Libya News and Interests

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Libya's Haftar launches offensive to seize eastern city from 'terrorists'
http://www.france24.com/en/20180508...offensive-seize-eastern-city-derna-terrorists

AFP | Soldiers from the self-styled army of Libyan Strongman Khalifa Haftar take part in a military parade in the eastern city of Benghazi on May 7, 2018.

Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar on Monday announced a military offensive to take from "terrorists" the city of Derna, the only part of the country's east outside the control of his forces.

"The zero hour has struck for the liberation of Derna," said Haftar, declaring his troops had already started to crush the "bastions of terrorists" in the city.

Dressed in uniform, he was speaking from a military parade in the city of Benghazi in which thousands of soldiers from his self-styled army demonstrated their might.

Marshal Haftar celebrated the fourth anniversary since launching his "anti-terrorist" operation, which saw jihadists driven out of Benghazi -- the home of Libya's 2011 revolution.

It was his second public appearance after he returned to Benghazi two weeks ago following a long stay abroad, during which he was hospitalised in Paris.

Haftar said he had instructed his troops to spare the 150,000 residents of Derna, who have been under the control of the pro-Al-Qaeda Mujahedeen Shura Council.

He said

"peace efforts" aimed at avoiding clashes in Derna over the past three years had reached a "stalemate".

The coalition of Islamist militias was formed to drive the Islamic State group from the city in 2015, after IS's takeover of Derna the previous year.

It also fights Haftar's forces which have besieged the city for months.

While Haftar rules over eastern Libya, the rival Government of National Accord sits in the capital Tripoli and has the backing of the broader international community.

Haftar is accused by his rivals of wanting to establish a new military dictatorship in Libya.

Derna was known for being a bastion for jihadists even before the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

The city is the only part of eastern Libya to remain out of the control of Haftar's Libyan National Army, which has the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

In May 2017, Egypt carried out cross-border air strikes against militants in Derna in retaliation for a deadly attack on Coptic Christians.

(AFP)

 

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Haftar announces “zero hour” to attack Derna in east Libya
http://www.libyanexpress.com/haftar-announces-zero-hour-to-attack-derna-in-east-libya/

Derna Shura Council managed to seize several vehicles, ammunition, and heavily-armed cars.

 

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Fortunately, the desperation shown by those who do not support the LNA's activities, which are securing the country of Libya for its' citizens, was shown to a global audience through its' planting false rumors regarding the health of General Hifter. The Marshall is truly alive and well, sacrificing his own health to make a tireless effort to fight for his people. His efforts are leading towards building a safe and secure country for the citizens of Libya, and building coalitions of support from the African Union, Gulf nations, European Union, United States and other great powers," said Daniel Faraci, Director of Grassroots Political Consulting LLC.

General Hifter will continue to plan operations to eradicate jihadis, terrorist groups and those who are profiting off of innocent migrants through the antiquated system of slave trading from Libya, no matter where they operate. In addition, he will continue to create coalitions to support his efforts from across the globe. The intent of all of this work is to create a stabile and secure future for the Libyan people to be educated, live in safe communities, build a sustainable infrastructure and create a self-sustaining economy. He also desires to establish a representative government, which is accountable to the citizens of Libya, and would serve as an example to the rest of the region.

 

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Italy sued over migrant 'push back' deal with Libya after 20 migrants drown in Mediterranean
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ee-push-back-deal-mediterranean-a8342056.html

Survivors of a boat that sank in the Mediterranean are suing Italy over its collaboration with the Libyan coastguard.

Miigrants try to reach a rescue boat from the Spanish aid organisation Proactive Open Arms after falling from a punctured rubber boat in the Mediterranean about 12 miles north of Sabratha, Libya (file photo) AP

At least 20 migrants died when a dinghy carrying 130 people sank on 6 November 2017.

The parents of two children who drowned in the incident are among the 17 people to file the application in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

According to the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration, which made the application, the migrants died after the Libyan coast guard interfered in rescue efforts by humanitarian ship Sea-Watch 3.

The filing states Italy supplied the dinghy to the Libyan coast guard months before the mass drowning.

The country struck a deal with Libya in February 2017 to stop migrants from reaching Europe by training, equipping and funding their coastguard.

European leaders endorsed the agreement, praising it for significantly reducing the number of migrants travelling onto the continent from Libya.

But humanitarian groups warned the Libyan coast guard was forcing thousands of people to return to detention in inhumane conditions, beatings, extortion, starvation, and rape.

Two of the survivors of the boat which sank in November were subsequently sold and tortured with electricity, GLAN said.
Doctors Without Borders said last week it was “highly concerned” about around 800 migrants and refugees held in a overcrowded detention centre in the port city of Zuwara, Libya, around 80 miles west of the country’s capital, Tripoli.

Men, women and children had been detained without adequate food or water for more than five months and the situation was “critical” it warned.

In 2012 the ECHR concluded that Italy’s previous “push back” campaign breached international law, specifically the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

The court said it understood the pressures European nations were experiencing as a result of a large influx of migrants, but it did not mean they could shirk their obligation to protect individuals at risk of torture and death.

**Last year, The Independent reported on allegations that the Libyan coastguard was extorting money from migrants. Guards were stopping smuggler vessels offshore and detaining those onboard, before taking bribes to release them, according to a number of witness accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch.

 

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White House pulls back from Libya model for North Korea
http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3048249&cloc=etc|jad|googlenews

he White House on Wednesday indicated the Libya model advocated by its national security adviser John Bolton was not applicable to denuclearizing North Korea, apparently reacting to North Korea’s threat to pull out of a summit scheduled for next month.

Asked if the Libya model was the denuclearization framework it was pursuing, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders walked back comments by Bolton last month, saying she hadn’t “seen that as part of any discussions.”

“I am not aware that that’s a model [Libya] that we are using,” she said. "I know that that comment was made,” she continued, referring to Bolton’s remark on “Face the Nation” that Washington was looking at the Libya model to be applied to North Kore, “There’s not a cookie-cutter model on how this would work.”

Sander’s comment Tuesday appeared aimed at easing uncertainty over whether the summit meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald would take place on June 12 in Singapore.

On the prospect of holding the first North Korea-U.S. summit meeting as planned, Trump said Wednesday, “We will have to see,” a non-committal response. "We haven't seen anything, we haven't heard anything. We will see what happens," he continued.

North Korea had yet to respond as of press time Thursday to the White House’s pulling away from the Libya model.

On Wednesday, North Korea warned it was reconsidering the highly anticipated meeting, taking issue with the hawkish Bolton in particular,for his remarks about the Libya model adopted in 2003.

Bolton is known for a hardline stance on the North and advocacy for the Libya model, in which complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of a nuclear arsenal precedes sanctions relief and economic aid.

Bolton said last month on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Washington was “looking at the Libya model of 2003, 2004,” a comment that apparently irritated Pyongyang, which views Libya’s nuclear disarmament as the direct cause of downfall of Colonel Qaddafi and his death at the hands of Western-backed rebels in 2011, eight years after the denuclearization deal was signed.

The downfall and death of Qaddafi is usually argued as a reason the Kim Jong-un regime should hold unto nuclear arsenal to guarantee its security from external forces.

Bolton also asserted last weekend that the North must rid itself of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities, ballistic missiles and chemical and biological weapons as well as ship its dismantled nuclear weapons to an American nuclear research facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a position that could have also rattled the North.

Annoyance was evident in a statement issued by the North Wednesday, in which Kim Kye-gwan, its first vice foreign minister, said it was “absolutely absurd” for the U.S. to “dare compare” North Korea, a complete nuclear state, with Libya, a country that was in an early stage of nuclear development when it agreed to abandon its program in return for sanctions relief in 2003.

Kim said the North could “reconsider our proceeding” to the June 12 summit if the U.S. “is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment.”

Bolton has long been a skeptic of the North’s intention to denuclearize and asserted that the North would only lure the U.S. to the negotiating table to gain concessions first and renege on any denuclearization deal later.

Pyongyang has not been shy about showing its animus toward Bolton, saying it was aware of his past remarks, with Kim saying Wednesday, “We do not hide our feelings of repugnance toward him.”

Meanwhile, Blue House officials scrambled to assess the situation and seek ways to resolve unexpected hurdles. Chung Eui-yong, head of the Blue House’s National Security Office, presided over a National Security Council meeting Thursday morning during which the participants agreed to continue consulting with the North to reschedule a high-level meeting that was abruptly called off by the North the day before in protest of a joint military drill.

Chung also talked to Bolton, his U.S. counterpart, on the phone to discuss the North’s threat of a pull-out.

The Blue House said it would coordinate with Pyongyang and Washington through “various channels” for a successful North-U.S. summit in the “spirit of mutual respect.”

 

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Benghazi's Displaced: a Litmus Test for Libya
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-05-17/benghazis-displaced-a-litmus-test-for-libya

With two brothers in jail, the family house gone and her papers lost in the battle for Benghazi, Fatma is finding it hard to restart her life at the other end of Libya but impossible to imagine going back.

The 26-year-old is one of around 185,000 Libyans the United Nations has recorded as displaced by the turmoil in the North African country, living in the capital Tripoli and barred from her eastern home city, where a rival administration holds sway.

Former Benghazi residents are not the only ones driven from their homes:
fighting turned the six million strong country into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms after Muammar Gaddafi was ousted by a pro-democracy uprising in 2011.

But they make up a large proportion of the displaced and their fate is central to the future stability of Libya and the wider region, where al Qaeda and Islamic State have exploited political alienation.

The Benghazi displaced consist of radical and more moderate Islamists and other opponents of Khalifa Haftar, a commander who controls much of eastern Libya and has an eye on the rest.

They have all been labeled terrorists by Haftar and his supporters, complicating the reconciliation the United Nations hopes to advance by helping Libya hold elections this year.

"My family was in opposition to Haftar so it got too dangerous for us,"

Fatma said in phone interview, asking, like others interviewed, to be cited with her first name only, fearing reprisals.

Haftar turned against Gaddafi along with Islamist and allied fighters and then, once Gaddafi had gone, expelled his former allies, some of whom viewed him as a throwback to one-man rule.

More than 100,000 people were displaced, according to U.N. estimates, in fighting between the former allies that broke out in 2014 and destroyed entire neighborhoods before it ended last July, when Haftar declared victory.

He now leads a government in competition with a U.N.-backed administration in Tripoli and is weighing whether to run for president if and when elections are held.

He is backed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who also has military roots. Sisi has cracked down on Islamists, who he brands terrorists, and faces growing attacks, claimed by Islamic State, on soldiers and civilians in Sinai.

 

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Fatma fled in 2014 with her parents and siblings, driving through the night to Misrata, a city in western Libya some 800 km (500 miles) away which supported the Islamists opposing Haftar and where some Benghazi business people have roots.

One of her brothers was arrested as he had been a member of Ansar al-Shariya, an Islamist militant group which fought Haftar and which Washington says was behind the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed the U.S. ambassador.

Many Ansar Shariya members ended up with Islamic State but the battle for Benghazi also drew in non-Islamists or more moderate forces opposed to Haftar.
Western diplomats say this group might get radicalized if denied the right to return.

"If the Benghazi displaced don't find a 'political home', then they will become a source of new dissent," one diplomat said.

Haftar has presented himself to foreign powers as a bulwark against terrorism and is popular among many in eastern Libya who credit him with ending a rise in Islamist militancy.

His opponents accuse him of resurrecting an authoritarian state in the east, where he controls the OPEC member's key oil export ports.

Fatma's family rushed to sell her house to a neighbor; the Tripoli-based council of displaced from Benghazi says other homes were taken by the families of forces linked to Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA).

Mustafa Sagizly, a former IT entrepreneur and Haftar critic who left Benghazi in June 2014, said his was among them. "My villa is now inhabited by four families," he said by telephone from Geneva, sharing pictures of his sprawling former home and saying he had not been back for fear of arrest.

Hanan Salah, senior Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the scale of property seizures "appeared to be substantial".

 

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Families or individuals perceived to oppose the Libyan National Army (LNA) paid dearly and were hunted; scores remain detained, were disappeared, tortured or even killed and their properties were confiscated," she said.

Ahmed Mismari, spokesman for Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA), denied houses had been seized.
Residents loyal to Haftar said some houses abandoned by people they described as terrorists were now inhabited by families whose own homes had been destroyed.

"Those families who run away from Benghazi, their sons were from terrorist groups," said Mismari. "Their sons carried out acts of kidnapping, killing, assassination, explosions, and destroyed families."

He said the displaced families could come back as part of national reconciliation provided their cases were settled from a legal point of view involving community elders.

RECONCILIATION?

Haftar has threatened severe consequences for refusing to return houses to their owners, but critics say he is unable to control all LNA forces, a mixture of soldiers, tribesmen and youth who joined up.

"I don't have a problem with Haftar but I fear going back because in Benghazi everyone who left in 2014 is seen as 'Daesh' (Islamic State)," said an oil engineer called Mahmoud who hails from the same tribe as Haftar.

He had not joined Islamists but left the city for Tripoli in 2014 when fighting hit his district. "My house got destroyed by an air strike and I also have an apartment which some people have occupied."

The United Nations has begun meetings to bring together rival communities in various parts of Libya and pave the way for presidential and parliamentary votes it hopes will be held soon.

Tarek Orafi, head of the Benghazi municipal council replaced by Haftar by a military governor, said only a few families who fled the city in 2014 had gone back. A U.N.-led group of aid agencies involved in protection of civilians in Libya put the number of people still displaced from Benghazi inside Libya at 27,000 but Orafi said others had gone abroad like Sagizly, many to Turkey.

The council has registered some 13,000 displaced families but its members said the number was higher, since many people did not want to add their names, fearing reprisals.

euters did meet some Benghazi residents living in Tripoli who travel home without getting questioned, however.

Orafi said those arriving in western Libya find themselves in legal limbo. The east refuses to send documents such as birth certificates, often citing ongoing security investigations, and officials in western Libya will not issue new ones without them.

"I couldn't enrol at the (state) Tripoli university," said Fatma. "I lost my university documents."

Her father has been unable to get his public salary routed from his old Benghazi account, now unaccessible, to a new one in Tripoli, a problem reported by other displaced too. Another brother could not marry as his civil registry is in Benghazi, another problem described by others.

Parts of western Libya became less welcoming after Islamist suicide bombings began in 2015 -- another of Fatma's brothers was detained in Misrata after a video surfaced where he voiced support for Ansar al-Shariya, she said.

Alongside the legal struggles is the trauma of feeling cut off from a home city just a one-hour flight from the capital.

"I had to restart my life in Tripoli from zero," said a 26-year female friend of Fatma who only gave her family name, Saghili. She fled with her mother and sisters in 2014 after her home was destroyed in an air strike.

"We manage financially but I miss my friends in Benghazi, my house and my bed," she said. "But I fear going back."

 

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Deadly car bomb explosion rocks Benghazi
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018...explosion-rocks-benghazi-180525053334468.html
A car bomb explosion has killed at least seven people and wounded 20 others in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, local security and medical sources have said.

The bombing on early Friday morning took place behind the city's largest hotel, Tibetsi, on a busy market street selling mostly Syrian produce.

A local security official told AFP news agency that the victims were civilians.

The city's Al-Jalaa Hospital confirmed the attack on Jamal Abdelnasser Street, adding that it had received at least 20 wounded persons, local news outlet Libyan Express, reported.

Images circulating on social media showed charred cars, a blazing fire and many bystanders assessing the extent of the damage. Red ambulance cars were also at the scene of the commercial street.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier this month, at least 11 people were reported dead after armed men, including two suicide bombers, attacked Libya's electoral commission headquarters in the capital, Tripoli.

In January, a double car bombing in Benghazi killed at least 35 people and left more than 50 others wounded. Ahmed al-Fituri, chief of a special investigation unit attached to the general command of east Libyan security forces, was among the casualties.

Forces loyal to renegade General Khalifa Haftar took control of Benghazi in 2017, after a three-year campaign against rival armed groups.

The battles have left large swaths of the port city in ruins.

Libya has descended into a civil war with rival militias fighting for control of territories after longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebels in 2011.

 

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Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ

 

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more from Sid (FOIA release)
https://foia.state.gov/searchapp/DO..._25/F-2016-07895/DOC_0C06179309/C06179309.pdf

 

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New U.S. airstrike this week against al-Qaeda in Libya, this one on Wednesday and allegedly finding its target some 50 miles southeast of Bani Walid.
It comes just one week since the last U.S. strike in Libya — also near Bani Walid — according to U.S. Africa Command. That one targeted four ISIS-Libya fighters. Wednesday’s strike is believed to have killed a fighter with al-Qa’ ida in the Islamic Maghreb.
For the record, AFRICOM says, “This is the second U.S. strike against AQIM in Libya. The first on March 24, 2018, resulted in the death of Musa Abu Dawud, a high-ranking AQIM official.” Or find what is essentially his obit over at The Long War Journal, which also has a tracker of where U.S. airstrikes have fallen in Libya since 2014, here.
https://www.defenseone.com/news/2018/06/the-d-brief-june-15-2018/149036/?oref=d-mostread
^hotlinks to articles

 

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Libya's Two Biggest Oil Ports Shut as Fighting Resumes
Loading at Libya's two busiest oil ports came to a halt on Thursday as two militia groups restarted a battle over the facilities' control. The renewed conflict near the Ras Lanuf and Es Sider terminals took about 240,000 barrels per day of oil export volume offline, according to Libya's National Oil Corporation, and the operating staff have been evacuated at both sites.

Units with the Benghazi Defense Brigades launched an assault on Libyan National Army (LNA) positions near Es Sider and Ras Lanuf on Thursday. The group includes some of the same militia leaders who periodically seized and blockaded the same oil terminals until March of last year, when they were ousted by the LNA, Reuters reports.

The LNA is presently attempting to consolidate its hold in eastern Libya by capturing the city of Derna, the last port city in the area that is not under Haftar's control. An LNA spokesman alleged that the assault on Es Sider and Ras Lanuf was intended to relieve pressure on the defense of Derna.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/libya-s-two-biggest-oil-ports-shut-as-fighting-resumes

 

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Salvini Says Italy to Turn Away New Migrant Ships From Libya
By Daniele Lepidoand Charles Penty June 16, 2018
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...y-will-turn-away-new-migrant-ships-from-libya

Italy won’t be complicit in illegal immigration, Salvini says
Spanish government says France offers to help take migrants

Salvini’s battle to curb arrivals from across the Mediterranean has rocked relations between the new Italian governing coalition and France just over a week after the administration led by the League party and the Five Star Movement was sworn in. The spat could threaten broader efforts led by France and Germany to reform euro area governance.

Almost 60 percent of Italians are in favor of closing the country’s ports, supporting Salvini’s anti-immigration strategy, Ferdinando Pagnoncelli, president of polling company Ipsos Italia, wrote Saturday in Corriere della Sera, citing a survey conducted on June 12-13.

Lingering political tensions over the unresolved question of how to control immigration from outside Europe have now broken out into the open, and the fallout is reshaping alliances and stoking old rivalries from Rome to Berlin, Paris and Vienna.

“Italy is facing giant challenges and I can understand that in the past Italy got the feeling it didn’t receive enough solidarity from European countries,”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in an interview with Corriere della Sera, adding that he invited his Italian counterpart Enzo Moavero Milanesi to Berlin.

Salvini, leader of the anti-immigrant League, lost no time in falling out with some close European allies over his decision to deny access to port for a refugee vessel earlier this month. His stance also forced uncomfortable decisions in Spain, which was forced to take in the ship turned away from Italy with 629 migrants on board, and is threatening Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces renewed domestic turbulence over her open-door stance on migrants that could yet spell her early departure.

Meanwhile, Spanish coastguards reported waves of migrants trying to reach Spanish shores from North Africa in boats. As many as 933 people have been rescued in the Western Mediterranean and Straits of Gibraltar over the past 48 hours, the Spanish sea rescue service Salvamento Maritimo said on its twitter account. Four have died, it said.

 

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Libya: Haftar forces launch push against militia in oil crescent
Haftar's forces in bid to regain control of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra oil terminals in Libya's northeastern oil crescent.

Forces allied with Haftar control most of eastern Libya and are opposed to an internationally recognised government based in Tripoli
++

The self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) loyal to renegade general Khalifa Haftar have mobilised to drive out rival groups from the country's northeastern oil crescent, according to security forces in Ajdabiya.

Haftar's LNA announced on Sunday a "major offensive" after his forces lost control on Thursday of the Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra oil terminals - located about 650km east of Tripoli - to armed groups that attacked the area.

The LNA's air force on Sunday also told residents in the oil crescent to stay away from "areas where the enemy gathers, munition stores and sites with military vehicles".

"Fighter [planes] are carrying out raids against terrorist positions and gatherings in the operational military zone stretching from Ras Lanuf to the edge of the city of Sirte," the air force said on its Facebook page.

The LNA controls most of eastern Libya and is opposed to an internationally recognised government based in Tripoli, which has itself condemned Thursday's militia attacks.

Ibrahim Jadhran, who heads the Petroleum Facilities Guard, said in a video on Thursday that he had formed an alliance to retake oil terminals seized by Haftar's forces in September 2016.

Jadhran controlled the terminals for years following the 2011 overthrow and killing of long-time Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, but were eventually forced out by the LNA.
'National disaster'

The Red Crescent in Ajdabiya, 150km east of Ras Lanuf, on Friday said it received 28 bodies, without specifying to which group they belonged.

The National Oil Corporation (NOC) on Saturday said a storage tank had been "significantly damaged" due to the armed incursions into Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra.

It called for the "immediate and unconditional surrender" of Jadhran's militia to "prevent an environmental disaster and further destruction of key infrastructure".
READ MORE
Khalifa Haftar forces capture key Libya oil terminals

The NOC on Thursday said it had halted oil exports from Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra because of the violence.

NOC chief Mustafa Sanallah warned that if oil exports from these terminals remain at a standstill it could cause a "national disaster".

Libya's economy relies heavily on oil, with production at 1.6 million barrels a day under Gaddafi.

The 2011 uprising against Gaddafi saw production fall to about 20 percent of that level, before recovering to over one million barrels a day by the end of 2017.

 

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Attack Shuts Major Libyan Oil Ports, Slashing Production
US News & World Report· 5 days ago
BENGHAZI, Libya/LONDON (Reuters) - The major Libyan oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider were closed...


https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...s-at-major-libyan-ports-of-es-sider-ras-lanuf


The major Libyan oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider were closed and evacuated on Thursday after armed brigades opposed to the powerful eastern commander Khalifa Haftar stormed them, causing a production loss of 240,000 barrels per day (bpd).

 

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To visit Libya in recent months is to encounter a country holding its breath, caught in the throes of abeyance and a deep foreboding.
It is a lawless place, riddled with criminality and flare-ups of fierce fighting in the south and east.
Oil revenues have fallen due to recent factional clashes and elite plunder has everyday Libyans struggling for subsistence amid deep economic crisis.
Overlaying all of this is a lingering political stalemate. Formal authority is split between a feeble, internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in the capital of Tripoli and eastern institutions dominated by Field Marshal Khalifa Hiftar, who once served under the former Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi but later had a falling-out. But much of the country’s west and south escapes the control of these rival authorities.

 

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Renewed fight over Libya’s oil threatens entire country
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/or...terminals-militia-attacks-cut-production.html

Smoke and flames rise from an oil storage tank that was set on fire amid fighting between rival factions at Ras Lanuf terminal, Libya, June 18, 2018.

n the morning of June 14, with just a couple hundred armed men driving a dozen pickup trucks, Ibrahim Jadran, the commander of the so-called Petroleum Facilities Guard, took over two of Libya’s main oil exporting terminals used by the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) — Es-Sidra and Ras Lanuf. The terminals are located in eastern Libya near Jadran’s hometown, Ajdabiya, where his tribesmen of al-Magharba tribe are concentrated and seem to have helped him.

The NOC was forced to declare a state of force majeure, suspending oil exports and evacuating its employees from both terminals and surrounding areas.

In a statement sent to Al-Monitor, the NOC estimated losses at “tens of billions of dollars” before adding that the burning of at least two oil depots at the terminals will take “years and even more costs to repair and return production to normal sustainable levels.” The statement also warned of “catastrophic environmental” consequences on the region due to leaking and burning oil.

NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla condemned the attack in a recorded video message broadcast on NOC's website June 14, calling Jadran an “outlaw who cost Libya in 2013 more than $100 billion.” Back then, Jadran and his men had taken over the terminals, suspending oil exports from 2013 to 2016, before he was forced to flee after the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), commanded by Khalifa Hifter, took control of the oil ports.

Sanalla pointed out that Libya “will lose daily production of about 400,000 barrels per day as lost exports, and if the status quo continues, the estimated cost will be about $880 million a month.”

He concluded by saying, “This is a national catastrophe and the outlaw [Jadran] should be forced to leave the terminals.” Indeed, the loss is huge and very detrimental to any economic progress or stability since oil is the main source of revenue for the militia-dominated country.

Jadran said in a recorded video June 14 that the bulk of his force is made up of former Petroleum Facilities Guard members and other groups, including the notorious Benghazi Defense Brigades, which is a loose coalition of Islamist groups formed to counter Hifter’s LNA in Benghazi before he chased them out in July 2017 by taking over the entire city in eastern Libya.

Jadran also claimed that some of Libya’s Tebu men, a minority of nomads roaming southern Libya with a concentration in Sebha, are among his fighters. Nevertheless, Tebu’s social leader Ahmed the First denied this while threatening Jadran with “legal action for abusing our tribe’s reputation.”

The attack apparently surprised Hifter, whose forces were busy clearing Derna from al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters since the LNA launched its offensive to retake the coastal town in northeastern Benghazi on May 8.

Continuing the fight in Derna is likely to deplete and weaken any capabilities the LNA managed to amount to counter Jadran let alone force him out of the terminals. And leaving Derna after it is almost fully conquered could mean Islamist remnant forces inside the city might gain the military momentum again and launch their counter attack, which is likely to be very costly for the LNA, in both men and equipment.

In the wider political scene in Libya, the attack is likely to have serious negative repercussions after an atmosphere of hope prevailed in anticipation of the Dec. 10 elections set by UN envoy Ghassan Salame and agreed on in the latest inter-Libya talks hosted and supported by France in Paris on May 29.

In the military sense, Jadran cannot launch such daring operations alone and he likely has some support from inside and outside Libya. Technically speaking, his group consists of a gang with little military capacity and know-how fighting in a desert, which is difficult even for professional armies, let alone for groups of this size and capability.

Besides, the terminals area is hard to defend for many reasons. Its proximity to the seashore makes it open to sea attacks, as Jadran lacks any sea-mounted military equipment. The nature of its installation — which is highly flammable — makes it a hazardous place to use military force where any tank could be hit at any time. It is difficult to control such a place, especially after most of the NOC’s professional firefighters have already left.

LNA spokesman Ahmed Mesmari announced on June 17 that LNA’s air force has gone into action in the areas around the terminals all the way to Sirte, some 200 kilometers (124 miles) to the west, warning civilians to be careful.

It is a matter of time before Jadran and his forces are ejected from the areas. But the repeated phenomena of gang attacks against the country’s main lifeline will always be a looming threat as long as no central government is in place with full power over the entire territory of Libya. The Government of National Accord in Tripoli can hardly do more than issue statements of condemnation, which it did, but that will not help retake the oil terminals or enable NOC to resume oil exports.