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Cairo - Egypt is working for a political solution to fighting in neighbouring Libya, its foreign minister said on Saturday ahead of regional talks on the conflict.

"A political solution is the only way to resolve the crisis in Libya," said Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

He was speaking ahead of talks with foreign ministers from Libya's neighbours - Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Niger - as well as UN envoy Martin Kobler.

Libya has been torn apart by fighting between militias, tribes and two rival governments since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Jihadist groups have exploited the chaos to gain a foothold in the North African country.

A UN-backed unity government based in the capital is struggling to impose its authority.

It faces competition from a rival authority supported by parliament in the country's east, which has refused to recognise the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord.

Militarily, the eastern administration is backed by the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army commanded by Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar enjoys the support of several Arab countries including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, as well an emerging alliance with Russia.

GNA-aligned militias from the port city of Misrata, who led the fight to oust the Islamic State group from Sirte last year, control much of the west.

In the east, Haftar's forces have been fighting other jihadist groups for more than two years, particularly in Benghazi.

Egypt recently hosted Haftar, parliament speaker Aguila Saleh and unity government chief Fayez al-Sarraj in search of "common ground" that could help solve the crisis, Shoukry said on Saturday.

"Despite recent victories in the fight against terrorism, in Benghazi and in Sirte, terrorism will never be fully eradicated in Libya until there is a political solution," he added.

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Egypt working for Libya political solution, says FM - News24

Barack Obama chose to make the final military act of his presidency an order for air strikes on ISIL in Libya this week, a country where he declared last year he had made the "greatest mistake" of his presidency.

From late on Wednesday night until the early hours of Thursday, two B2 bombers pounded two ISIL bases 48 kilometres south-west of the coastal town of Sirte.

For the past two years, US jets have carried out precision raids against both ISIL and Al Qaeda across Libya. By contrast, the use of B2s, each of which can carry 80 bombs, was a blitz intended to pulverise the two camps.

US officials told the Wall Street Journal that intelligence had been monitoring ISIL units for several days as they moved and made camp in Libyas desert.

The strikes on ISIL close to Sirte came less than a month after the US halted a four-month bombing campaign against the extremists in the town, which had been ISILs Libya headquarters. The Pentagon said the campaign, which began on August 1, saw US Harrier jets, attack helicopters and drones fly 495 strike missions to support ground forces allied to Libyas UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in capturing Sirte.

When the town finally fell on December 6, there was speculation that many ISIL fighters, estimated by the Pentagon last year to number 6,000 across Libya had managed to flee during the battle.

For the latest strikes, the US deployed its most expensive and sophisticated warplane, the B2 bomber. A pair of the jets flew the mission from their base in Missouri, a 30-hour round trip involving five mid-air refuellings. Backing them up, but unused, were Tomahawk cruise missiles aboard the destroyers USS Donald Cook and USS Porter in the Mediterranean.

The advanced radar-shielding technology of the B2 was not needed for a strike on ISIL, whose fighters would probably not have heard them in the night sky until the bombs rained down. But their bomb capacity is far higher than Americas Europe-based jets, allowing both camps to be flattened simultaneously. The Pentagon said the camps were hit with 108 precision-guided bombs in an operation conducted in coordination with the GNA.

In the US determination to wipe out, rather than damage, the ISIL units, at least one drone spent the rest of the night targeting stragglers with Hellfire missiles.

US defence secretary Ash Carter said a full analysis of the strikes would take time, but US officials estimated at least 85 fighters were killed.

"We need to strike ISIL everywhere they show up," said Mr Carter. "And thats particularly true in view of the fact that we know some of the ISIL operatives in Libya were involved with plotting attacks."

The bombing is a reminder of Mr Obamas declaration last April that a failure to follow up air strikes in support of rebels battling Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 was the "greatest mistake" of his presidency.

In the chaotic aftermath of Libyas revolution that year, the country slid into civil war, a complicated struggle that involves two governments at opposite ends of the country and a mosaic of warring militias.

ISIL took advantage of this chaos to set up bases across Libya. It has failed to recruit many Libyans in a country dominated by tribal and regional loyalties, but has gathered foreign fighters.

While the US continues to scan the desert for signs of ISIL survivors, other ISIL fighters are battling the Libya National Army of Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar, the countrys most powered armed formation, in the eastern town of Benghazi.

The US has given no publicly acknowledged aid to the field marshalls forces, which are aligned with the house of representatives parliament operating in eastern Libya. However, Americas Nato ally, France has had no compunction in revealing last summer that it was providing expertise to the Libyans following the death of three operatives from its elite Department General Security Exterior intelligence service in a helicopter crash near Benghazi.

Like Mr Obama before him, incoming president Donald Trump will learn that air strikes provide no definitive solution to eradicating ISIL from Libya.

Only a political settlement to end the countrys civil war, allowing a united army to turn its guns on the extremists, can achieve that. Time will tell whether the new US administration can succeed better than its predecessor in encouraging the countrys factions to come together.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae

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US bombs ISIL in Libya in Obama's last stand - The National

January 21, 2017 Johannesburg, South AfricaAs Donald Trump takes office, Chads recent decision to close its northern border with Libya in order to avoid imminent terrorism danger is unlikely to register high on his list of priorities.

But experts say the country a longtime US ally in the war on terror, whose territory stretches along the Saharan fault-line of Islamist terrorism in Africa may be using its foreign policy to maneuver quietly toward the new American president.

And with good reason. New statistics obtained by The Intercept show that over the past decade, the United States has dramatically increased its high level military presence in Africa to counter a rising tide of Islamist extremism in the region.

Meanwhile, countries that support the growing US counter-terrorism efforts on the continent think Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, Niger have frequently evaded criticism over their own spotty human rights records and their leaders white-knuckled grip on power (Chads Idriss Dby, who is regularly feted by high-level American visitors, including former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, has ruled for 27 years).

Chads border machinations began Jan. 6, when Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke announced that the country had closed the frontier with Libya to stopan influx of Islamist militants fleeing south from a US airstrike campaignthat started in August and ended in November of last year.

Given the threats to the integrity of our nation, the government has decided to close the land border with Libya and also to declare the region a military zone, he said.

However, many observers noted that the timing of the border closure appeared politically expedient.

The final battle for Sirte [an ISIS stronghold in Libya] was 10 weeks ago, and as early as July there has been mass movement of IS fighters, so the suggestion you are closing your border [now] because of it is disingenuous, says Ryan Cummings, director of the South Africa-based risk management firm Signal Risk. He added that he suspected the announcement might have more to do with a desire by African partners to impress the new crowd in Washington rather than because of any pressing security threat in Chad.

However," he continues, "the threat of IS fighters leaving Libya is absolutely legitimate because there are IS affiliates in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and Niger that have not been as active, and the concern is, if IS combatants go into those neighboring countries to prop up the existing groups, you then very suddenly have highly trained, battle-hardened militants operating across the Maghreb.

The threat of Islamist terrorism creeping southward through Chad into sub-Saharan Africa is of growing concern to both the African Union and United States which Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn has said is in a world war against Islamic militants. In December, AU security chief Smail Chergui warned that 2,000 to 2,500 Islamic State terrorists were regrouping with a view to relocating to the troubled regions of the western Sahel and eastern Horn of Africa and Great Lakes after the fall of their base in Sirte, on Libya's Mediterranean coast.

He added that because some IS elements were of African origin, the continent was more vulnerable to their influence and operations. Home-grown terrorist groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria have already pledged allegiance to IS along with a splinter faction of Al Shabab in Somalia, which last April claimed direct responsibility for an attack on the capital, Mogadishu.

The threat in Africa is also far from limited to IS. West Africa is also plagued by several Al Qaeda affiliates, and as far south as South Africa there have been terror warnings, including one that an Islamic State bomb-maker tried to board a flight to Johannesburg last month with a view to attacking US assets.

Meanwhile, the US has been quietly establishing what has been described a "new spice route" of military logistical infrastructure and increased personnel counts from Africa's east coast to its west. Figuresobtained byUS investigative journalist Nick Turserevealed that the US militarys Africa Command (AFRICOM) carried out 674operations including drone strikes, individual and joint exercises, and activities such as training,in 2014 up from 172 in 2008. A total of70 percent ofall USdrone strikes ever carried out in Somalia occurred in 2015 and 2016,according to statistics compiled by the US Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

And figures obtained by Mr. Turse and published in The Intercept show that the number of US special forces troops deployed to Africa has spiraled dramatically over the past decade, from just 1 percent of all those overseas in 2006to 17.26 percent in 2016.

At the same time, a US official based in Africa says that while the numbers of personnel remained in the hundreds outside of the main base in Djibouti, AFRICOM had been given a mandate to be more proactive in the continents hotspots.

There has been a ramping up, there are some very serious security questions,says the official, who remained anonymous because of the question marks regarding all US operations overseas with the change of government this week. We do have some good partners that we can engage with.

Among them, historically, has been Chad.In a visit last year with Mr. Dby, US officials warned of growing cooperation between Boko Haram and IS, which, an official claimed, had sent a weapons convoy south from Libya into Chad. That, in turn, may have compelled the border closure this January.

But the Trump Administrations goals in sub-Saharan Africa remains murky. Last week, The New York Timespublished excerpts from a questionnaire circulated by the Trump transition team to the State Department about US Africa policy.

The questionnaire revealed Trump staffquestioning the effectiveness of the US drone campaign against Al Shabab and the hunt for the Lords Resistance Army commander Joseph Kony on the borders of Uganda, the Democratic Republic, and South Sudan, along with free trade deals and funding to combat the spread of AIDS.

Many analysts saw the questions as pointing to a narrowing of American focus on the continent away from aid and toward security. But any escalation of US military presence in Africa under Trump will be largely a continuation of Obama-era policy.

Late last year, for instance,the commander of the US special operations command in Africa told African Defensethat his troops were helping to create "specific tailored training for partner nations to empower military and law enforcement to conduct operations against our mutual threats."

We are not at war in Africa but our African partners certainly are," Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc said.

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Why Chad shut its border with Libya - CSMonitor.com - Christian Science Monitor

U.S. officials confirm that two Air Force stealth B-2 bombers struck two ISIS camps in Libya 28 miles south of Sirte on Wednesday night. One official called the airstrikes "a huge success," with more than 80 ISIS fighters killed.

The airstrikes targeted 80 to 100 ISIS fighters in multiple camps south of the coastal city of Sirte, which was once an ISIS stronghold, an official told ABC News. The B-2 bombers dropped more than 100 munitions on the two camps.

"In conjunction with the Libyan government of national accord, the U.S. military conducted precision airstrikes Wednesday night destroying two ISIL camps 45 kilometers southwest of Sirte," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement, using another acronym for the group.

He said the ISIS fighters had fled to the remote desert camps "in order to reorganize, and they posed a security threat to Libya, the region and U.S. national interests."

The airstrikes were authorized by President Obama and are considered an extension of Operation Odyssey Lightning, the U.S. campaign that carried out almost 500 airstrikes against ISIS in Libya last fall.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that more than 80 ISIS fighters were killed in the airstrikes. In addition to those who fled Sirte he said there were also individuals at the camps the U.S. believed were actively involved in planning attacks in Europe or were involved in previous attacks.

"We need to strike ISIL everywhere they show up" said Carter.

The ISIS operation in Libya has been a major concern for U.S. officials, who have worried it could become another ISIS safe haven as the group faces growing military pressure in Iraq and Syria. U.S. officials have said the number of ISIS fighters in Libya likely totals 1,000.

"The United States remains prepared to further support Libyan efforts to counter terrorist threats and to defeat ISIL in Libya," said Cook. "We are committed to maintaining pressure on ISIL and preventing them from establishing safe haven."

The airstrikes were the first time B-2 stealth bombers have been used in combat since March 2011, when they were used in the first wave of strikes in Libya during the NATO-led military intervention there.

In early December, ISIS was defeated in Sirte by local Libyan militias that surrounded the city over the summer.

During the siege, U.S. officials estimated that hundreds of ISIS fighters fled Sirte to establish themselves elsewhere in the country.

The B-2's flew a 30-hour round trip mission from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri where the Air Force's fleet of 20 B-2 "Spirits" are based.

As for why the B-2 bomber was used for the mission Carter said "it was a decision made by the commanders. It was the best capability to use."

Cook explained to reporters that a benefit in using the B-2 for the airstrikes was its ability to loiter in the area after the strike.

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B-2 Bombers Strike ISIS Camps in Libya - KTRK-TV

BENGHAZI/WASHINGTON: A car bomb exploded on Friday near a mosque in Libyas second city of Benghazi, killing one person and wounding 13 people including a former interior minister, medical and security sources said. Ashour Shwayel, who served as interior minister in the government of former Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, and his son were seriously hurt in the blast, said the spokeswoman of Al-Jala hospital, Fadia Al-Barghati. A security source said the blast was caused by an explosive device placed inside a car parked near Abu Houraira mosque in the central Al-Majouri neighborhood of the eastern coastal city. Benghazi was the cradle of the 2011 revolution that toppled and killed veteran dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Libya has since fallen into chaos, with the UN-backed Government of National Accord based in Tripoli failing to assert its authority over the country. The GNA is opposed by a rival administration that is based in Libyas far east and backed by military strongman Marshal Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are battling militants in Benghazi. The powerful explosion outside the mosque after Friday prayers wrecked a number of cars and charred nearby buildings. The attack came as Haftars self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) appears close to forcing Islamist-led opponents from their last holdouts after a military campaign that began in 2014. It was not clear who staged Fridays bombing, but the LNAs rivals have carried out such attacks in Benghazi in the past. In November, a similar blast wounded a prominent tribal leader who had helped the LNA negotiate the takeover of several major oil ports. Shuwail, who served as police chief in Benghazi after Libyas 2011 uprising, was interior minister between 2012 and 2013. Meanwhile, a US airstrike on Thursday targeting an Al-Qaeda training camp in Syria killed more than 100 militants, a US defense official said on Friday. The strike took place just a day before the end of President Barack Obamas presidency and a day after more than 80 Daesh militants were killed in US airstrikes in Libya. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the airstrike was primarily carried out by a B-52 bomber and dropped 14 munitions. The official added that the strike against the camp took place in Idlib province, west of Aleppo, and there was a high level of confidence that there were no civilian casualties. A US-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes and supporting local forces in Syria to oust Daesh militants. However, there is concern that the defeat of Daesh could open the door for Al-Qaeda to take territory in ungoverned parts of the country. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday that an airstrike killed more than 40 members of the militant group Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham in northwestern Syria. It was not immediately clear if this strike was the same one the defense official was referring to.

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Car bomb wounds minister among 13 in Libya's Benghazi - Arab News