Libya News and Interests

[anatta]

Turkey’s parliament is expected to authorize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday to order the deployment of troops to Libya to back the UN-recognized government against rival forces, deepening a proxy war that’s drawn in Russia and regional powers.

The one-year mandate would give Erdogan the power to decide the size, makeup and duration of the force to be dispatched at the request of the government of Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. Erdogan’s AK Party and its nationalist ally, MHP, control a majority in Turkey’s parliament, so approval is all but assured.


The deployment is expected to augment the defense of Sarraj’s Tripoli-based government against forces aligned with commander Khalifa Haftar, which are backed by Russian mercenaries, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey’s involvement could complicate international efforts to end the divisions that have roiled the country since the overthrow of strongman Moammar Qaddafi in 2011.

Haftar is allied with a rival administration based in the eastern city of Tobruk. He already controls most of Libya’s oil facilities, as well as chunks of territory in the country’s east and south. Haftar was able to renew his stalled offensive on the capital, Tripoli, after Russian mercenaries intervened in September.

The plan to deploy Turkish forces in Libya is aimed “eliminating attacks on interests of Turkey and Libya by illegal armed groups and terrorist organizations,” the text of the mandate said.
Turkey aims to salvage billions of dollars of business contracts thrown into limbo by Libya’s protracted conflict, and in return for agreeing to defend Sarraj’s administration, it won Libyan backing of a controversial maritime deal affirming Ankara’s claim to rights in the eastern Mediterranean where it is at loggerheads with Cyprus over natural gas resources.

Turkey is ready to send its navy to protect Tripoli, while its troops train and coordinate Sarraj’s forces, according to a senior Turkish official.

The terms of the Turkish deployment will include:

Establishment of an elite Libyan force to respond immediately to threats Allocation of weapons, planes, vehicles on ground and at seaJoint exercisesExchange of counter-terrorism intelligence and operational cooperation

[anatta]

Arab League Warns of Libya War Escalating as Turkey Considers Entry
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ey-mulls-entry

The Arab League on Tuesday warned against military escalation in Libya and said it would ask the United Nations’ chief and other key countries to work to prevent any foreign interference in the North African nation’s affairs.

The league, in an extraordinary session called by Egypt, voiced its “great concern” over the situation in Libya, which it said threatens the security of neighboring countries. In a statement, it also condemned any foreign intervention that facilitates the flow of “terrorists” there.

The statement didn’t mention Turkey by name, but its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is seeking a one-year mandate from parliament to send troops to Libya in support of the United Nations-recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. The Libyan premier is locked in a battle with eastern-based rebel commander Khalifa
Turkey’s potential entrance into an arena already cluttered with a variety of militias, mercenary forces and rebels, threatens to deepen a growing proxy war between regional powers, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has repeatedly said that foreign intervention in Libya threatens to deepen a conflict that has national security implications for his country.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ey-mulls-entry


Libyans inspect damage from a reported airstrike in the capital Tripoli's suburb of Tajoura, on Dec. 29.

[dukkha]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/o...om-cotton.html
Oil shipments were halted from at least three ports in Libya, according to people familiar with the matter, as the National Oil Corp. warned that planned stoppages could cut more than half of the nation’s crude output.

Exports have been frozen at Ras Lanuf, Sidra and Brega, the people said, a day before members of the North African’s country’s warring factions are due to attend a summit in Berlin to try to resolve the conflict. Earlier Saturday, a NOC official said all oil shipments from ports in central and eastern Libya, except Zueitina, were due to halt after direct instructions from the Libyan National Army, the force based in the country’s east.

The LNA is controlled by Khalifa Haftar, whose forces have been trying to overthrow the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli and have besieged the capital city.

A NOC official said that a broader stoppage would result in at least 700,000 barrels per day of Libya’s oil output going offline. On Thursday, it announced daily production of 1.17 million barrels.

The LNA‘s spokesman, Ahmed al-Mismari, said in statement overnight that his forces were responding to the will of the people, after eastern tribes staged protests demanding an oil-production freeze.


Ras Lanuf, Libya.

[dukkha]

The two leading parties in Libya's war, as well as representatives from their foreign backers and other nations, are expected to gather in Germany on Sunday for a highly-anticipated summit aimed at ending nine months of conflict in the North African country.

Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, head of the United Nations-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), and Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), are due to join discussions with Russia, Turkey, France, Italy, the United States and others on ending the war, which has raged since Haftar's forces began an advance on the capital, Tripoli, in April last year.

The warring sides earlier this month agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey, though Haftar dramatically departed talks in Moscow on January 12 before signing the formalised agreement with al-Sarraj.

Sunday's Berlin summit is the latest attempt to restore stability and peace to Libya, which has been splintered between competing factions and militias since former leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed by a NATO-supported uprising in 2011.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/...052038464.html

[dukkha]

Libya civil war: UN envoy Salamé says foreign intervention must end
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51161758

*good luck with that since Libya is now a failed terrorist state*

[dukkha]

Speaking at the conference, Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, suggested some kind of international peacekeeping force was on the table. “If there is a ceasefire, yes, of course there’s a case for us doing what we do very well, which is sending experts to monitor the ceasefire.”

But he added he did not yet see a ceasefire, and as he spoke there were reports of air raids in Tripoli and further enforced closure of oil installations by tribesmen trying to influence the conference’s outcome.

The Italian and German defence ministers both said they were willing to send troops but only under a clear UN mandate.

The Berlin conference was largely designed to discourage external actors from turning Libya into a battleground for rival countries backing either side in the civil war. Both have been bolstered by arms, mercenaries or cash sent from abroad.

Russia, Jordan and the UAE have all been providing military support to Haftar, while Turkey has come to the aid of the Sarraj government, most notably by sending Syrian rebel fighters to defend Tripoli.

Forces loyal to Haftar have shut off production at all Libya’s major oil fields, an escalation that threatened to strangle the country’s finances. In a sign of the difficulties Sarraj and Haftar did not directly meet in Berlin. Guterres admitted he was very worried at the shutdown of oilfields and several of the country’s oil ports.

Stressing the high stakes, the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said: “We have to make sure Libya doesn’t become a second Syria.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...osed-ceasefire
There are serious concerns that signatories to the summit’s declarations will do little to abide by the agreements.

[dukkha]

Eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar is violating Libya's truce and so cannot be expected to respect the ceasefire called between his forces and pro-government troops, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.

Despite efforts by Turkey and Russia, Haftar abandoned talks on a ceasefire in Moscow earlier this month and his blockade of Libyan oilfields overshadowed a summit in Berlin last week aimed at agreeing on a permanent truce.

His Libyan National Army (LNA) faction aims to capture the capital, Tripoli, through the backing of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russian mercenaries and African troops.

Turkey meanwhile backs Fayez al-Serraj's internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA).

Fighting has abated in the past weeks but picked up at the weekend at the frontline in southern Tripoli, where artillery fire could be heard,
https://www.yahoo.com/news/erdogan-s...073856592.html

[dukkha]

https://ahvalnews.com/libyan-conflic...worst-yet-come

The low level of violence in Libya in recent days could be the quiet before the storm.

Last April, General Khalifa Haftar, backed by the United Arab Emirates, Russia and France,
launched an all-out assault on the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA),
which is supported mainly by Turkey and Qatar.

A December stand-off on the edge of the capital led to a Jan. 12 ceasefire and a Berlin summit that sought to curb foreign interference and bring the warring factions closer to peace talks.
Berlin was widely seen as a failure, and the ceasefire collapsed last week as Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) clashed with GNA militias east of the city of Misrata.

Now Libya could be facing its highest level of violence since the war began.

“The next phase of the war is going to be much more intense,” Jalel Harchaoui, research fellow at Dutch think tank the Clingendael Institute, told Ahval in a podcast.

The physical amount of foreign weaponry and foreign manpower injected into Libya over the last five to six weeks, on both sides, is absolutely without precedent.”

Flights between Syria and Benghazi have spiked of late, herald the arrival of more mercenaries from the Russia-backed Wagner Group, added to the 2,000 already in Libya.

Two Turkish warships appeared off the Libyan coast this week as Ankara continues to send some 6,000 Syrian mercenaries to support the GNA. Turkey has since December supplied the GNA with air defence and jamming systems, hoping these would level the playing field, ensure the continued survival of the GNA, and perhaps curb the violence.

“That was the rationale, and I believe the rationale is completely off,” said Harchaoui.
“What we have seen in January is unconditional, brazen support on the part of France for whatever the UAE chooses to do, regardless of the level of destruction.”

A drone shot down by the GNA last week was the first Emirati military drone to appear in Libya since the Jan. 12 ceasefire, marking a renewed commitment, according to Harchaoui, from the Gulf state. He is convinced that the main objective of the UAE is now to show the world Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was wrong to intervene militarily in support of the GNA.

“It could launch a shock-and-awe kind of assault from the air, to overwhelm whatever Turkey has been able to install since December. It could also use heavy artillery, which hasn’t really been used in the last 10 months,” he said.

U.S. Africa Command Chief Gen. Stephen Townsend said in a statement last week that Libya faced significant escalation as the interjection of troops from external actors like Turkey and Russia had left the international community paralysed.
A detachment of U.S. marines left Libya as Haftar began his assault on Tripoli, and the Pentagon is planning a further reduction of its 6,000 troops across Africa, underscoring the erosion of U.S. influence in the region.

>French officials have blamed Turkey for breaking its promises on Libya, while Turkish officials have in turn blamed France for the continuing crisis in Libya.<
The United Nations hopes to convene talks in Geneva between Libya’s two warring sides sometime soon, but few observers expect those talks, or any European effort, to alter the playing field in Libya.

“I don’t see any effort that is genuine and forceful in terms of diplomatic push from any Western nation,” said Harchaoui. “The U.S. has clearly shown that it doesn’t care. Russia is very limited, and the EU is completely caught in a very binary, simplistic and mostly false depiction of what is about to happen.”

Alexander Clarkson, lecturer on German and European Studies at King’s College London, said that
European states have been playing a potentially malign role in Libya for years pointing out that Italy helped set up the GNA in 2018, while France was backing Haftar.

“The various ways that the Italians and the French have fed in arms and cash has arguably contributed to various escalations and dysfunctions rather than improved them,” he told Ahval in a podcast.

Turkey has been backing the GNA to protect some $18 billion in Gaddafi-era construction contracts and out of an affinity between Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party and Islamist elements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, within the GNA. In addition, Turkey sees its maritime borders deal with the GNA, signed in November, as boosting its negotiating position for energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean.

The UAE has tied its regional strategy of countering Islamists to Haftar. On Sunday, LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari said there was only a military solution to Libya’s conflict.
That same day, Erdoğan said there was no military solution, even as his government was sending thousands of Syrians to join the fight.

Harchaoui sees Erdoğan as hostage to domestic politics, and unable to send Turkish troops to fight in Libya after three incursions into Syria. “If he sends actual Turkish boys and they die in Tripoli, it will create a huge backlash,” said Harchaoui. “He has no choice.”

Yet that might be the move that tips the scales in favour of Haftar.
UAE, Egypt and the LNA have for more than a year accused the GNA of importing Islamist fighters from Syria. Suddenly, that charge rings true.

“Those Syrian mercenaries - this is seen as a catastrophe by a lot of pro-GNA people,” said Harchaoui,

Meanwhile, from the European perspective, the Syrian mercenaries make the U.N.-backed GNA look even more Islamist and more suspect.
This has pushed countries like Germany, Cyprus and Greece into full-on support for Haftar.

“Everybody is absolutely obsessed with preserving their friendship with the UAE,” said Harchaoui. “The UAE is demanding in exchange the ability to do whatever it wants to do in Libya, and it’s obtaining that ability.”

So, the UAE has beefed up its support of Haftar, with assistance from France
and potentially Russia, just as Turkey has significantly expanded its backing of a troubled GNA.
There is a chance that these two massive arsenals could force each side to stand down.

“The more probable scenario is that the UAE may end up giving in and utilising, on behalf of Haftar,
its new armada in northwestern Libya in order to penetrate Tripoli by force. In that case, the level of destruction, death and mayhem could be the most intense to date,” said Harchaoui, who wanted to make clear who would be to blame.

“The Europeans, particularly France, will be responsible when this happens.”

[dukkha]

^

European states have been playing a potentially malign role in Libya for years

NATO destroyed Libya when they assassinated Qadaffi -these are more spasms
^Syrian mercenaries brought in by Turkey and Russia

[anatta]

Libya conflict: Heavy shelling around Tripoli's Mitiga airport Feb 28, 2020

[anatta]

Post-shelling, flights resume at Tripoli airport TODAY
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/...104436567.html

Libya's conflict has forced flights to be redirected to Misrata after the only functioning airport in Tripoli was hit by heavy shelling on Monday.

[anatta]

forgiver me for not keeping up. It's been the usual oil embargo / shelling around Tripoli with Hiftar against the GNA..
The new twist is Turkish troops backing the GNA...other then that the misery just goes on as always

The fighting, between the Libyan National Army (LNA) of eastern-based leader Khalifa Haftar and the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli, came as the United Nations tried to hold peace talks in Geneva.

[anatta]

Erdogan says two Turkish troops killed in Libya


An old man holds flags of Turkey and Libya during a demonstration against renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar and in support of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord in Tripoli

[dukkha]

new preventive measures against Coronavirus in Libya
Libyan government has advised state institutions to oblige employees to use their yearly holidays and to start shift-based work systems so that less employees show up to work for the safety of people amid the outbreak of Coronavirus around the world and in neighboring countries, the Head of the Presidential Council Fayez Al-Sarraj instructed on Saturday.

Al-Sarraj called for sanitizing all state institutions' buildings and offices, decreasing the number of people inside the institutions and the use of public transport. He also advised for using online inquiries instead of face-to-face ones.

[dukkha]

Prospects for Peace in Libya Are Bleak
https://www.cfr.org/blog/prospects-p...ibya-are-bleak

In 2011, the United States supported UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to declare and enforce an air exclusion zone over Libya, just as Libyan forces loyal to autocrat Muammar al-Qaddafi were preparing to defeat much of the country’s army, which had sided with a popular uprising seeking his ouster. The U.S.-led coalition enforcing the no-fly zone destroyed the forces loyal to Qaddafi, permitting the opposition to remove the long-time dictator.

The presumption by the intervening powers was that, once Qaddafi’s oppressive dictatorship was removed, Libyans would establish a popularly-elected government and new national institutions, and go about the business of nation-building aided by their vast fossil fuel resources.
What subsequently happened in Libya could not be further from this vision.
A functioning central government was never restored after Qaddafi’s fall, and neighboring powers suffered the consequences of a divided and failing Libya.
A number of European and regional powers intervened, but they failed to stabilize the country—and some are capitalizing on the turmoil.
As a result, despite recent efforts at peace, the country could be on the precipice of a long-term division.


Much has happened since Qaddafi’s defeat. Long-standing regional and social divisions, repressed by Qaddafi’s regime, re-emerged.
Local structures, such as towns and tribes, became focal points of authority, defense, and sometimes aggression against neighboring communities.
Terrorist groups and armed militias exploited the turmoil and used ungoverned areas as bases for radicalization and organized crime, contributing to the country’s fragmentation and posing threats to its neighbors.

As local elements gained strength, the legitimacy of central governments and the elections that created them was diminished by low voter participation, armed militias, and judicial rulings.
The House of Representatives (HoR), a legislature elected in 2014 by a low turnout of voters, abandoned Tripoli after it was overrun by a militia from Misrata and set up shop in Tobruk, the country’s easternmost city.
Back in Tripoli, the Misratans restored the General National Congress (GNC), the government that the HoR was intended to replace.

On one side of the present-day conflict is Khalifa Haftar, a former Libyan general and Qaddafi loyalist who returned from exile in the United States after Qaddafi’s ouster.
He raised a militia—dubbed the Libyan National Army (LNA)—from among Libya’s fractious and tribal society and began to conquer territory, initially in the east around Benghazi and later in the south and far west.
He gained support from the HoR in Tobruk and, under a counterterrorism banner, earned extensive foreign assistance from states anxious about instability in Libya.

The French and Russians have legitimate concerns about the spread of violent extremists in Europe and see Haftar as having the best chance of stabilizing Libya, reducing ungoverned spaces, and containing the Islamist threat.
The Arab states that support Haftar—Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—considered the 2011 Arab uprisings a threat to regional stability and to their governments, and an opening to Islamic extremists.
It is probable that Haftar, despite his many shortcomings from a Western perspective, is an archetype the Arabs understand: an authoritarian leader who is not reluctant to use violence to defeat Islamists and other challengers in the quest to restore and maintain stability.

On the other side of the conflict is the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), established by the UN in late 2015 to unify the HoR and the GNC.
In addition to international recognition, the GNA has material support from some European states, Qatar, and Turkey, as well as some international organizations.
Lacking its own resources, the GNA has been dependent on allied militias, but has been unsuccessful at unifying the competing political and military factions that support it.
The HoR, despite agreeing to become part of the GNA, ultimately refused participation because it objected to members of the GNA’s cabinet, alleging they were Islamists.
This allegation permitted Haftar to continue fighting—and to dismiss, if not undermine, diplomatic initiatives—and maximize his chances of emerging as Libya’s next strongman.
After gaining control of most of the country, the LNA began a siege of Tripoli in April 2019 in a final effort to defeat the GNA, but the offensive has so far stalled at the outskirts of the capital.

As of February 17, 2020, the Libya conflict is now in its ninth year—and has spilled beyond Libya’s shores.
Some of the countries that participated in the initial intervention in 2011 are now dealing with the consequences of Libya’s instability.
It has become a haven for terrorist groups, including operatives of al-Qaeda and the self-proclaimed Islamic State who have sought refuge, trained, or staged attacks from there; the country’s lack of security has also led to it becoming a thruway for refugees from sub-Saharan Africa hoping to get to Europe, which is already struggling to manage refugees flows from Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere.

Since the civil war began, European cities have suffered dozens of terrorist attacks, many conducted by Muslims of North African origin, at least two of whom had clear connections to Libya. Moreover, Islamist terrorists with links to Libya conducted multiple attacks in neighboring Tunisia and Algeria, attacked the French Embassy in Tripoli, beheaded twenty-one Christian Egyptian laborers they had abducted from the Libyan city of Sirte, and attacked U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stephens.

Although the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) says it takes no side in the conflict, control of oil facilities is now subject to the competition between the rival pretenders to central authority.
Between 2014 and 2017, those rivals—each controlling various oil facilities—repeatedly fought for formal control of the NOC.
Inevitably, the combination of insecurity and political competition caused a range of stoppages and disruptions in the oilfields and at export terminals.
Although output increased from late 2016, due to tentative improvements in oil cooperation between the NOC, Tripoli, and Tobruk—and their associated armed forces—oil productivity and exports remain subject to the country’s broader instability and the continuing attempts to use oil as a weapon by one side against the other.

In addition to their stated objectives of mitigating terrorism and migration, as well as stabilizing the country, many of the intervening powers are also motivated by the prospect of lucrative oil and reconstruction deals.
The ultimate victor in Libya profoundly affects who will win which contracts.
Samuel Ramani argues that if the status quo—wherein the GNA controls Tripoli and its surroundings and the LNA dominates eastern and southern Libya—“is formalized, Russia and China are poised to benefit the most, as they have potential business ties to both sides.”
They have worked to maintain Libya’s division, as other actors have supported either the HoR and LNA or the GNA.

The result is that resolution of Libya’s conflict remains elusive. The country continues to suffer from significant displacement, and is a home for organized crime and terrorism; it represents a threat to its neighbors and to the United States’ European allies much more than it did under Qaddafi.

There is probably enough weapon, mercenary, and air operations support to Libyan combatants to maintain the current conflict for some time, despite a nine-year-old UN arms embargo and a commitment by the intervening powers to stop combat support at a January conference in Berlin.
The UN Security Council has passed no less than nine resolutions regarding the Libyan conflict going back to the immediate aftermath of Qaddafi’s fall.
Its support mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has the broad mandate of helping the GNA to stabilize the areas under its control, build institutions, and coordinate international assistance.
The two sides have periodically participated in UN-sponsored and other negotiations to end the conflict, but attacks have typically undermined the talks, and—as of 19 February—UN-hosted talks were suspended.

Absent a genuine desire to end combat by the Libyans themselves—an unlikely prospect given Libya’s regional and social divisions and the proliferation of armed militias—the country will remain divided with outsiders seeking to play out other rivalries, to pick winners and losers, or to promote permanent division