though it has recently suffered setbacks amid the latest escalation of foreign involvement in the conflict.

Sundays shelling hit an expanse of grass that residents often use to relax on the edge of the Hay al-Andalus neighbourhood, west of central Tripoli.

Ameen al-Hashimi, a press officer for the Tripoli governments health ministry, told Reuters five people, two of them unidentified, had been killed, and 12 wounded.

Osama Ali, a spokesman for local ambulance services, said four of the casualties had been killed at the grassy area and one other at a second, nearby location.

Reporting by Hani Amara in Istanbul; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Giles Elgood and Chizu Nomiyama

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Civilians killed as park hit by shelling in Libyan capital - Reuters

CAIRO Two former British marines piloted their boats, a pair of military-grade inflatables, across the Mediterranean from Malta. Six helicopters were flown in from Botswana using falsified papers. The rest of the team soldiers of fortune from South Africa, Britain, Australia and the United States arrived from a staging area in Jordan.

To anyone who asked, the mercenaries who slipped into the war-pocked port of Benghazi, Libya, last summer said they had come to guard oil and gas facilities.

In fact, United Nations investigators later determined, their mission was to fight alongside the Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter in his all-out assault on the capital, Tripoli, for which they were to be paid $80 million.

It quickly went wrong. A dispute erupted with Mr. Hifter, a notoriously mercurial leader, over the quality of the aircraft. On July 2, after just four days in Libya, the mercenaries scrambled for their speedboats and roared out to sea, headed for the safety of Malta.

Although short-lived, the botched mission offers a telling illustration of the melee in Libya, where a war driven by powerful foreign sponsors principally the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Russia and Egypt has created a lucrative playground for smugglers, arms dealers, mercenaries and other profiteers who flout an international arms embargo with little fear of consequences.

Libya is a singular magnet for its combination of oil wealth and scrappy standards of combat. With Russian, Syrian, Sudanese, Chadian and now Western mercenaries drawn to the fight, it has the rare distinction of being a mercenary-on-mercenary war sometimes, in the case of Syrians, with men from the same country fighting each other.

Its a free-for-all, said Wolfram Lacher, a Libya expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Everyone is bringing ever more absurd types of weapons and fighters into Libya, with Syrians on both sides, and nobody is stopping them.

Libya, a sparsely populated oil-rich nation, has been mired in chaos since the ouster of its decades-long dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, by an American-backed coalition in 2011. Peace talks established a fragile United Nations-backed government in Tripoli that Mr. Hifter aims to overthrow.

Since his first offensive in 2014, Mr. Hifter has been backed by an array of foreign forces. In the past year, a powerful Kremlin-backed private army, the Wagner Group, turbocharged his flagging assault on Tripoli. But Turkey joined the fight on behalf of Tripoli in January and has thrown Mr. Hifters campaign into disarray.

A large contingent of Russian fighters and their weapons retreated from the front lines south of the capital over the weekend and were flown in three planes to a Hifter stronghold, Reuters reported. Mr. Hifters powerful foreign sponsors will likely determine his next move.

The abortive mercenary expedition last summer was organized and financed by a network of secretive companies in the United Arab Emirates, according to a confidential report submitted to the United Nations Security Council in February. The companies are controlled or part-owned by Christiaan Durrant, an Australian businessman and former fighter pilot who is a close associate of Erik Prince, Americas most famous mercenary entrepreneur.

Mr. Prince, whose close ties to the Trump administration have come under Congressional scrutiny in recent years, has provided private militia forces for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates and the leading foreign sponsor of Mr. Hifters war in Libya.

United Nations investigators are examining whether Mr. Prince played any role in the failed mercenary operation. Through a spokesman, Mr. Prince said he had nothing whatsoever to do with any alleged private military operation in Libya.

Libya is a case study of the changing character of war, said Sean McFate, a former private military contractor and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. We think of war as a political activity, but in Libya its becoming a commercial one. You have these for-profit warriors of every stripe going in there, waging the kind of wars that Machiavelli discussed in the 16th century.

The team of 20 mercenaries that deployed to Benghazi in June was led by Steve Lodge, a former South African Air Force officer who also served in the British military and worked as a private military contractor in Nigeria.

The others were also ex-military 11 South Africans, five Britons, two Australians and one American, a trained pilot. Their mission was to prevent shipments of Turkish-supplied weapons from reaching the government in Tripoli by sea.

The plan, United Nations investigators say, was to create a marine strike force using speedboats and attack helicopters that would board and search merchant ships. Investigators believe the marine force was part of a larger operation that also involved commandos who would surveil and destroy enemy targets.

Three officials familiar with the United Nations investigation, which was first reported by Bloomberg, briefed The New York Times on its contents and provided copies of documents. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Six helicopters were bought in South Africa and trucked to the international airport in Gaborone, Botswana. Though clandestine, the operation left behind a long trail of evidence, starting with photographs published online by The Botswana Gazette of three Super Puma helicopters, strapped to trucks, being driven down a highway.

The helicopters were loaded into cargo planes, one of which was owned by SkyAviaTrans, a Ukrainian company whose motto, borrowed from a Vietnam-era C.I.A. airline, is Anything, Anytime, Anywhere, Professionally. The airline was cited last year in a United Nations report for transporting military items into Libya.

Flight documents listed the planes destination as Jordan but they landed at Benghazi airport, near Mr. Hifters headquarters in eastern Libya.

Two speedboats rigid hull inflatables, a kind often used by special forces were leased from James Fenech, a licensed Maltese arms dealer.

Mr. Lodge, the commander, negotiated the deals, but they were contracted and paid for by several Dubai-based companies controlled or part-owned by Mr. Durrant.

One of the companies, Lancaster 6, is part of a network of similarly-named companies in Malta, the Emirates and the British Virgin Islands. Prosperity breeds peace, reads its website.

Another, Opus Capital Asset, is run by Amanda Kate Perry, a prominent British businesswoman in Dubai who promotes women entrepreneurs and was hailed by a local magazine, Emirates Woman, as one of its 2019 visionaries.

Reached by phone, Mr. Lodge, who has an address in Scotland, used an expletive to dismiss the accusations of violating the arms embargo, then hung up. Ms. Perry, reached by phone, declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Durrant dismissed the United Nations findings about the Libya mission as simply not factual and misinformed, and did not respond to further questions.

In Benghazi, Mr. Hifter was infuriated that the mercenaries had brought old aircraft one official called them clapped-out helicopters instead of the more powerful craft they had promised. A document obtained by the United Nations indicated that the promised aircraft included a Cobra attack helicopter and a LASA T-Bird, a crop duster adapted for reconnaissance and warfare.

Unable to come to terms with the Libyan commander, the mercenaries decided to pull back to Malta. But after leaving Benghazi on the night of July 2, one of their boats ran into trouble and had to be abandoned. All 20 men crammed onto a single boat and continued to Malta.

Weeks later, the abandoned boat was found by the Libyan Coast Guard and photographs of it appeared in local news media.

On his website, Mr. Durrant presents himself as an entrepreneur and a humanitarian worker, with a photo showing him holding a Kenyan baby. To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, reads one blog post.

A good part of his recent career, however, has been linked to Mr. Prince, a self-vaunting organizer of private military ventures whose Blackwater firm became notorious for killing 17 civilians in Iraq in 2007. In recent years Mr. Prince has pitched or organized private military ventures in Somalia, Mali, South Sudan and Afghanistan.

From 2014 to 2016, Mr. Durrant worked under Mr. Prince at a company called Frontier Services Group, where he led a contentious project to convert Thrush crop duster airplanes into cheap warplanes. The project was later transferred to a Bulgarian company linked to Mr. Prince, which called it the LASA T-Bird the same plane promised to Mr. Hifter.

In 2017, Mr. Durrant was linked to Mr. Princes proposal for a private air force to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan when Mr. Prince listed Lancaster 6 as a partner company in a submission to the Defense Department, The Military Times reported.

Mr. Durrant likes to flaunt his familiarity with Washington. His Facebook profile photo shows him wearing sunglasses at the podium of the press room at the Pentagon. An avid sailor, he co-owns a trimaran yacht with Mr. Prince, and last month posted photos of a catamaran emblazoned with the Blackwater logo on sale for $25,000. The same craft has been registered in Mr. Princes name.

Last July, as the mercenary operation in Libya was underway, Opus Capital, the Emirati firm, paid at least $60,000 to the Washington lobbyists Federal Associates to pitch the White House on what it called geopolitical issues in Africa.

Both Opus Capital and Lancaster 6 were cooperating with the United Nations investigators and had offered to meet them, said the spokeswoman for Mr. Durrant.

Mr. Prince had no role in the companies, she said. He is not a shareholder, director or working in either company, she said.

The international arms embargo on Libya is notoriously toothless. Anyone violating it faces a possible travel ban and an asset freeze yet only two non-Libyan nationals, both Eritrean people smugglers, have ever been sanctioned. Even senior United Nations officials call the embargo a joke.

Big powers cannot agree on who should be sanctioned, either because they are openly at odds over Libya, or, like the United States, have vacillating and contradictory policies.

While the United States officially supports the government in Tripoli, Mr. Trump has expressed support for Mr. Hifter, and last year his senior officials effectively greenlighted Mr. Hifters assault on Tripoli.

The mercenary operation came two months later.

The investigation into the mercenary operation is continuing. Officials say there is enough evidence already against some individuals to warrant sanctions.

But so far the only legal action has come from Malta, where the police last month charged the arms dealer, Mr. Fenech, and four of his employees with violating European Union sanctions for supplying the mercenaries with speedboats.

Mr. Fenech denied any wrongdoing. We have just chartered 2 vessels on a bare boat agreement and have found ourselves in a very unbelievable situation, he said in an email.

Mr. Fenech also has business ties with Mr. Prince. In 2018 they launched Blackwater Ammunition, which sells ammunition for assault rifles, knives and watches under the Blackwater brand.

Libyas chaotic war is so freewheeling that some profiteers have even managed to work both sides of the front line. But it can be risky.

On Aug. 5, a drone operated by Mr. Hifters forces bombed a cargo plane on the runway at Misurata, in government-held territory. It was the same SkyAviaTrans cargo plane that had delivered a helicopter to Mr. Hifter a month earlier.

This time, officials said, it was carrying military supplies to Tripoli.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

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By Air and Sea, Mercenaries Landed in Libya. Then the Plan Went South. - The New York Times

InMay, the Security Council is expected to receive briefings by theActing Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Stephanie Williams,and the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Jrgen Schulz, the Deputy PermanentRepresentative of Germany.A Secretary-Generalsreport on UNSMIL is also due in May.Additionally, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will deliver her semi-annual briefing on recent developments concerning cases in Libya.UNSMILsmandate expires on 15 September 2020.The authorisations given by resolutions 2473(to inspect vesselsbelieved to violatethe arms embargo)and 2491(to inspectvessels suspected ofmigrant smuggling orhuman trafficking)expire on 10 June 2020 and 3 October 2020, respectively.Measures related to the illicit exportof petroleumfrom Libya expire on 30 April 2021,andthe mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee expires on 15 May 2021.

Tomorrow (8 April), the Security Council is scheduled to hold a closed VTC on Libya. The focus of the meeting will be the new EU military operation in the Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR MED IRINI), which was launched on 1 April as...

Tomorrow morning (26 March), Security Council members will convene an informal videoconferencing meeting on the situation in Libya and the activities of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). Acting Special Representative and head of UNSMIL Stephanie Williams is...

In March, the Council is expected to receive briefings by the Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Ghassan Salam, and the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Jrgen Schulz, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany.UNSMILs mandate expires on 15 September 2020, measures related to the illicit export of petroleum from Libya expire on 30 April 2021, and the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee expires on 15 May 2021.

This afternoon (26 February), Security Council members are scheduled to meet in consultations on Libya. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Special Representative and head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Ghassan Salam are expected to brief....

Yesterday afternoon (12 February), the Security Council adopted a resolution endorsing the conclusions of the Berlin Conference on Libya (S/RES/2510). The resolution was adopted with 14 votes in favour and one abstention (Russia). Background Libyas capital, Tripoli, has been the...

Expected Council ActionIn February, the Council is expected to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee and renew the measures related to the illicit export of crude oil from Libya ahead of their expiry on 15 February 2020.The mandate of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) expires on 15 September 2020.

Tomorrow (29 January), the Security Council is expected to hold the bimonthly briefing and consultations on the United Nations Assistance Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and Libya sanctions. Special Representative and head of UNSMIL Ghassan Salam is expected to brief via...

In January, the Council is expected to receive briefings by the Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Ghassan Salam, and the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Jrgen Schulz, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany.

In November, the Council is expected to receive briefings by the Special Representative and head of UNSMIL, Ghassan Salam, and the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Jrgen Schulz, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany. Additionally, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will deliver her semi-annual briefing on recent developments concerning cases in Libya.The mandate of UNSMIL expires on 15 September 2020, and the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee expires on 15 February 2020.

Today (3 October), the Security Council is scheduled to renew the authorisation for member states, acting nationally or through regional organisations, to inspect vessels on the high seas off the coast of Libya that they have reasonable grounds to suspect...

In October, the Council is expected to renew the authorisation for member states, acting nationally or through regional organisations, to inspect vessels on the high seas off the coast of Libya that they have reasonable grounds to suspect are being used for migrant smuggling or human trafficking, which is set to expire on 3 October.The mandate of UNSMIL expires on 15 September 2020, and the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee expires on 15 February 2020.

Tomorrow morning (12 September), the Security Council is scheduled to adopt a resolution renewing the mandate of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), which is set to expire on 15 September. The situation in Libya Libyas capital, Tripoli,...

In September, the Council is expected to renew the mandate of UNSMIL, set to expire on 15 September. Briefings by the Special Representative and head of UNSMIL, Ghassan Salam, and the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany Ambassador Jrgen Schulz, are also anticipated. The mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee expires on 15 February 2020.

On Monday (29 July), the Security Council is scheduled to hold its bimonthly meeting on the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and Libya sanctions. Special Representative and head of UNSMIL Ghassan Salam is expected to brief via video teleconference...

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Libya Publications : Security Council Report

In Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, Washington toppled regimes and then failed to plan for a new government or construct effective local forceswith the net result being over 7,000 dead U.S. soldiers, tens of thousands of injured troops, trillions of dollars expended, untold thousands of civilian fatalities, and three Islamic countries in various states of disorder. We might be able to explain a one-off failure in terms of allies screwing up. But three times in a decade suggests a deeper pattern in the American way of war.

In the American mind, there are good wars: campaigns to overthrow a despot, with the model being World War II. And there are bad wars: nation-building missions to stabilize a foreign country, including peacekeeping and counterinsurgency. For example, the U.S. military has traditionally seen its core mission as fighting conventional wars against foreign dictators, and dismissed stabilization missions as military operations other than war, or Mootwa. Back in the 1990s, the chairman of the joint chiefs reportedly said, Real men dont do Mootwa. At the public level, wars against foreign dictators are consistently far more popular than nation-building operations.

The American way of war encourages officials to fixate on removing the bad guys and neglect the post-war stabilization phase. When I researched my book How We Fight, I found that Americans embraced wars for regime change but hated dealing with the messy consequences going back as far as the Civil War and southern reconstruction.

Dont all countries think this way? Interestingly, the answer is no. In modern conflicts, its actually pretty rare to insist on regime change. For example, China didnt demand it in its last major wars, against India in 1962, and Vietnam in 1979. Or consider the Gulf War in 1991, when over 70 percent of the American public wanted to march on Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein, compared to just 27 percent of the British public. (In this case, President George H. W. Bush resisted the pressure to escalate to regime change, which is one reason he received little credit for the Gulf War and lost his reelection campaign the following year.)

What about the distaste for stabilization operations? There are certainly plenty of examples in which other countries grew weary of nation-building. The war in Afghanistan isnt exactly popular in Europe. But many Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, and Australians see peacekeeping as a core military task. Japan will only send its forces outside the homeland for peacekeeping missions in places like Cambodia and Mozambique. In a poll in 1995, Canadians said their countrys top contribution to the world was peacekeepingand not, surprisingly enough, hockey. In Ottawa, theres even a Peacekeeping Monument celebrating the countrys involvement in stabilization missions. Its hard to imagine a similar memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

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The Libya Intervention: Obama's 'Worst Mistake' as America ...