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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

Libya Herald

Barasi warns oilfield fighting will harden division in Libya Libya Herald The battle for the central oil crescent terminals will only deepen divisions in Libya, former deputy prime minister Awad Al-Barasi has told the Libya Herald. He criticised elements of the Presidency Council's (PC) government of national accord (GNA ... BDB hails Italian statement on oil crescent, calls Egypt to be neutralThe Libya Observer all 3 news articles »

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Barasi warns oilfield fighting will harden division in Libya - Libya Herald

Written by Rashmi Rajput | Mumbai | Updated: March 11, 2017 4:48 am Tabrez Tambe

THE BROTHER of an alleged Islamic State (IS) recruit from Maharashtra has written to the Indian ambassador in Libya, seeking help in locating and rescuing his brother from the war-torn country. In an email sent in January, Saud Tambe said his brother Tabrez, 28, who had been booked by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) last December under sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA, had moved to Egypt and later Libya for a job.

On January 26, I sent an email to the Indian ambassador in Libya stating that my brother had moved to Egypt in January last year for a job. Ali, a Saudi Arabian national, had helped him land the job. Subsequently, Ali took him to Libya for training. However, in December, we got a call from Tabrez, saying he was stuck in a war-torn region and that we should seek help from the authorities to get him back to India, he told The Indian Express.

While Saud claimed he didnt know the name of the company where Tabrez was employed in Libya, he said his brother called in March to inform the family that he was moving to Libya for training. After that, said Saud, calls from Tabrez dropped until December, when he made the last call for help.

However, the ATS probe has revealed that while Tabrez left India in January, claiming to have bagged a job in Egypt, he moved to Libya within a month. While the probe confirmed that Tabrez called his mother in March 2016, investigators say it wasnt to tell the family that he was moving to Libya for training but to inform them that he had joined the IS and that they shouldnt check on him. However, they say, he did call in December to say he was stuck and needed help.

After his graduation from Mumbai University, Tabrez did a diploma course in air cargo management. He has two brothers, besides Saud, and a sister. The family, which is from Harnai in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, moved to Mumbra near Mumbai in 2009 and has been staying on rent.

The ATS probe has also revealed that Tabrez had booked a return ticket to India, allegedly to avoid suspicion. Tambe made a booking through an online travel portal. We interrogated the Delhi-based representative who made the bookings. The investigation has revealed that he booked a return ticket just to show that he intended to return to India. However, our investigation has revealed that the plan to go to Egypt for employment was an alibi; the real purpose was to leave India to join the IS, said an ATS officer, adding that the investigators were combing Tabrezs social media profile and questioning his friends.

In Mumbra, Saud said he doesnt believe his brother could have joined the IS. We cannot speak about the ATSs investigations. My brother has been cheated with the promise of a job. There is an FIR against him and we want the courts to decide if he is really a terrorist. But we believe that he has nothing to do with the IS and that he is stuck in Libya and needs to be rescued, he said.

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Brother of 'IS recruit' seeks help from Indian envoy in Libya - The Indian Express

A general view of an oil refinery in Libyas northern town of Ras Lanuf. Photograph: Abdullah Doma/AFP/Getty Images

Militias have captured a string of key Libyan oil ports in the fight against eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, sharply escalating the countrys civil war and throwing international peacemaking efforts into doubt.

The Islamist Benghazi militia struck at al-Sidra, Libyas biggest oil port, and Ras Lanuf, its biggest refinery, overnight on Friday, forcing Haftars Libyan National Army to retreat.

Army spokesman Col Ahmad al-Mismari said the militias had overrun the main airfield at Ras Lanuf, with the army pulling back to avoid damage to oil facilities.

He said the Benghazi defence brigades, militias originally from Benghazi who were driven out of the city by Haftars forces last year, attacked the ports from four directions on Friday.

Airstrikes failed to halt the drive, in which militia units entered the ports in fighting that has left at least nine dead. Renewed strikes were launched against the militias on Saturday morning, while army reinforcements massed for a counter-attack in what has become a see-saw struggle to control Libyas vast oil wealth.

The attackers were armed with modern tanks and a radar to neutralise our air force, Mismari said. But the battle is ongoing. The situation in the oil crescent remains under control.

Haftars forces seized al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, together with nearby ports Brega and Zueitina in an offensive last September that dealt a major blow to the UN-backed Gvernment of National Accord, whose militias had controlled them.

Haftar supports Libyas parliament, based in the eastern town of Tobruk, which opposes the GNA in Tripoli, and both sides have made gaining control of the ports their priority.

The Tripoli government denied involvement in the attack, condemning it as a military escalation and called for all sides to cease fighting.

Britains ambassador to Libya, Peter Millet, tweeted his concern that the battle may shatter the countrys oil industry. I follow with great concern fighting in the oil crescent which threatens Libyas oil and the lives of civilians, he said.

The oil ports have been the focus of months of fighting, with the Benghazi defence brigades launching offensives against them in December and February that were broken up by airstrikes.

Exports from the ports are the main source of hard currency for a country whose economy is in tatters after enduring chaos and violence ever since the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The fighting also risks opening a divide among outside powers, with Haftar backed by neighbouring Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, while the GNA has support from the United States, Britain and most European Union powers.

In recent weeks Russia has been trying to broker talks between the two governments to form a power-sharing administration with a prominent role for Haftar.

The move was backed last month by the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who said: Thats the crucial question: how to make sure that Haftar is in some way integrated into the government of Libya.

The United Nations has also been mediating a plan to restructure the GNA to incorporated Haftar, while the GNA itself is struggling in Tripoli, with its forces fighting street battles against militias from a third would-be administration, the salvation government, for control of the capital.

With reinforcements pouring into the oil ports fighting on Saturday, hopes of a peace deal may be vanishing. No room for political negotiations in the near future, tweeted Libyan analyst Mohamed Eljarh. Todays developments make political solutions even more difficult to achieve.

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Libyan militias capture key oil ports and refinery - The Guardian

Suobhe Altmmo had fled to Libya in 2012 hoping for a better life. He and his wife and children settled in the coastal town of Zawiya, where he planned to work as an electrician.

But soon the country was engulfed in anarchy, and outsiders became targets of violence. It was too dangerous to send the children to school or even leave the house. Libya was overrun with uneducated militiamen with nothing to do, said Altmmo, who is 35.

It seemed no better than his native Syria, where he had spent four years as a political prisoner.

And so he fled again, crowding on to a ramshackle, wooden boat with hopes of crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. He, his wife and four children including 8-month-old twin girls were among 513 migrants rescued from five boats this month and brought aboard a ship operated by the non-profits SOS Mditerrane and Doctors Without Borders.

The Times interviewed more than two dozen migrants on board the ship, the Aquarius, during the 10-day rescue mission. Their stories offer a glimpse of the chaos that Libya has become, where migrants are regularly shot in the street, kidnapped for ransom or forced into slavery.

Migrants told of employers refusing to pay them after months of work and threatening them with violence if they quit. Some who had spent time in migrant detention centers in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, said they witnessed migrants being sold to visitor for 150 dinars, or just over $100.

Oussama Omrane, a Tunisian who has worked on rescue ships since 2015, said Libya is like a house with no owner.

When Moammar Kadafi still ruled Libya, the country welcomed foreigners especially those from sub-Saharan Africa who could provide manual labor in his oil rich economy. Foreigners accounted for 1.5 million of the countrys 5.5 million people. Most did construction and domestic work.

But Gadaffis ouster in 2011 set the country on a path to anarchy as politicians split into two rival administrations one in the capital Tripoli, the other in the western city of Tobruk and Islamic State militants temporarily seized towns along the coast.

Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates back an unpredictable military leader, Khalifa Haftar, who has sided with the Tobruk government.

The countrys breakdown has spurred a massive backlash against immigrants there. Roughly half a million have left the country in recent years, including 166,000 who fled across to the Mediterranean Sea to Italy in 2016. The numbers are up significantly the first two months of this year.

An estimated 300,000 foreigners are now considering leaving, according to the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency.

The harrowing stories told by the migrants on the Aquarius show why. In all but one case, the international groups operating the boat made the migrants available for interviews on the condition that their surnames not be used. The groups were concerned about the privacy of the migrants and possible repercussions for relatives still in Libya.

Shamim, one of several migrants from Bangladesh on board, was working as a tailor in Libya when he was attacked in the street, knifed and robbed of his passport.

He managed to find a police station, where officers demanded $1,000 to help him and asked him to contact relatives in Bangladesh for the cash. When he failed to raise the money, he was kept on starvation rations in a cell for three months, then sent out to work and forced to give his wages to the police.

He looked weak and thin and far older than his 22 years.

"In Libya they see us as animals not humans," said Sumon, another 22-year-old Bangladeshi.

He had been working as a perfume maker. His employer forbid him from going out alone because of the danger he would be kidnapped and held for ransom. The conditions finally spurred Sumon to flee the country.

Isaac, 30, left his 11-year-old daughter back home in Ghana two years ago and found work in Libya as a builder. But he had seen so much violence that he decided to get out before he became a victim.

If your employer pays you, which is rare, his friends will come round the next day to rob you, he said. And if you ever get a chance to spend the money, the police will arrest you as you walk to a shop and beat you up.

Paul, 32, also from Ghana, described being robbed at gunpoint while leaving a supermarket. Unsatisfied with their haul, the robbers bundled one of Paul's friends into the trunk of a car and demanded 500 dinars, or $357, to release him. On the streets, it seemed as if everybody had an AK-47.

Libyans want to steal everything you have, he said.

Raymond, 31, had come to Libya last year with hopes of earning enough money to travel to Europe for surgery he needed after being shot in the face during a robbery back home in Ghana. His left eye was badly damaged.

He was living with other migrants from sub-Saharan Africa when a group of young Libyans armed with machine guns robbed their house and killed three of the occupants.

There is an old slavery mentality making a comeback these days in Libya, he said. Killing anything black makes them happy.

Libya has also become a hub for traffickers who offer women most of them Nigerian jobs in Italy, then force them into prostitution when they arrive by threatening to hurt or kill relatives back home if they refuse.

Elizabeth Ramlow, an American medic on the ship, said many of the single Nigerian women on board were likely victims.

They talk of being gang raped in Libya with other Nigerian women by the very people bringing them, she said.

Dora, 20-year-old from Nigeria, said Libya was supposed to be a transit point in her journey to Italy.

But she wound up spending seven months there five of them in a jail where she was being held arbitrarily and fed a little as once every three days and raped only once, she said.

Kington is a special correspondent.

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"Old slavery mentality" is making a comback in lawless Libya, migrants say - Los Angeles Times