Libyan forces make deep advances into Daesh-held Sirte

[anatta]

Sirte is the only Daesh-held city outside Syria and Iraq, and was seen as a possible fallback option for the capital of its self-styled caliphate.

Libyan forces loyal to an UN-brokered government have advanced deep inside the coastal city of Sirte, the main stronghold of the Daesh’s local affiliate, officials said Wednesday.

Brig. Gen. Mohammed al-Ghasri told The Associated Press that forces have seized a key bridge inside the city where the extremists used to hang the bodies of their enemies, and are only five kilometres from the city centre and Zafrana square, where Daesh, also known as the Islamic State group, killed prisoners convicted by its self-styled Islamic courts.

Sirte is the only Daesh-held city outside Syria and Iraq, and was seen as a possible fallback option for the capital of its self-styled caliphate. The extremists are currently struggling to fend off advances on a number of fronts, including in the Iraqi city of Fallujah and the northern Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Raqqa.

Al-Ghasri said the fighting on Wednesday killed five of his fighters and wounded another 25.

Another official said the forces, mainly militiamen from the nearby city of Misrata, had encountered little resistance in recent days aside from roadside bombs. Warplanes have supported the advance, bombing Daesh positions and destroying a car bomb the extremists had prepared to use against the advancing forces.


The official said the Libyan forces are now closing in on the Daesh’s headquarters in the Ouagadougou convention centre, one of the city’s main landmarks. They are also making their way toward the port. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press.

Western nations have thrown their support behind the UN-backed government in hopes of ending the rivalry between authorities based in the capital, Tripoli, and in the country’s far east. They hope the government can unify the Libya’s various militias in order to expel the extremists.

In March the UN-designated Prime Minister Fayez Serraj entered Tripoli, but since then he has faced resistance from different factions across the country, including the eastern-based parliament, which has not yet endorsed his government.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/...make-deep-advances-into-daesh-held-sirte.html

 

[anatta]

Misrata militia now include 2 brigades fro Bengazi ( eastern gov't) - Daesh is getting pounded
( Daesh is "Isisi in Libya") - at this rate they'll be thrown out and become an unorganized insurgency.

The politics of reunification are much more difficult ,but everybody hates Daesh.

 

[anatta]

:00 a.m.


Ahmed Hadiya, head of the media center of the anti-IS operation room, said Thursday that some IS fighters were shaving off their beards and long hair in order to flee the central Libyan city under cover.

 

[anatta]

On June 7, Britain circulated a draft resolution at the United Nations to authorize European naval forces to intercept ships suspected of smuggling arms to the Islamic State (IS) in Libya. This appears to be counter to what was agreed to in a May 16 Vienna meeting in which major powers promised to help Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) arm itself to confront IS. However, the latest draft resolution aims to tighten the noose around IS while calling for the easing of the arms embargo against the GNA.

After the May ministerial meeting, the United States, Russia, Italy, Germany and Libya’s neighboring countries, along with at least three regional organizations including the Arab League, European Union and the United Nations, agreed to lend further support to Libya’s fragile government and to translate this political support into on-the-ground material assistance.

However, careful reading of the meeting’s adopted final communique reveals that the international community is about to blunder again in the North African country, probably repeating some of its worst mistakes committed five years ago. In February 2011, leading world powers, including France and the United Kingdom, rushed to help what they called the Libyan revolution to topple Moammar Gadhafi, only to send the country into chaos and lawlessness. They supplied arms and training to rebel forces without any real concern about where such weapons could end up and who was being trained.

The communique highlights two issues of critical importance: the partial lifting of the United Nations arms embargo imposed on Libya in March 2011, and the granting of some legitimacy to the recently created Presidential Guard. This legitimacy can be granted by recognizing the Presidential Guard as legitimate militia-free, disciplined armed forces under the state control as claimed by the GNA, which created it just a few days before presenting the guard as such in Vienna.

Without any rigorous checking or proper mechanisms in place, those who met in Vienna declared their support for the Presidential Guard, stressing their readiness to “respond to the Libyan government’s requests for training and equipping the Presidential Guard and vetted forces from throughout Libya.”

Such a step will only complicate the military and political situation in Libya and push the various parties into further conflict, since neither side accepts the other as a legitimate legal army under government control. Gen. Khalifa Hifter does not recognize the newly created Presidential Guard as a legal Libyan army worth arming and training, and vice versa.

Which armed group is legitimately called a Libyan army is a big issue in Libya, since such categorization mean legal status and the ability to train and purchase arms openly. The Libyan Armed Forces, under the leadership of Hifter, was recognized as such by the only elected legislature in the country, namely the Tobruk-based parliament. Over the last two years, the Libyan Armed Forces has been battling terror groups, including IS and Ansar al-Sharia, in Benghazi. It finally liberated much of the embattled city earlier this year, enabling locals to return to their homes and businesses.

Before the GNA was created, Libya’s internationally recognized government repeatedly asked for the lifting of the arms embargo to enable the government to buy arms in legal manners — but to no avail. Recognizing the GNA as a legitimate government of Libya should not mean anything before it includes the armed forces. Hifter does not accept the GNA as a legal government in Libya because it did not gain the confidence of the parliament, as required by the Libyan Political Agreement that was brokered by the UN and signed in December.

Arming any group that declares loyalty to the GNA — even if recognized by the international community as such — does not make it legitimate in the eyes of major players on the ground, including Hifter and Tripoli’s Revolutionary Brigades, for instance. The Presidential Guard is composed of armed militias of mixed loyalties drawing mainly on the city-state of Misrata’s armed and powerful militias. Whether or not the Presidential Guard has fought IS does not mean it should be seen as the focal point for a future Libyan army, since many of its members are implicated in abuses and crimes including the mass murder of civilians. Attempts to integrate them and other militias into a state-controlled armed forces have so far failed, and ordinary Libyans see them as an illegal militia.

Seeking training for such militias just because they declared loyalty to the GNA does not make them an army, nor will it lead to discipline and professionalism required in any professional state army. Previous attempts to train such individuals proved to be useless despite the millions of dollars wasted on such programs. Individuals loyal to certain militias, which protect them, will find it difficult to accept being integrated into a legal and accountable state body in which they can be held responsible for their actions.

It is only a matter of time before the UN votes to partially lift the arms embargo on the newly created Presidential Guard. This will automatically lead to renewed conflict because Hifter and his forces — which include a large number of Libya’s former professional army — will consider that to be against them despite the success they have scored against terror groups in Benghazi.

The West, and particularly European Union countries, want the GNA to at least curb, if not stop, the flow of immigrants from Libya to the southern EU shores. To do that, they have promised at the ministerial meeting in Vienna to train Libya’s coast guard. But, again, training the so-called Libyan coast guard is no more than old militias being recycled through the GNA to convince major powers that they are indeed under state command.

In 2011, the West rushed to help destroy the former regime in the tribally divided country without any workable plan to restabilize the country afterward, the result of which has been chaos and conflicts across Libya ever since. The West invested heavily — at least politically — in the so-called Libyan revolution, naively believing that once Gadhafi was toppled, the Libyans would be able to sit together and reconcile their differences and move forward. This time, the West is about to repeat its errors by recognizing old militias as a new army, giving it legitimacy and recognition
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...esidential-guard-armed-forces-legitimacy.html