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A member of the Libyan National Army fires his weapon in Benghazi's central Akhribish district on July 6, 2017. AFP / Abdullah Doma

BENGHAZI // Extremists are still battling Libyan forces in Benghazi days after strongman Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled army declared victory in the eastern city.

ColMiloud Zwei, spokesman for Haftar's Libyan National Army, said on Sundaythe fighting persisted in the district of Soug Al Jarid, located between the central neighbourhoods of Soug Al Hout and Al Sabri, the extremists' last strongholds.

Col Zwei said 20 LNA soldiers have been killed by "terrorists" who had been hiding in houses since Haftar on Wednesday announced the "total liberation" of Benghazi.

Three others were killed on Sunday in mine blasts as soldiers carried out search operations in Al Sabri and Soug Al Hout, he added.

Col Zwei said LNA forces had killed several jihadists and arrested 17 since Wednesday.

Field Marshal Haftar declared war on extremists in Benghazi three years after the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed Libyan dictator Muammer Qaddafi.

Code-named Operation Dignity, the offensive targeted several jihadists groups which had overrun Benghazi after the uprising.

These include the Revolutionary Shura Council of Benghazi, an alliance of Islamist militias among them suspected members of the Islamic state group and the Al Qaeda-linked Ansar Al Sharia.

On Sunday, he was in the UAE for talks with top UAE leaders on military cooperation, state media in Abu Dhabi reported.

Haftar does not recognise the authority of the UN-backed Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli, instead backing an alternate government set up in the country's east.

After he announced that extremists forces were driven from Benghazi, thousands of residents took to the streets of Libya's second city to celebrate.

But on Sunday the LNA urged residents to avoid entering the "liberated areas" of the city, where they said mines were still being cleared.

Read more:
Extremists battle Libya forces in 'liberated' Benghazi - The National

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The Coast Guard of the Libyan Navy, rescued eighty African migrants from various nationalities off the coast of Castelverde yesterday, after receiving information of their presence from Libyan fishermen. Among those rescued were 20 women and 7 children, said naval spokesman, Colonel Ayoub Qasim, adding that the Coast Guard rushed to the scene where the boat had crashed. Those still afloat were clinging to the driftwood created by the crushed boat. The scene was six miles north of the castelverde, and 10 Libyan fishermens boats participated in the rescue.

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Zuara Municipal Council held a meeting with members of the Red Cross organization at the Zuara Guest House. According to the Councils Facebook page, some of the topics discussed at the meeting were illegal immigration and what the Red Cross could provide the municipality to help tackle it. It was also stated that the Red Cross provided assistance, including supply of body bags and other special items for dealing with corpses. It was agreed that a meeting would be held at a later date to organize future health training courses.

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Four children, four women and three men departed yesterday evening from Matiga International Airport destined for Tunisia to receive urgent healthcare after severe injuries sustained at the beach incident on the Shat Road. The Central Operations Room of the Ministry of Health had announced earlier that the final count after an accidental shell struck innocent beachgoers on the Shat Road was 32 wounded and 5 deaths.

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One of the members of the Dialogue Committee of the House of Representatives, Ziad Daghim, said he was surprised at statements made by the First Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Emhamed Shoaib. Shoaib described meetings in the Netherlands between the delegations of the House of Representatives and the High Council State as contrary to all expectations, and a deviation from the political agreement, causing confusion. Daghim stressed in a press statement that the provisions of the agreement limited the right to amend between the two sides without specifying who would supervise such amendments or where and when they would take place.

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The President of the Presidential Council Fayez Sarraj revealed that his governments contacts of the highest level have made contact with Saudi authorities to release the Libyan detainees who originate from the city of Zawiyah. The detainees were arrested at Jeddah airport after performing Ummrah. The details were released after the meeting between Sarraj and his Foreign Minister Mohamed Sayala and attended by a delegation of representatives of the city of Zawiyah and a number of the families of the detainees in Tripoli last Saturday.

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The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UN proposed government, Mohamed Sayala, discussed the return of the Spanish companies to complete suspended projects contracted before 2011 in the oil sector. Sayala called for facilitating the Spanish visa to Libyans, especially the sick and wounded, and to help Libyan students to study and train in Spain. This came during his meeting with the Spanish Foreign Minister on the sidelines of his participation in the International Ministerial Conference on Illegal Immigration held in Rome.

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Unknown gunmen assassinated the head of the security department of Gharyan, Colonel Abd AlRazzaq Amish, on his way home on Saturday evening. Colonel Amish was shot dead and died instantly in front of his house with the perpetrators yet to be determined. The Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Abd Salam Ashour, denied there were any threats to Colonel Amishs life and his feeling is that the murder is unlikely to have any political dimensions.

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Corinthia Hotel management will begin opening reservations for hotel guests by the beginning of August, according to Corinthia Hotel representative. The representative added that all relevant measures have been taken to resume work, reopen reservations and welcome both domestic and international guests. The hotel management said that they have secured and provided all amenities at the hotel which has only recently reopened up for reservations of wedding ceremonies, hosting conferences, forums and workshops after it was all closed after being targeted by ISIS late 2014.

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A workshop on partnership with the Municipal Council of Sirte on building the vision of reconstruction and development was organized by the Tunisian Republican Institute and concluded in Tunis on Saturday evening. The workshop ended up with a series of recommendations on security, reconstruction, local economic recovery, community reconciliation and development. The workshop was attended by the Mayor of the Municipality of Sirte Mokhtar Al-Madani, members of the Municipal Council, experts, consultants and representatives of civil society organizations.

Read this article:
News Roundup - Sun, Jul 9, 2017 - The Libya Observer

ROME European Union officials reaffirmed the need to tackle Europe's migrant crisis in Libya and surrounding countries, amid continued resistance in Europe to welcome refugees.

Italy announced some $34 million in new investments aimed at preventing migrants from ever reaching or leaving Libya's lawless shores where smugglers operate. And EU interior ministers warned they might sanction migrants' home countries with visa restrictions if they refuse to take their people back when their European asylum bids fail.

Europe's migration crisis was on the agenda at two meetings Thursday: an informal EU-wide interior ministers meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, and a meeting in Rome of foreign ministers from Libya, surrounding African countries and selected European partners.

Amid mounting anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe, Italy has increased its complaints that it can no longer shoulder the burden of the migrant crisis alone. Faced with national elections later this year or next, the Italian government has recently threatened to close its ports to non-Italian flagged rescue ships in hopes of forcing other European countries to take migrants in.

In Rome, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said Italy was pledging 10 million euros to help Libya's southern neighbors Niger, Chad and Sudan better control their borders so migrants can't reach Libya. Another 18 million euros is slated for the voluntary repatriations of migrants who reach Libya and decide not to continue their journeys north.

"In order to lower the numbers leaving Libya, we have to lower the numbers entering," Alfano told a press conference.

In Tallinn, the interior ministers called for aid groups conducting rescue operations in the Mediterranean to follow a code of conduct, after prosecutors in Italy have accused some of complicity with Libyan-based smugglers.

The ministers also vowed to crack down on countries that refuse to take their nationals home when their asylum bids fail in Europe, including imposing limits to visa programs.

And they promised to "enhance the capacity of the Libyan coast guard," to better patrol its coasts and turn back migrant boats, despite renewed criticism from Amnesty International that such a policy is "reckless" given Libya's lawlessness.

On the eve of the meeting, the human rights group said the turnback policy risked victimizing desperate migrants even more since they risk grave human rights abuses once returned to Libya and trapped there.

More than 2,000 migrants to Europe have died at sea so far this year while over 73,380 have reached Italy. By year's end, the number of arrivals is expected to match or exceed the 181,400 who made it in 2016, which was more than in the two previous years, the report said.

Amnesty said it was "deeply problematic" to unconditionally fund and train Libya, where human rights are lacking and the coast guard has been known for violence and even smuggling.

The group cited an August incident off Libya's coast in which attackers shot at a Doctors Without Borders rescue boat. A U.N panel of experts on Libya later confirmed that two officers from a coast guard faction were involved.

In May, the Libyan coast guard intervened in a search-and-rescue operation another non-governmental organization was performing. The coast guard officers threatened migrants with weapons, took command of their wooden boat and took it back to Libya, Amnesty reported.

Amnesty is not alone in its concern.

The search-and-rescue director for Save the Children, Rob MacGillivray, said in a statement that rescued migrants have recounted horrors from Libya, including claims of sexual assaults, sales to others for work and whippings and electrical shocks in detention centers.

"Simply pushing desperate people back to Libya, which many describe as hell, is not a solution," MacGillivray said.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitri Avramopoulos conceded at a recent news conference in Paris that the EU is drawing on a country in "very precarious conditions." (AP)

Read the original:
EU leaders reaffirm Libya migrant policy despite criticism - The Philadelphia Tribune

In a television address Wednesday paying homage to a caravan of martyrs who fell in the recent battle for Benghazi, the former Gen. Haftar declared: After a continuous struggle against terrorism and its agents that lasted more than three years Today Benghazi enters a new era of peace, security, reconciliation and reconstruction, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Aid from Russia has fueled the growing strength of Gen. Haftar, who reportedly reached an agreement allowing him to run for president of Libya next year, under apact with the current LibyanPrime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.This year, American Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the chief of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), told reporters that Russia is fomenting instability and worsening the deteriorating political condition of the country. While Moscow lends financial and military support to Gen. Haftars faction that controls eastern Libya, the United States is backing the United Nations-sanctioned Government of National Accord (GNA).

Gen. Haftar declared war on the fighters controlling Benghazi in 2014, three years after the 2011 U.S.-backed overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his subsequent execution.

The ruthless Benghazi-based al-Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) is responsible for the Sept. 11, 2012,attack on an American diplomatic compound that killed four Americans: U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty.

However, recent heavy losses have decimated ASL leadership and wiped out its fighters, prompting ASL to announce in May it is disbanding, a claim that has yet to materialize.

As in the past, ASLs demise may allow the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) to regroup in Libya, once the groups largest bastion outside Iraq and Syria. ASL reportedly helped ISIS establish its branch in the past, possibly as a means to stay alive a relevant a wing of the ruthless Islamic State.

Benghazi remains ASLs main stronghold. At the peak of its power, Ansar al-Sharia was present in Benghazi and Derna in eastern Syria, with offshoots in the coast city of Sirte and Sabratha in western Libya.

Libya became a breeding ground for jihadists group after the 2011 removal of Gaddafi.

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Libya: Russia-Backed Khalifa Haftar Declares Benghazi 'Liberated' from Jihadists - Breitbart News

OPEC is considering putting a limit on how much oil members Nigeria and Libya can pump, cartel delegates say, as surging production from those countries is complicating the cartels plans to influence crude prices.

Libyas crude-oil output has surged to over one million barrels a day, up from 400,000 in October, while Nigerias output has risen to 1.6 million barrels a day, up 200,000 barrels a day since October, according to JBC, a Vienna-based energy-industry consultancy.

Those increases have unnerved the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the 14-nation cartel that joined forces last year with Russia and other big non-OPEC producers in an agreement to withhold almost 1.8 million barrels of oil CLQ7, -2.61% LCOU7, -2.41% from market every day. Libya and Nigeria were exempted from the obligation to cut because their industries had been crippled by civil unrest.

Nigeria is definitely becoming a worry for us, said a delegate to OPEC from a Persian Gulf Arab country. OPEC delegates from several other countries echoed his concerns.

An expanded version of this report is on WSJ.com.

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OPEC mulls oil production caps for Libya, Nigeria - MarketWatch