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MOSCOW A force of several dozen armed private security contractors from Russia operated until last month in a part of Libya that is under the control of regional leader Khalifa Haftar, the head of the firm that hired the contractors told Reuters.

It is the clearest signal to date that Moscow is prepared to back up its public diplomatic support for Haftar -- even at the risk of alarming Western governments already irked at Russia's intervention in Syria to prop up President Bashar al-Assad.

Haftar is opposed to a U.N.-backed government which Western states see as the best chance of restoring stability in Libya. But some Russian policy-makers see the Libyan as a strongman who can end the six years of anarchy that followed the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.

The presence of the military contractors was, according to the head of the firm, a commercial arrangement. It is unlikely though to have been possible without Moscow's approval, according to people who work in the industry in Russia.

Oleg Krinitsyn, owner of private Russian firm RSB-group, said he sent the contractors to eastern Libya last year and they were pulled out in February having completed their mission.

In an interview with Reuters, he said their task was to remove mines from an industrial facility near the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, in an area that Haftar's forces had liberated from Islamist rebels.

He declined to say who hired his firm to provide the contractors, where they were operating or what the industrial facility was. He did not say if the operation had been approved by the U.N.-backed government, which most states view as the sovereign ruler of Libya.

Asked whether the mission had official blessing from Moscow, Krinitsyn said his firm did not work with the Russian defense ministry, but was "consulting" with the Russian foreign ministry.

The contractors did not take part in combat, Krinitsyn said, but they were armed with weapons they obtained in Libya. He declined to specify what type of weapons. A U.N. arms embargo prohibits the import of weapons to Libya unless it is under the control of the U.N.-backed government.

Krinitsyn said his contractors were ready to strike back in case of an attack.

"If we're under assault we enter the battle, of course, to protect our lives and the lives of our clients," Krinitsyn said. "According to military science, a counterattack must follow an attack. That means we would have to destroy the enemy."

Military and government officials in eastern Libya said they were not aware of the presence of the contractors, while Haftar did not respond to a request for comment.

Officials in Western Libya, where the U.N.-backed government is based, were not immediately available to comment. The Russian foreign ministry said it was working on a response to Reuters questions bit had not commented by Friday.

MOSCOW'S PROXIES

Underscoring Libya's volatility, Haftar's forces have this week been fighting to regain control over the Mediterranean oil terminals of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, which a rival faction seized earlier this month.

Russia has a record of using private military contractors as an extension of its own military.

In Syria, military contractors have been widely used in combat roles in conjunction with Russian regular forces and their Syrian allies, according to multiple accounts given to Reuters by people involved in the operations. Moscow has not acknowledged using private contractors in Syria.

Russian security companies do not reveal the background of people they hire but the contractors usually are special forces veterans.

Krinitsyn, the owner of the company which hired the contractors for Libya, was an officer of the Russian border guard service based in Tajikistan, on the border with Afghanistan, where he said he gained battlefield experience.

Krinitsyn said some of the contractors he hired for Libya has previously worked in Syria, though not in combat roles.

He declined to say how many contractors were involved in the mission in Libya, citing commercial secrecy. However, he said that in general, a de-mining operation of this type would require around 50 mine clearance experts and around the same number for their security detail.

HAWKISH CAMP

Haftar has been seeking outside help to consolidate his control over parts of Libya. Russia has shown a willingness to engage with him that contrasts with the more cautious approach of Western governments.

Haftar visited Moscow in November last year and met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In December, Haftar went on board a Russian aircraft carrier off the Libyan coast and spoke with the Russian defense minister via videolink. In recent weeks, Russia has taken in 100 of Haftar's wounded fighters for medical treatment.

Moscow also received Haftar's rival, Fayez Serraj, the head of the UN-backed government, for talks this month.

President Vladimir Putin, newly confident from the Russian military intervention in Syria, is anxious to restore stability in Libya. But foreign diplomats familiar with Russian thinking say there is so far no consensus on how to achieve that.

They say the foreign ministry wants Haftar to join forces with the U.N.-backed government. But the diplomats say there is a more hawkish camp, centered on the Russian defense ministry and some people in the Kremlin, which favors backing Haftar to establish control over the whole of Libya.

Krinitsyn, the contractors' boss, said that while in Libya his employees had run into a group of local militants. He said the militants were initially hostile, but became friendly when they realized the outsiders were Russians.

"It was an uncomfortable situation but the image created by Putin in Syria played a positive role. We realized that Russia is welcomed in Libya more than other countries are," he said.

(Additional reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi, Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli and Christian Lowe in Moscow; Editing by Giles Elgood)

GENEVA North Korea boycotted a U.N. review of its human rights record on Monday, shunning calls to hold to account the Pyongyang leadership for crimes against humanity documented by the world body.

MOSUL Iraqi forces battling Islamic State faced tough resistance from snipers and mortar rounds on Monday as they tried to advance on Mosul's Old City and a bridge across the Tigris river in their campaign to retake the western part of the city.

BEIRUT The Syrian army and its allies gained control of an arterial road in a small rebel pocket in northeast Damascus early on Monday, bringing them close to splitting the enclave in two, a Britain-based war monitor reported.

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Exclusive: Russian private security firm says it had armed men in east Libya - Reuters

Supporters of the eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, who is fighting to seize back the oil ports. Photograph: Esam Al-Fetori/Reuters

A fierce battle for control of Libyas oil ports is raging this weekend as worried American officials claim that Russia is trying to do a Syria in the country, supporting the eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar in an attempt to control its main source of wealth.

The fighting between Haftars forces and militias from western Libya is focused on Sidra, Libyas biggest oil port, and nearby Ras Lanuf, its key refinery. Together they form the gateway to the vast Oil Crescent, a series of oilfields stretching hundreds of miles through the Sahara containing Africas largest reserves. Haftars forces have launched airstrikes against militias around the oil ports themselves, with social media showing pictures of corpses and burning vehicles. No casualty figures have yet been released.

Capturing the glittering prize of the Oil Crescent has become the focus of a bitter civil war now in its third year and US officials fear that Russia has now entered the conflict, with Haftar the likely beneficiary.

In testimony to the Senates foreign relations committee on Thursday, the chief of the Pentagons Africa command, General Thomas D Waldhauser, said: Russia is trying to exert influence on the ultimate decision of who and what entity becomes in charge of the government inside Libya.

Asked by Senator Lindsey Graham whether Russia was trying to do in Libya what they are doing in Syria, Waldhauser said: Yes, thats a good way to characterise it.

Waldhausers complaint was bolstered on Friday when Reuters broke the news that armed Russian security contractors have been on the ground in eastern Libya, officially to help Haftars forces in mine clearance operations. Western diplomats say there are striking parallels with Russias decisive intervention in the Syrian conflict.

For five years the US and other western powers worked to unite Syrias disparate rebel factions, combat Islamic State and broker a peace deal with Bashar al-Assads regime. Prospects of such a deal have all but evaporated after Russian air power crushed rebels in their stronghold of Aleppo.

Bolstered by success in Syria, Moscow is turning to Libya and to Haftar. In January, Moscow invited him for a full-dress parade aboard its aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov cruising off the Libyan coast.

The 73-year-old general has had a chequered career, once backing Libyas former leader Muammar Gaddafi and later leading a US-funded force opposing him, and finally emerging as a rebel commander in the Nato-backed Arab spring revolution in which the dictator was toppled and killed.

Since the revolution, Libya has been engulfed in chaos, moving to full-scale civil war in the summer of 2014 when Libya Dawn, a coalition of Islamist and Misratan militias, captured Tripoli. Tribal forces opposing Libya Dawn have coalesced in eastern Libya around Haftars Libyan National Army, supporting the national parliament in Tobruk.

A Government of National Accord was installed in Tripoli by the UN last year, but that government has failed to win backing from Haftar, or even control of the capital, which remains in the hands of militias now fighting each other in sporadic street battles.

For all sides, the struggle for oil is the one constant. Oil is Libyas lifeblood, says Jonathan Winer, the USs former Libya envoy. Economically it doesnt matter who is pumping it, but politically it does.

Last September, Haftars eastern army captured the oil ports in a lightning offensive, giving Tobruk control of the Oil Crescent. The towns lawmakers promoted him to field marshal. Then, earlier this month, Islamist militias snatched them back, and handed them over to the control of the Tripoli government. Haftars forces beat a chaotic retreat but have since regrouped and are waging a counter-offensive backed by airstrikes.

In a fragmented, chaotic political landscape, western powers back Tripoli but some also back Haftar, with France having supplied special forces to aid his battle with Islamists. Russia officially recognises Tobruk, not Tripoli, as the legitimate government, printing Tobruks banknotes even as a British firm prints Tripolis currency.

Moscows most dramatic intervention came in late February when Russias state oil giant Rosneft announced a massive production and exploration deal with Libyas National Oil Corporation, its arrival in Libya coming after the western oil giants, put off by the violence, pulled out.

With Rosneft also signing deals in Egypt and Iraq, Moscow appears to be signalling a greater footprint in the Middle East. The Rosneft deal means something very specific politically, says financial analyst Jalel Harchaoui. Russia has been increasingly active, vocal and visible as far as its preference as to what type of governance should prevail in Libya.

Russia insists that, like western powers, it wants a united Libya, inviting the leader of the Tripoli government, Fayez Serraj, to Moscow for talks last month, while its foreign ministry has said that it supports a united, sovereign and independent state.

Yet that solution will mean finding a way to accommodate Haftar in a united government, which would be fiercely resisted by Tripoli militias. Thats the crucial question, Britains foreign secretary Boris Johnson declared last month. How to make sure that Haftar is in some way integrated into the government of Libya.

Without unity, many fear Libya is heading for break-up, or continuing chaos. For Europe, that chaos has become acute, with Libya already a funnel for migrant smugglers. Migrant arrivals in Italy from Libya are projected this year to surpass last years 180,000 people, which was itself a record.

And while Islamic State lost its main Libyan base in fighting, supported by US airstrikes, in December, there are fears that continuing chaos will allow it to re-establish itself.

Haftar has been spurned by most western diplomats, but last week he met the Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng at his eastern Libyan headquarters. What Haftar wants to do is win militarily, so there has to be a political solution, this is what Boris [Johnson] was saying, Kwarteng told the Observer. Russia is opportunistic. If they see that we are doing nothing, they will intervene. Nature abhors a vacuum.

Meanwhile, some fear the oil port battle has become a zero-sum game, with oil production already falling and Libyans barely kept alive by fast-diminishing foreign reserves.

Low oil production, prices and exports have resulted in a fiscal deficit, reported the International Crisis Group, a thinktank. At this rate, Libya could be bankrupt by the end of 2017.

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US accuses Moscow of aiding warlord in battle for Libya oil ports - The Guardian

By: Mansour Abushnaf*

Despite all claims of Daesh social incubator in Libya, they all

proved fake, the Libyan cities and tribes showed no sympathy or relevance to the group, Daesh reputation remained ugly with no social acceptance.

Rival factions in Libya for long blamed Daesh existence on their political opponents, February supporters repeated that Daesh was made by the former regime, the concept Daesh remnants appeared, but they provided no examples of those Daesh remnants either dead or injured leaders who are loyal to the former regime, but some Daesh leaders were known as February revolutionaries.

The supporters of the previous regime insisted that February revolutionaries are mostly Islamists Muslim Brotherhood, Ansar Sharia, and Daesh and they are the incubator of the group, but that description also proved inaccurate, most February supporters fight against the group cant be denied. It appeared that Daesh is not pro February or September, but an enemy for everyone, and for the group no one has a privilege but through joining its ranks.

The Libyan society with its diverse tribes, cities, and municipalities didnt accept the groups ideologies nor practices, but saw it as a foreign danger that threatens the country and citizens, that is why a little number of Libyans joined it, the group remained a foreign organization came to Libya as raiders or conquerors.

Daesh existed in Libya, expanded and controlled territory across some cities for upper political reasons; there was no social incubator for the group, even sympathy shown by some from different parties was just an attempt to exploit it as a weapon to end the other side or at least dry its resources.

The group realized that fact from the early beginning used dissensions and divisions caused by war and political conflicts to establish a stronghold.

The important question why Sirte was the signal? Then Sabratha? Why Derna? And finally, why Werfella valleys? Called South Sirte in military statements. Does Sirte seem a buffer zone between Barqa and Tripoli? And the same for Sabratha between the capital and borders? And for Derna between Tobruk and Benghazi? And finally, are not valleys of Werfella, Tarhouna, and Zliten a perfect heaven to destabilize the west and south Libya?

Many examples of entities created by wars and political struggles in the world like Mongolia and Austria, all are entities that separate between vying states, called in political science buffer state, mostly left as a presumed field for war if erupted between the competing parties, those states carry the most burden of wars.

In Libya, Daesh proved a perfect example of the Libyan struggles, most importantly it is an aggressive combatant idol, Sirte is in the middle of Libya, the historic border between Barqa and Tripoli since Philaeni brother legend, even wind warriors four thousand years ago, until oil wars, who controls Sirte can unite Libya, or divide it into regions.

Today Libya factions saw Sirte as a protection dam from the enemy on the other front, eastern armies wont get to the west before facing Daesh, as per the western strategy, and western forces wont get to Barqa white sands before running into Daesh, of course, both sides knew Daesh is untrusted snake, but saw it useful then.

The armed political struggle was and still the primary incubator for Daesh, we are not seeing social extremist brooder in Libya, the Libyan extremism is falsified created by vying Libyan political currents with obvious regional support, which, as Libyans know, aims at creating and maintaining entities like Daesh, to divide the country, turn it into dumpster for terrorists fleeing their countries, and illegal migrants, neighbors and friends want for such state to continue for at least ten years.

Libyans could easily end ambitions of friends and neighbors if they realized that making a hole in the Libyan boat with axes provided by brothers and friends will indeed drown them all, with no exceptions, in the sea of death, hunger, and humiliation, and occupation would be just a distant dream.

*A Libyan Intellectual and Writer

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Political Incubator - LIBYAPROSPECT (press release) (registration)

Zintan Military Council confirmed that Gaddafi son, Saif Al Islam, has been transferred to a new prison under the supervision of the city's Social Council.

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Libyan hiker, Al-Busairy Abdelsalam Al-Busairy, has arrived in Derna today as part of his trip around Libya advocating for peace and unity among Libyans under the slogan "Forgiveness and Reconciliation for Libya" Al-Busairy was received by the city's municipal and civil societies' officials and Derna residents. He and his companion were later invited to be honored at a small celebratory event in the city.

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Illegal Immigration Fight Authority has announced opening a new migrants detention center in Sawani dsitrict, in the suburbs of Tripoli.

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Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB) has agreed to release captive fighters from Dignity Operation after Khalifa Haftar had agreed to allow water supplies to enter into the besieged area of Ganfouda. The deal was struck after Haftar had tasked the mayor of Benghazi with carrying out the negotiation with the BDB.

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Misrata Municipality and the citys MPs said on Saturday that their city is not part of the conflict in the oil crescent region.

In a statement, they called on the UN-proposed Presidency Council and Petroleum Facilities Guard to shoulder their responsibilities and protect Libyas oil resources.They also confirmed the right for Benghazi IDPs to return to their city.

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Elders and revolutionary fighters of Tajoura district, Tripoli, said on Friday that the return of Benghazi IDPs to their city is a legitimate right. They also expressed support for Benghazi Defense Brigades and urged eastern residents to join them.

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Rival armed groups in Abu Salim district of Tripoli have reached a final agreement to settle their differences and establish peace and stability in their areas.

Burki and Ghaniewa brigades promised not to use force again in the district and to work together for the benefit of the locals.

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75 House of Representatives members have refused the voting of their fellow MPs in rejection of the Libyan political agreement.

The said in a letter to the envoys of UN, AU, EU and Arab League to Libya that the vote, held on March 07 by 38 members, is illegal.

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News Roundup - Sat, Mar 11, 2017 - The Libya Observer

Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command, raised the alarm Thursday aboutRussian interference in Libya during a Senate hearing onCapitol Hill.

It is very concerning, senator,"Waldhauser said in response to Arizona Sen. John McCain's question about Russian involvement in the region. "General Haftar has visited, as you said, on the carrier with the Russians. He's also visited in the country of Russia. Also, this week it's reported in the open press, [Prime Minister Fayez al-] Sarraj from the Government of National Accord has also visited Russia.

In January, Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar a former general whose militia opposes the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoliwas invited onto the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov for a tour and video conference with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Haftars Libyan National Army has been waging a battle against ISIS militants and rival political factions in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

The situation in Libya right now is highly fractured, Waldhauser told lawmakers.

Powerful militias with varying political allegiances have been waging battle for control of Libyas coastal cities and oil infrastructure since the overthrow ofMoammar Gadhafiin October 2011.

It's difficult to say who is the most powerful partner right now inside Libya, Waldhauser said. "If you took polls, you would see that the Libyan National Army has got great support in the ... east, and the GNA has support in the west.

The fractured state of Libyas government has created chaos around the region and invited meddling from outside foreign agents and terrorist groups, to include ISIS.

Senator, Russia is trying to exert influence on the ultimate decision of who becomes, and what entity becomes, in charge of the government inside Libya,"Waldhauser told South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. "They're working to influence that decision."

The power vacuum created after the collapse of the Libyan state,with the U.S. and Russia backing rival militia leaders along the Libyan coast,has led to comparisons to the conflict in Syria. AndRussia is seeking to exert its influence over Libya much as it has in Syria, Waldhauser said.

The U.S. air campaign targeting ISIS fighters in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte this past fall aided a militia out of the nearby city of Misrata, which backs the Western-supported, U.N.-backed Government of National Accord led by Sarraj. The Misratan forcespushed ISIS fighters out of Sirte and into the desert, butthe group still poses a threat to the region.

The status of ISIS in Libya is they are right now regrouping,"Waldhauser said. "They're in small numbers, small groups."

In a Feb. 17 interview with The Associated Press, Waldhauser said massive Jan. 18 airstrikes against ISIS camps in southern Libya killed more than 80 Islamic State militants and generated significant intelligence, including critical computer data, documents and information from prisoner interrogations, which the U.S. could use to track and target more fighters.

Alluding to those airstrikes in his Senate testimony, Waldhauser said Islamic State militants have "scattered again now; they're in small groups, trying to regroup."

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AFRICOM commander voices concern over Russian meddling in Libya - Military Times