Archive for the ‘Libya’ Category

Libya, the infernal trap – Reporters – FRANCE 24

Issued on: 09/12/2019 - 18:01Modified: 09/12/2019 - 18:01

FRANCE 24 brings you an exclusive documentary filmed in war-torn Libya by Catherine Norris Trent, Julie Dungelhoeff and Abdallah Malkawi. This special report takes you to the front linesof the conflict and to the heart of the huge migration crisis unfolding there.

Libya has been in turmoil ever since the 2011 revolution that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and the latest battles in the civil war there are playing out on the outskirts of the capital, Tripoli, where theconflict has been simmering for eight long months against a dystopian backdropof abandoned homes. Amultitude of once-rival militias fromthe west are battling to repel an offensive launched by a strongman from the east, Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar.

It is a fragmented front line and the battle is patchy and uneven, too:At times, young fighters wearing flip-flops and baseball caps fire ageing AK47s, with no real advances or losses of territory for weeks at a time. At other moments, advanced technology threatens in the form of combat drones. Militia fighters accuse Haftar's forces of relying on drone strikes by the UAE and Egypt, while the commander of GNA (Government of National Accord, the internationally recognised government based in western Libya) fighters confirmed to FRANCE 24 that their side has received and uses Turkish drones.

>> EU's Margaritis Schinas: 'No one is happy or proud with the situation in Libya'

Meanwhile, caught up on the margins of this complex proxy war are up to a million people, mainly sub-Saharan migrants. Many are locked in detention centres run by militias or human traffickers. Even in the eight centres officially controlled by the GNA, they're not protected from the conflict. In July, 60 migrants locked in the Tajoura detention centre were killed when an air strike hit their hangars. And some migrants have told FRANCE 24 they had been conscripted to work for militias, cleaning weapons and transporting dead bodies.

Find out more about the complex and harrowing Libyan conflict in this report, which contains rare, never-before-seen images.

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Libya, the infernal trap - Reporters - FRANCE 24

Libya and the Future of NATO – Forbes

France's President Emmanuel Macron addresses members of the media as he leaves from 10 Downing ... [+] Street, central London on December 3, 2019, after meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other heads of State, ahead of the NATO alliance summit. - NATO leaders gather Tuesday for a summit to mark the alliance's 70th anniversary but with leaders feuding and name-calling over money and strategy, the mood is far from festive. (Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / various sources / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images)

By Ethan Chorin and Dirk Vandewalle

French President Emmanuel Macron struck a raw nerve last weekby calling NATO brain dead and urging its membership not to rely on the United Sates fordirection (which in any case is unlikely to come soon).Macrons comments followed President Trumps sudden and unilateral decision to remove U.S. troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, which allowed Turkey a NATO member to overwhelm Syrian Kurds, key Western allies in the fight against ISIS.

While Turkish actions in Syria are of immediate concern,Libya should be at the forefront of discussions at the current NATO Summit in London.For what happens next in Libya is immediately relevant to core NATO interests including combatting terrorism, addressing Europes migrant crisis, curbing Russianopportunism in the Middle East, and assuring the long-term viability of the Alliance itself.

Libya has been in turmoil since the NATO-led intervention in March 2011 that ousted Libya's nearly 42-year dictator Muammar Gaddafi. In launching Operation Unified Protector, NATO and the U.S. appealed to an aspirational international humanitarian norm, the Responsibly to Protect (R2P).Many then hoped that Libya would be a bright spot among the Arab Revolutions. But the hands-off approach by the U.S. and NATO encouraged states like Turkey and Qatar to steer national elections in Libya in favor of parochial groups and Islamist minorities.This development, once it was apparent, was deeply opposed by most Libyans, who were powerless to stop it.This was the immediate context for the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, drove the West out of Benghazi, and facilitated the citys takeover by Al Qaeda and then, the Islamic State.

Promising to deliver Benghazi from Islamic extremists, former Gaddafi-era general Khalifa Heftar created the Libyan National Army, which through a bloody war of attrition freed Benghazi from the ISIS-Al Qaeda grip in 2016. Although Heftars actions were popular within large parts of Libya, the international communityhas spurned Heftar as yet another authoritarian strongman and backed a U.N.-built political agreement, which arbitrarily took authority from an elected government and put it in the hands of an unelected, and still unratified body, hoping it would rubber-stamp Western air attacks on the emergent Libyan franchise oftheIslamic State, and solve the migrant issue.It did neither:U.S. strikes were largely ineffective,andthe refugee crisis eased only when Italy paid human traffickers operating in theshadow of the Tripoli government to keep migrants in Libya, under appalling conditions.

More recentlyHeftar and the LNA have taken the fight from Benghazi and Libyas East to Libyas capital of Tripoli, where they are waging another war of attrition to break the militia stranglehold.And here is where the extent of internal NATO discord is most obvious: France is widely seen to back Heftar; Turkey hasramped up efforts to back the Tripoli militias againstHeftar, while the U.N. continues to call for an unconditional cease fire that would allowthe militias toregroup.A number of Arab states, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, form a pro-Heftar front. As in Syria, it is unclear where the United States stands, as House Democrats, with some Republican support, have recently put forward a hodgepodge Libya bill that smells more like partisan politics (opposing President Trumps apparent recent nods to Heftar), than coherent policy. Meanwhile, Russia and radical groups continue to exploit the power vacuum to advance their own interests.

The authorswarned at the start of the conflict in 2012 that NATO would have to deal with the Gordian knot of the Libyan militias sooner or later.And while many in the West realize it, few are willing to state the obvious: Heftar has been doing NATOs dirty work.Turning a blind eye to this reality, now as in the past, carries significant risks:if Heftar manages to take control of Libya, the popular assumption will be that this was the Wests preferred outcome all along, and NATO and the West will have limited leverage over what comes next.

Heftar has done his part to keep Libya from one side of the abyss, but Libyans are unlikely to acquiesce to a Sisi-like rule after years of bloody internal conflict. Nor is it clear what exactly Heftars end game is:So far, he has deferred to Libyas elected government-in-exile, and insists that he will hand over control to a civilian government once Libya has been stabilized. He must be held to these commitments.Waiting encourages events on the ground to dictate larger outcomes.

Within this chaos, and assuming NATO is capable of projecting a unified front (indeed, this was the essence of Macron's challenge), NATO has an unconventional opportunity toleverage Heftars momentum to stabilize Libya, address themigrant crisis, and dealwith terrorism and Russian expansionismwithout creating new fissures.

The first step would be to put strong and specific conditions on Heftars advance.NATO could, forexample, offer to broker and enforce a cease-fire that provided combatants on all sides safe passage and immunity from all but war crimes, but in return for immediate disarmament.It should censure Turkey for its destructive actions in both Syria and Libya, and prevent the additional flow of arms and fighters into the country.And it should help Libya form an interim, technocratic government, pending a new nationalelection and in accordance with a provisional constitution (a quasi-internal consensus seems tohave emerged regarding therelevance of the country's 1963 Federalist constitution to alonger term process of national integration and reconciliation).This would have the added benefit of effectively ending, once and for all, the fiction that the United Nations Government of National Accord (GNA) is a viableframework for solving Libya's ills.Further,NATO should help safeguard Libyas oil and gas resources, crucial to both Libyas and Europes economic well-being, and encourage regional states to invest in the diversification of Libya's regional economies intoareas like maritime services, tourism and medical infrastructure.

Collectively, these measures constitute a much-belated application of the Responsibility to Rebuild (R2R), which in original formulations was seen as an indispensable component to any R2P intervention.

Despite its current identity crisis, NATO may be the only organization still able to make this happen, just as it was the only organization judged capable of managing acomplex, multi-partymilitary response to Gaddafi in the first place.And paradoxically, by working through the obstacles to a unified position on Libya, NATO may be reminded of its raison d'tre, while its traditional lead, the United States, works out its own internal divisions.

Ethan Chorin is a former U.S. diplomat posted to Libya and author of Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution. Dirk Vandewalle is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and author of A Modern History of Libya.

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Libya and the Future of NATO - Forbes

With the Help of Russian Fighters, Libya’s Haftar Could Take Tripoli – Foreign Policy

TRIPOLI, LibyaIn a shattered villa south of the Libyan capital that serves as his field headquarters, a middle-aged militia commander named Mohammed al-Darrat, an engineer in another life, fretted over incoming ordnance. These were not just any artillery shells, he explained during a lull in the fighting late last month: They homed on their target through a laser designation from a ground spotter. The projectiles had forced him to move his headquarters more than three times in the last several weeks. And they were just one of several worrying upgrades to the arsenal of his foes in this latest phase of Libyas ongoing civil war, which started on April 4, when a septuagenarian Libyan general named Khalifa Haftar launched an assault to topple the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

Ostensibly undertaken to rid the capital of militias, the campaign by Haftars self-styled Libyan National Army (also called the Libyan Arab Armed Forces, a coalition of regular units and militias) was in fact a baldfaced grab for power and wealth. The United Nations envoy to Libya has said it sounded more like a coup. As it unfolded, al-Darrat and other militia leaders from Tripoli and its environs set aside their differences to confront the incursion. They were joined by fighters from across the country: On the front lines recently, I met militiamen from the eastern city of Benghazi and ethnic Tuareg from Libyas deep south. The war that ensued started as a grinding, largely stalemated fight that blended aging Soviet artillery and state-of-the-art drones, piloted by personnel from the United Arab Emirates, which backs Haftar, and Turkey, which supports the GNA.

But the deck was shuffled in early September, which saw the arrival to the Tripoli front of yet another foreign meddlermore than 100 Russian mercenaries from the so-called Wagner Group early that month, joined, in recent weeks, by hundreds of additional fighters, whove inflicted an uptick in casualties among al-Darrat and his men. The Libyan commander bemoaned the apparent improvement in the precision of the ever present armed drones that destroy his vehicles at will, day or night, constricting his movements and forcing him to hunker down for hours on end. There is a seemingly endless supply of mortars that rain down. Russian anti-tank missiles, the dreaded Kornets, snake between sand berms to incinerate their target with a devastating accuracy.

And then there are the Russian snipers. Their shots to the chest and head, al-Darrat says, reveal a professionalism hes never seen before, accounting for 30 percent of the deaths in his unit. One of these marksmen had recently killed a 23-year-old fighter, whose body still lay on the battlefield. al-Darrat and his men plotted for hours one morning about how to retrieve it using ropes or armored cars: It lay directly in the path of snipers, whod already wounded a soldier in a previous recovery attempt, with an anti-materiel rifle. The mission seemed all the more urgent because the dead mans father was imploring al-Darrat to return his corpse.

All this may sound like good news to Haftar, who, for the first time, could conceivably take Tripoli. But the battlefield advantages that come with Russian aid may carry costs. On Nov. 14, the U.S. State Department issued its most forceful condemnation yet of his war, singling out his militia by name and asserting that his alliance with Russian mercenaries is a dangerous breach of Libyan sovereignty. In tandem, the U.S. Congress is growing considerably more concerned about the wars effect on civilians and its boon to Russian influence in the region. Bipartisan legislation is pending in both the House and Senate that would place sanctions on the Russian contractors and their enablers.

Together, these moves represent an encouraging departure from months of U.S. ambivalence about the latest twist in the Libyan civil war. The disastrous wait and see policy stemmed from a phone call by U.S. President Donald Trump to Haftar in mid-April, in which he endorsed the generals attack as being in line with U.S. counterterrorism goals. Beyond its boost to Haftars war, thephone call was confounding because most of Americas counterterrorism activity inwesternLibya has been conducted with the militia commanders whom Haftar is now fighting. al-Darrat is one of them. In 2016, I had joined him as he led militiamen in a battle against the Islamic State in its stronghold in the central city of Sirte. Back then, he had U.S. intelligence and airstrikes to help him. But now he questions Washingtons commitment to its old allies.

He doubts that the State Departments Nov. 14 statement and Congresss increased scrutiny will mark a constructive shift in U.S. policy. Not much will change from America, he told me the day after the announcement, in the weary tone of a hardened soldier. And theyre going to attack tonight, he predicted of Haftars forces, in a defiant retort to Washingtons admonitions. And sure enough, at the front after dusk, two missiles from an Emirati drone streaked across the sky. Hearing the low-pitched hum of another, we ducked under some foliage until it was out of earshot.

The next morning, there was a volley of mortars and machine gun fire from Haftars positions, only several hundred yards away, to dodge.

They hit us under a tree! A fighter ran up to tell al-Darrat. We had to fall back!

Deal with the enemy! the commander exhorted his men. But the young mans belt-fed machine gun had jammed.

Fighters dashed back-and-forth, and mutual accusations were shouted into walkie-talkiesYou didnt cover my flank! The toll of this relentless violencethe results of Haftars recent technological edgewas etched on the faces of these combatants: It was a stark difference from when I met them this summer, when they were flush with a boisterous confidence.

Several days later, in the midst of another barrage, one of al-Darrats fighters radioed back to an operations room and begged for artillery support, which had been severely degraded by Haftars strikes.

Theres two or three of us dying here every day, the fighter pleaded. If you dont give us artillery, Im going home.

It wasnt an empty threat: al-Darrat later acknowledged that some of his men have left the front and done just that. Hes asked for reinforcements from other parts of the Tripoli battlefield, but they arent coming, he said, because this section of the front is known for producing a lot of martyrs. But thats only part of the story: An undercurrent of distrust runs deep among the disparate armed groups in and around the capital, which are unified mostly by a shared enmity toward Haftar.

Meanwhile, the damage that Haftars war is inflicting on Libyas political unity and social fabric is becoming more severe as each day passes. It is probably irreparable. Driving through Tripoli after a visit with al-Darrats forces, the evidence is everywhere. More than 140,000 people have been displaced in and around the capital because of the fighting. The beleaguered Tripoli government, the GNAnever a paragon of service deliveryis failing in even basic functions of governance and incurring the wrath of citizens. Some of the corrupt militias that nominally ally themselves to this government are growing more brazen because of the war.

Civilian deaths are mounting, the result of reckless airstrikes by Haftar-aligned jets and drones that have drawn little distinction between military and nonmilitary targets. The horrific results were apparent one cloudless afternoon. In a verdant area south of the capital sat a biscuit factory that had been struck just hours before by Emirati drones flying on behalf of Haftars forces. Smoldering vehicles lay wrecked next to an alfalfa field where panicked workers had fled the factory. Impact craters, ringed by stains of blood, charred clothes, and scraps of human flesh, were all around. Field hospital staff reported that 10 civilians had died and dozens were wounded. The United Nations envoy to Libya has called the strike a possible war crime. This scene of carnage has been repeated with impunity countless times, against hospitals, a migrant detention center, and ordinary homes.

If ever there were a moment for more resolute U.S. diplomacy on Libya, it is now. A modestly positive sign of that happening occurred last week, when a high-level U.S. delegation, including a senior White House official, met with Haftar at an undisclosed location to reportedly urge a halt to the fighting. But its far from enough. The Libyan general has a history of using such meetings with diplomats to bide for time while he advances on the groundand of interpreting anodyne U.S. utterances as a yellow light. And right now, with battlefield momentum in his favor, he has little incentive to stand down, especially if his foreign patrons continue to egg him on. Beyond applying stronger, unequivocal pressure on Haftar, then, and in addition to opposing Russian interference, the United States must convince the United Arab Emirates, Haftars most powerful Arab ally, to stop its direct military intervention and return to dialogue. Doing so doesnt mean taking sides or giving unconditional endorsement to the problematic GNAwhich, tragically, a U.N.-brokered process prior to Haftars April 4 attack was intended to replace. Rather, it is about averting an imminent humanitarian catastrophe and a longer-term conflictboth of which could be exploited by Russia, which may position itself as a fresh power broker.

Contrary to the propaganda of Haftars backers, the collapse of the GNA cordon in southern Tripoli and a push into downtown areas, abetted by a brutal Russian ground campaign and Emirati air power, will not produce a quick victory. Instead, bloody block-by-block street fighting is likely to ensue, especially in neighborhoods and enclaves long opposed to the generals project: Militiamen from some of them recently told me that they would fight to the death. If he takes power, the militia firmament in Tripolitania will not disappear but will continue, albeit reconfigured, rebranded, and under Haftars loose authoritya co-option strategy hes employed toward armed groups elsewhere in Libya. And Haftars style of governancecurrently marked by the stoking of communal tensions in the south and economic predation and repression in the eastwill not foster much-needed unity but will force his opponents into an protracted insurgency. That conflict could indirectly give new life to weakened radical groups like the Islamic State or inspire some new jihadi mutation opposed to the tyrant in Tripolian ironic twist given the counterterrorism narrative that Haftar has long sold to the world.

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With the Help of Russian Fighters, Libya's Haftar Could Take Tripoli - Foreign Policy

Jaunt to Gaddafi’s Libya was the trip of a lifetime for a combined St Pat’s-Bohs side – Independent.ie

And the story of a trip by a combined Bohemians/St Patrick's Athletic side to Libya in 1989 has made it to the small screen, a documentary, In League With Gaddafi, being shown on RT1 tonight.

At the heart of the gripping tale was a simple game of football, a 1-1 draw between that Bohs/Pats XI and club side Al Ahly in Benghazi played in front of a crowd estimated at 50,000.

But around the trip there was a political row over the visit due to Libya's funding of the IRA, a link with the beef industry, a run-in (and near arrest) with the Libyan police over a late-night drinking den, that bag full of cash, and confusion, a lot of confusion.

One of the most confused parties were the Libyans themselves as they, somehow, thought the game was against the senior Ireland side which had played at Euro '88 just months earlier, and instead they got a squad combined of little-known League of Ireland footballers.

Some of the Irish party are convinced they met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the game, even though that didn't happen.

Kevin Brannigan, the documentary maker, recalls how local media there wondered why Ronnie Whelan wasn't a member of the party which landed in Libya.

The game had its roots in the FAI Cup, as both of the clubs were knocked out at the first-round stage. With a free weekend, the clubs were approached about a trip to Libya, a chance to boost their coffers.

"We were offered a fee which was quite attractive because it was going to pay a couple of weeks' wages which was really important to us," Brian Kerr, joint manager of the side, along with Billy Young, recalls.

"But it also gave the players the opportunity to get some international experience in a totally different environment."

Getting paid was a problem: the Bohs/Pats party were given cash as they were about to leave but instead of payment in dollars they received Libyan dinars, effectively worthless outside of the country.

The money was, eventually, changed, in the short-term Bohs and Pats were able to pay wages, but long-term, memories of a trip of a lifetime were built.

In League With Gaddafi, RT 1, tonight, 9.35.

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Jaunt to Gaddafi's Libya was the trip of a lifetime for a combined St Pat's-Bohs side - Independent.ie

EU-funded alternative to detention centres fails in Libya – The Irish Times

Until the middle of this year, long-suffering refugees in war-torn Libya called the UN Refugee Agencys gathering and departure facility (GDF) in Tripoli the hotel because it was the best place they had been in years.

Water, food, everything is available, extolled a Sudanese man in his early 20s, who stayed there at the beginning of 2019 and is now in Sweden. Its not a hotel but people call it a hotel because they find it suitable for living.

Dear, when you leave a detention centre maybe youll call it paradise, he said, referring to the government-aligned detention centres in which human rights abuses are regularly documented.

In the past week, more than 100 refugees and asylum seekers have agreed to leave the facility after UNHCR staff said they will withdraw food and refuse to process evacuation cases for anyone left inside.

There is a shortage of food, said one Eritrean who took the money on offer roughly 100 to leave the centre. Humanitarian organisations . . . (do) not mind or care about us. What is the (point) of staying at (the) GDF? I take (a) risk on my (belief in) God.

Many of those inside the GDF have already tried to get to Europe, but were intercepted on the Mediterranean Sea by the EU-supported Libyan coast guard. Initially, the GDF was supposed to be an alternative to the detention centres roughly 6,000 are locked up in, where diseases and abuse are rife, and some refugees go months or years without seeing sunlight.

The GDF was opened to much fanfare one year ago. It was funded by the EU to the tune of 2.1 million and was supposed to have capacity to protect 1,000 refugees. Over the past few months, though, UNHCR staff say the capacity has dropped to 600 and it is severely overcrowded.

UNHCR staff say they have become unable to manage it and food provision will stop by the end of December. Among those sheltering in the GDF are hundreds of survivors of the July Tajoura detention centre bombing, in which at least 53 refugees and migrants were killed, though witnesses say the real death toll was much higher.

Refugees say they will be in danger if made fend for themselves in Tripoli. Some havent been outside or alone in years, and risk being kidnapped again by traffickers or exploited by militants, they say.

Conditions in Libya remain extremely challenging and fighting is intensifying, said Charlie Yaxley, a UNHCR spokesman, in an email to The Irish Times. This has impacted everybody inside the country, including ordinary Libyan civilians, some 600,000 foreign workers, around 40,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as our own staff. Despite these significant challenges, we remain committed to providing assistance to refugees in Libya.

The situation in recent weeks has drastically changed in the GDF due to overcrowding, he said. The protection concerns that have arisen as a result has led to us to reassess our role and to strengthen our assistance in urban areas.

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EU-funded alternative to detention centres fails in Libya - The Irish Times