Libya News and Interests

The population discontent is rampant against the GNA and Sarraj's management of the economic crisis owing to the daily water and power cuts, shortage of cash and lack of basic services. Food shortages have resulted in a thriving black market, driving up the price of food by 31 percent in the first half of 2016. Electricity is more and more sporadic, with longer brownouts

The combination of inflation, devaluation of the dinar in the black market and the increased cost of basic goods and commodities has led to significantly reduced purchasing power for the Libyan people.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA) at least 2.4 million people out of a total population of 6.4 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

The UN agency said that in 2016 Libya registered the fourth consecutive year of decline in oil production, from which government revenues depend. In the first half of 2016, the country produced an average 350,000 barrels per day, almost 20 percent less than in the previous year.

Year 2016 has ended with a GDP budget deficit of more than 60 percent, while foreign reserves have been rapidly depleting, halving from US$107.6bn in 2013 to an estimated US$43bn in 2016.

"The failure of public financial administration continues with the government unable to come to an agreement on a national budget, a plan or a system to provide for the population," said a recently published UNOCHA country report.

"While funds are being allocated [including most recently the announcement from the Central Bank on the allocation of US7.8bn] from the contingency budget to the Presidential Council for energy, security, health and salaries, it is not clear how these funds will be distributed and if they will reach people in need."

Corruption is widespread, with stakeholders at multiple levels taking advantage of financial mismanagement throughout the country, the reports said.
Building on the population discontent, last week, supporters of Ghwell, the former prime minister of the Salvation Government,(Islamic) stormed some empty ministerial buildings in the capital, Tripoli. Ghwell's attempt seems aimed to reinforce the perception of Sarraj's vulnerability as well as the volatility of the front supporting the GNA.

"The security situation in the capital remains fragile as usual," said Italian ambassador to Tripoli Giuseppe Perrone. Italy reopened its embassy on January 10 in an attempt to break the international isolation that Libyans are living in, Perrone said.

"Until security will be managed by different rival factions, the situation will not change. In this contest the ongoing effort to create a presidential guard that would serve the institutions and grant their safety is very important," the ambassador said.

Italy has promised to provide logistical and training support to Libya's coastguard and military forces to enhance border control and migrants flows. But the plan is far-fetched as long as Libya's authorities fail to exert any control over the country's territory.

Libya is the primary route for refugees and migrants from Africa and the Middle East with Italy their first destination. In 2016 some 181,000 refugees arrived on the Italian coasts, a 20 percent increase from 2015.

The embassy reopening has been harshly criticised by the Tobruk-backed government of Abdullah al-Thinni which branded it as "a military occupation".

Meanwhile General Haftar criticised Italy's presence in Misrata, where Italians set up a military hospital and invited foreign countries "to stay out of Libya's affairs".
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/01/russia-endgame-libya-170116061913370.html
 
Inside Obama's War Room
How he decided to intervene in Libya – and what it says about his evolution as commander in chief
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-obamas-war-room-20111013
In Libya, however, the uprising took on a decidedly different character than those of its neighbors. After only a week of peaceful demonstrations, the protesters had transformed themselves into an armed rebel force and began marching on Tripoli.
A series of high-level Libyan officials defected to the opposition, joining the newly formed government in Benghazi. Qaddafi's hold on power looked shaky – until he mounted a brutal counteroffensive on March 6th.
The rebel leadership in Benghazi pleaded for Western help, making a number of spectacular claims: accusations of mass rapes, of Libyan gunships firing on protesters, of 30,000 civilians killed.The claims would later prove false

On one side were top-level Pentagon and White House advisers who were skeptical of further military intervention, given the continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This group included Biden, Also in the skeptic camp were Donilon's deputy, Denis McDonough, who had served on Obama's campaign staff in 2008, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who dubbed calls for intervention "loose talk."

On the other side of the internal debate was a faction of unlikely allies within the White House and the State Department who viewed Libya as an opportunity to enact a new form of humanitarian intervention, one that they had been sketching out for nearly a decade.

They would now be to Obama what the neoconservatives had been to Bush: ardent advocates for war in the name of a grander cause. Libya, in effect, represents the rise of the humanitarian Vulcans.

One of the most vocal interventionists was Susan Rice, Rice reinforced the Obama administration's commitment to a theory called "responsibility to protect." R2P,

Joining Rice in the push for intervention was Samantha Power,,,, he angrily denounced Hillary Clinton as a "monster.",,

The wild card in the debate over Libya, according to insiders, was Clinton herself.
According to veteran officials at State, Clinton installed the most controlling – and paranoid – staff they had ever seen. "They do things like not release her schedule to us, like it's top-secret, even though other secretaries of state had been doing it for years," says one official. "For a while, it was like Spy vs. Spy," says another. "Hillary would have her people, Obama had his, and they were keeping tabs on each other.

During the internal debate over Libya, Clinton started off questioning the wisdom of intervention.
At first, she stuck with her longtime ally Robert Gates, who strongly opposed launching a war that he warned would overtax the Pentagon.
Clinton also worried that if an intervention failed to remove Qaddafi, or failed to gain enough international support, it would be a blow to American credibility.
Clinton began to break away from Gates and side with her former rivals, Power and Rice. "I think she had some firsthand experience that changed her views," says one official familiar with her thinking. On March 12th, before her trip to the Middle East, Clinton learned that Arab states might back an intervention in Libya. Three days later, she was rattled when a coalition of Egyptian youth groups refused to meet with her. According to several State Department officials, the snub left her thinking, "We didn't get off to such a great start with Egypt – let's reverse that with Libya."

The president apparently shared the impulse to use Libya to make up for the administration's slow-footed response to the Arab Spring.
Iraq architect Paul Wolfowitz, who had signed a letter to Obama in February urging the president to protect Libyan civilians and overthrow Qaddafi

Steve Clemons, an influential progressive at the New America Foundation, offered a more skeptical take on the rebel leaders, who included a mix of former Qaddafi thugs, high-minded reformers and militant Islamists once aligned with Al Qaeda.
 
the president said, failing to intervene would be a "psychological pendulum, in terms of the Arab Spring, in favor of repression." He concluded: "Just signing on to a no-fly zone so that we have political cover isn't going to cut it. That's not how America leads." Nor, he added, is it the "image of America I believe in."

The debate was over. The president ordered Rice to go back to the U.N. and "lean forward" on a resolution that would authorize NATO to strike targets on the ground and take "all necessary measures."
The humanitarian argument for intervention had carried the day. "The media makes as if this was an esoteric discussion on a foreign-policy website about intervention versus realism," says a White House official. "That's crap when you're sitting in the Situation Room and a city of 700,000 is facing indiscriminate slaughter. That's what moved the president."

As Rice scrambled to line up votes at the United Nations, Qaddafi and Saif, his son and heir apparent, didn't believe that NATO would actually intervene.
Why would the West move to overthrow him after they had reintegrated Libya into the international community? "Qaddafi was genuinely surprised,"
Click to expand...
says Dirk Vandewalle, an expert on Libya who has consulted with both the U.N. and the State Department. "Saif and his father were never really very good at reading accurately where Libya stood in the West. They thought everything was forgiven and forgotten." On March 17th, two nights after the meeting in the Situation Room, Qaddafi went on Libyan television and gave the speech that sealed his fate. His army, he declared, would hunt the rebels down and show "no mercy."
 (note Qadaffi mentioned the "rebels" -not Bengazi protestors)
Qaddafi's son Saadi immediately realized that his father had made a major miscalculation. According to Jackie Frazier, an American business consultant who worked for Saadi in Tripoli during the run-up to the war, Saadi leapt into his Jeep, raced to his father's house and begged him to withdraw the threat. "Dad," he pleaded, "you have to take it back." In a last-ditch effort to prevent the U.N. from voting to authorize military intervention, Saadi also tried to get a message out to CNN that Qaddafi would not march on Benghazi.

The next night, according to another American who is close to the Qaddafi family, Saif tried to arrange a phone call with Hillary Clinton, thinking he could talk the Americans out of intervening. But when Saif placed the call, Clinton refused to speak to him – instead, she had Ambassador Cretz call Saif back, telling him to remove all his troops from the cities and to step down from power. Through an American contact, Saif also tried calling Gen. Charles Jacoby, who was involved in drawing up military plans at the Pentagon, but to no avail. Saif and his chief of staff, Mohammed Ismail, laughed off the situation, apparently believing that Obama was simply engaging in the sort of anti-Libya bluster that Reagan had made a staple of American politics. "They didn't get it," says Frazier. "They thought they had been through this before. They thought it was the 1980s."

Once the bombing started, Qaddafi and his sons felt betrayed. "We gave up our nukes and they screwed us," Saif told his dwindling circle of friends. In July, four months into the war, Qaddafi's sons still held out a delusional hope that their father would prevail. "We have an army of 1 million men in the streets," Saadi boasted to Frazier when she visited him in his rooms on the 23rd floor of the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli – even though Qaddafi's real strength was less than 20,000. "He'd drunk the Kool-Aid," Frazier recalls. Later that night, when a bomb hit near the hotel, Saadi looked out the window and shook his head. "NATO," he muttered.

In his effort to forge a new, more multilateral model for intervention, Obama had succeeded in securing the backing of NATO, the United Nations and the Arab League. But the White House had done little to line up the one U.S. body that is actually vested with the constitutional authority to authorize a war: Congress.

On Friday, March 18th, the president invited 18 congressional leaders to the Oval Office. According to two senior congressional sources with direct knowledge of the meeting, Obama "came into the room, sat down and read some talking points off a paper." Then the president said, "If there are any questions, you can ask my advisers," and left the room.

The congressmen were stunned. "It wasn't a consultation," recalls one staffer. "It was an announcement." Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican known for his bipartisanship and his expertise on foreign policy, was particularly incensed. He launched into a volley of tough questions: Who's going to pay for the war? How much is it going to cost? What does it mean to Iran, Syria? Clinton and Gates were both present, but the answers they gave didn't satisfy the senator. "They punted all those issues," says a source with direct knowledge of the meeting.

White House officials say that because Congress was on recess that Friday and some lawmakers attended the meeting via phone, Obama could not go into detail about classified portions of the operation. "It's fair to say the president spoke with great precision," says a White House source who attended the meeting. "These are serious actions, and being precise is important." At 10:35 p.m. that night, Obama was wheels-up for a long-scheduled trip to Latin America.

The next day, when Democratic leaders in Congress held a conference call to explain the White House's decision to go to war, a number of Democrats made their displeasure known. According to notes of the meeting, shown to Rolling Stone, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the number-two Democrat in the House, faced fierce resistance as he pitched the White House plan. He kept using the words "limited and discrete," insisting that the U.S. would only be in the lead for a matter of days. But his explanation didn't go over well with some of the Democrats on the call. "How could we do this when we are just years away from WMDs?" complained one. Rep. Brad Sherman pointed to the administration's lack of consultation with Congress over Libya: "It would be ironic to promote democracy there, and lose it here." Toward the end of the call, Rep. Dennis Kucinich piped in: "Is this an impeachable offense?"

The White House pressed ahead. As the bombings began, staffers tried to downplay what was happening in Libya, calling it a "limited kinetic action." Facing increasing criticism, however, the president returned from his trip and gave a prime-time address explaining his decision to the country. The speech, delivered at the National Defense University, was imbued with the language of the humanitarian interventionists. (Hours earlier, Samantha Power had given a speech at Columbia University saying it would be a "stain on our collective conscience" if the U.S. didn't intervene – the same words the president would use later that evening.) "I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves," Obama said, raising the specter of genocide. He also tried to distinguish his strike against Qaddafi from the "regime change" Bush pursued against Saddam Hussein, insisting that "broadening the mission to include regime change would be a mistake."

Before the speech, the administration also invited another group of outside experts to the White House, in part to "influence the echo chamber," according to a source who attended the meeting. Dennis Ross, a regional director at the National Security Council, insisted that the administration had prevented a "localized genocide." The Pentagon, however, seemed less than enthusiastic about the president's decision. "We're all sitting there in the Roosevelt Room, getting a very thorough briefing from the National Security Council, Treasury, Defense, State, the whole crew," says one person who attended the meeting, "and I remember feeling like the Pentagon didn't have much clarity to their answers. What are the rules of engagement? How do you distinguish between Qaddafi elements and civilian elements you're trying to protect? The biggest gaping hole was: What is the political road map moving forward? How do you avoid a continued implosion and a struggle for power?"

The fact that such critical issues remained unresolved reminded some participants of the rush to war that ended up embroiling the U.S. in both Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's good Qaddafi didn't fall right away," one U.N. official involved in post-intervention planning confided to an insider. "There was no plan ready." Gates complained publicly that the operation was being conducted "on the fly," and initially resisted requests by the administration for more surveillance flights. "The White House kept saying, 'We know you can do this,'" says a Pentagon official involved in Libya planning. "But when it came to some of the assets, we had to push back: 'Actually, no, we can't.'"

Only two years earlier, when Obama had conducted his lengthy review of Afghanistan policy, the Pentagon had taken advantage of the new president's inexperience to win approval for a troop surge. Now, however, Obama was undeterred by the military's opposition. He had gone against Gates on Libya, and he would do so again a month later when he decided to send Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden. (Gates had wanted to use an airstrike.) This time, despite the defense secretary's grumbling, the Pentagon followed Obama's lead. Within 72 hours of receiving his orders, the military had halted Qaddafi's advance with missiles fired from U.S. submarines and destroyers.
Six months after Clinton met Mahmoud Jibril in Paris, Obama greeted him in New York – as the interim prime minister of Libya, a country with full international recognition, taking its seat at the United Nations. Two years earlier, it was Qaddafi who had stolen the show at the U.N. on his first visit to New York with a rambling, 90-minute diatribe against the West. Now the spotlight belonged to the men who had deposed him. For Obama and his advisers, it was a moment of deep satisfaction. The president had led America into a new kind of war,In the early days of the war, the administration was also careful to keep its distance from the rebel leadership, not wanting to make the mistake of backing a single faction within the Libyan opposition. "The White House didn't want to do anything until Tripoli fell," says a Libyan source. In May, when Mahmoud Jibril made a trip to the White House, he wasn't allowed to speak with the president. Instead, he met with Donilon, who frustrated the Libyan leader by referring to the National Transitional Council only as "an" interlocutor of the Libyan people, rather than "the" interlocutor. The behavior of the White House, according to a Lib*yan opposition source, was simultaneously "bold and timid."

But as the war dragged on, the administration finally acknowledged the NTC, which waged an intensive lobbying campaign with the help of two prominent Washington firms, Patton Boggs and the Harbour Group. Three weeks after they were rebuffed by Donilon, Hillary Clinton referred to the NTC as "the legitimate interlocutor" during a meeting in Abu Dhabi. And the next month, in a meeting in Istanbul, the United States officially recognized the rebel leadership as the voice of the Libyan people.

At the same time, the administration was increasingly criticized for its failure to follow the War Powers Act, which requires the White House to get congressional approval for any military action within 90 days. The White House argued that NATO operations in Libya did not involve "sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops" – but Congress wasn't buying it. In June, the House passed a largely symbolic measure that formally rebuked the president for failing to consult Congress. Kucinich, meanwhile, was working behind the scenes to try to persuade Qaddafi to step aside. "There was a very real chance of opening up talks," Kucinich says. "But it became abundantly clear that there was no interest on the part of the administration to settle this peacefully. There were too many other interests – oil markets and NATO fighting for its viability. It's quite regrettable."

The administration knew it was paying the price for a war that seemed to have no end in sight. "We thought it was going to be quick," a White House source acknowledged. As the costs mounted, Clinton made at least nine trips overseas, working feverishly to keep European and Arab allies onboard. "Some wanted to scale down the ambition of the effort or look for an exit strategy," says a State Department official. "She kept telling them to stick with it."

Over the course of seven months, America spent $1 billion on the war in Libya. As NATO flew more than 22,000 sorties, including hundreds of bombing runs and drone strikes, the goal of the war quickly morphed from a limited desire to protect civilians into a more sweeping and aggressive push for regime change.

By the time Tripoli fell on August 24th, it was understood in the White House that the real test of its policy in Libya was just beginning. "The big lesson from Iraq, to state the obvious, wasn't so much whether we could defeat Saddam," says a senior administration official. "It was the day after, the year after, the decade after. It was about whether we could secure the peace." Avoiding another Iraq-style mess was clearly on the administration's mind when Obama marked the fall of Tripoli with a simple press conference. There was no strutting aboard an aircraft carrier, no Mission Accomplished speech – just a few words from the president during his family vacation on Martha's Vineyard. "All of this was done without putting a single U.S. troop on the ground," he said, while carefully acknowledging "the huge challenges ahead."

As the White House knows, there is still a real possibility of it all unraveling in Libya////
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-obamas-war-room-20111013
 
oday, Libya is in ruins. The seven months of NATO bombing effectively destroyed the government and left behind a political vacuum. Much of this has been filled by extremist groups.

Millions of Libyans live without a formal government. The internationally recognized government only controls the eastern part of the country. Rivaled extremist Islamist groups have seized much of the country.

Downtown Benghazi, a once thriving city, is now in ruins. Ansar al-Sharia, a fundamentalist Salafi militia that is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., now controls large chunks of it. ISIS has made Libya home to its largest so-called “caliphate” outside of Iraq and Syria.

Thousands of Libyans have been killed, and this violent chaos has sparked a flood of refugees. Hundreds of thousands of Libyan civilians have fled, often on dangerous smuggling boats. The U.N. estimates more than 400,000 people have been displaced.

Clinton’s leadership in the catastrophic war in Libya should ergo constantly be at the forefront of any discussion of the presidential primary.

Throughout the campaign, Clinton has tried to have her cake and eat it too. She has flaunted her leadership in the war as a sign of her supposed foreign policy experience, yet, at the same moment, strived to distance herself from the disastrous results of said war.

Today, Libya is in ruins. The seven months of NATO bombing effectively destroyed the government and left behind a political vacuum. Much of this has been filled by extremist groups.

Millions of Libyans live without a formal government. The internationally recognized government only controls the eastern part of the country. Rivaled extremist Islamist groups have seized much of the country.

Downtown Benghazi, a once thriving city, is now in ruins. Ansar al-Sharia, a fundamentalist Salafi militia that is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., now controls large chunks of it. ISIS has made Libya home to its largest so-called “caliphate” outside of Iraq and Syria.

Thousands of Libyans have been killed, and this violent chaos has sparked a flood of refugees. Hundreds of thousands of Libyan civilians have fled, often on dangerous smuggling boats. The U.N. estimates more than 400,000 people have been displaced.

A disjointed peace process, mediated by the U.N. and other countries, drags on, with no signs of the war ending anytime soon.

Hillary has, understandably, said little of these consequences. Yet, in debate after debate, with her call for more aggression on Syria and Iran, Clinton has only continued to demonstrate that she is an unabashed war hawk.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, looking back, the facts show that she did not just push for and lead the war in Libya; she even went out of her way to derail diplomacy.

Little-discussed secret audio recordings released in early 2015 reveal how top Pentagon officials, and even one of the most progressive Democrats in Congress, were so wary of Clinton’s warmongering that they corresponded with the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi in hopes of pursuing some form of diplomacy.

Qaddafi’s son Seif wanted to negotiate a ceasefire with the U.S. government, opening up communications with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Clinton later intervened and asked the Pentagon to stop talking to the Qaddafi regime.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich wrote a letter to Clinton and Obama in August 2011, warning against the war. “I have been contacted by an intermediary in Libya who has indicated that President Muammar Gadhafi is willing to negotiate an end to the conflict under conditions which would seem to favor Administration policy,” the Democratic lawmaker said. His plea was ignored.

A Pentagon intelligence official told Seif Qaddafi that his messages were falling on deaf ears. “Everything I am getting from the State Department is that they do not care about being part of this,” he explained.

“Secretary Clinton does not want to negotiate at all,” the U.S. intelligence official added.

And not negotiate is indeed what she did. In fact, after Qaddafi was brutally killed — sodomized with a bayonet by rebels —
Clinton gloated live on TV, “We came, we saw, he died!”
http://www.salon.com/2016/03/02/eve...illary_clinton_led_nato_bombing_of_libya_was/
 
The security official, who did not want to be named, said it appeared that explosives had been planted in the car.

The blast occurred next to the Ministry of Planning and near the Egyptian embassy, which is closed. The Italian embassy is some 350 meters away.

A Reuters reporter at the scene said roads had been cordoned off near the site of the blast, and dozens of security officials and vehicles had been deployed in the area. The wreckage of the car that exploded was quickly removed.

Italy became the first Western country to reopen its embassy in Tripoli earlier this month. Most countries closed their embassies here in 2014 and early 2015 after heavy fighting and attacks in the city.

Tripoli is home to a large number of rival militias, some of which oppose the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) that Italy has strongly supported.

Islamic State is known to have sleeper cells in Tripoli, and it has claimed attacks there in the past, including against embassies
Tripoli Car Bobming

4909762-3x2-700x467.jpg
 
Forces loyal to Libyan renegade general Khalifa Haftar have said that they had taken one of the last remaining strongholds of an al-Qaeda-linked group in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Haftar's self-declared Libyan National Army (LNA) "liberated all of Qanfouda", an area 15km west of the centre of Benghazi, spokesman Colonel Ahmed al-Mesmari posted on Facebook on Wednesday.

Two other LNA officials confirmed to AFP news agency that Qanfouda, the scene of fierce fighting since June against Ansar al-Sharia, had fallen.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/...feated-benghazi-district-170126074100867.html

3846c16d2fa84f7e90bd519e0ec4c539_18.jpg

^ Bengazi Militia -unknown
 
Russian support for Haftar to shift governance eastwards/collapse Tripoli's GNA

key Points

*The inclusion of Haftar in the peace process would probably hasten the collapse of the current UN-backed government led by Fayez Serraj.
*Although potentially positive for stability, Haftar's inclusion in the LPA would probably come too late given his current military and political power, particularly with the support of Russia.
*Russian and EU support for Haftar is likely to push Libyan governance eastwards, away from Tripoli. Western militia opposition to Haftar is likely to remain intractable, ensuring a high likelihood of further fighting, particularly in the capital.
http://www.janes.com/article/67643/...sten-collapse-of-libya-s-un-backed-government

On 11 January, Libyan militia leader General Khalifa Haftar met Russian officials aboard a Russian aircraft carrier off the coast of Tobruq, in eastern Libya. On 6 February, the EU Council of Foreign Ministers tacitly approved the inclusion of Haftar in a future Libyan government.

During the Tobruq meeting, Haftar secured Russian support in exchange for unspecified basing rights in eastern Libya, Al Jazeera reported on 22 January. This has prompted increased diplomatic activity from the European Union (EU) outlining an increased role for Haftar in the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) that underpins the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). This probably reflects an effort to dissuade Russia from backing the general as a new authoritarian leader for Libya.

Haftar commands the Libyan National Army (LNA), an umbrella group of militias affiliated to Libya's eastern parliament, the House of Representatives (HoR). He has previously signalled an ambition to lead Libya. Both Haftar and the HoR have refused to recognise the UN-backed GNA, based in the capital Tripoli. The HoR's recognition is required for the GNA to establish its legal legitimacy in Libya, and in its absence the GNA has failed to pass a budget or make key appointments. Haftar is likely to believe that he can take power militarily, or at least force a settlement on his own terms, particularly following his September 2016 capture of the eastern oil sector, which accounts for two-thirds of Libya's oil exports.
 
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A Libyan man checks a building used by the Islamic State fighters after it was captured by Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government, in Sirte, Libya August 22, 2016

Islamic State militants have shifted to desert valleys and inland hills southeast of Tripoli as they seek to exploit Libya's political divisions after defeat in their former stronghold of Sirte, security officials say.

The militants, believed to number several hundred and described as "remnants" of Islamic State's Libya operation, are trying to foment chaos by cutting power and water supplies and to identify receptive local communities, the officials said.

They are being monitored through aerial surveillance and on-the-ground intelligence, but Libyan officials said they cannot easily be targeted without advanced air power of the kind used by the United States on Jan. 19, when B-2 bombers killed more than 80 militants in a strike southwest of Sirte.

For more than a year, Islamic State exercised total control over Sirte, building its primary North African base in the coastal city. But it struggled to keep a footing elsewhere in Libya and by December was forced out of Sirte after a six-month campaign led by brigades from the western city of Misrata and backed by U.S. air strikes.

The jihadist group lost many of its fighters in the battle and now has no territory in Libya, but fugitive militants and sleeper cells are seen to pose a threat in a country that has been deeply fractured and largely lawless since the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

The threat is focused south of the coastal strip between Misrata and Tripoli, arcing to the southeast around the town of Bani Walid and into the desert south of Sirte, said Ismail Shukri, head of military intelligence in Misrata.

One group of 60-80 militants is operating around Girza, 170 km (105 miles) west of Sirte, another group of about 100 is based around Zalla and Mabrouk oil field, about 300 km southeast of Sirte, and there are reports of a third group present in Al-Uwaynat, close the Algerian border, he said.

Some fighters were based outside Sirte before last year's campaign, some fled during the battle and some have arrived from eastern Libya where they have been largely defeated by rival armed factions.

"They work and move around in small groups. They only use two or three vehicles at a time and they move at night to avoid detection," said Mohamed Gnaidy, an intelligence official with forces that conducted the campaign in Sirte.

Those forces published pictures in the wake of last month's U.S. strike showing hideouts dug into the sand, temporary shelters camouflaged with plastic sheeting and branches, stocks of weapons and satellite phones.

"This area is very difficult so it's hard for our forces to deal with them," said Shukri, pointing to satellite images of steep rocky banks and tracks in the sand southwest of Sirte. "The only solution to eliminate them in this area is through air strikes."

ATTACKS ON INFRASTRUCTURE

Mohamed Gnounou, a Misrata-based air force spokesman, said the militants had been monitored for 45 days ahead of the U.S. strike. "It confirmed a large number of individuals who were preparing something new in this place, as well as developing a strategy to head to new areas." The areas included rural districts near the coastal cities of Al Khoms and Zliten, between Misrata and Tripoli, and the region around the southern city of Sabha, he said.

Islamic State fighters had received logistical help from civilians and had paid some of them to help cut off power and water supplies, including by sabotaging a water link to Tripoli in the Great Man-made River system built by Gaddafi, and attacking electricity infrastructure near the southern city of Sabha, where there have been long blackouts in recent weeks, said Gnounou.

"Daesh (Islamic State) destroyed more than 150km of electricity pylons in the south between Jufra and Sabha. These acts fuel crisis and frustration in Libya, as well as giving an opportunity for gold diggers who smuggle through the open borders and make easy money from Daesh," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-islamicstate-idUSKBN15P1GX
 
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Mayors from Libya's desert south to northern shores fear a deal struck between Tripoli and Rome to fund migrant holding centres in the north African country will simply shift Europe's migration crisis onto Libyan soil.

The Mediterranean sea between Libya and Italy has become the main crossing point for asylum seekers and economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Last year Italy recorded its record number of migrant arrivals.

The deal foresees European Union money for holding centres in towns and cities along the main human trafficking routes criss-crossing Libya, as well as training and equipment to fight the smugglers.

"Our priority is to support our own sons instead of allowing for illegal migrants in centres," said Hamed Al-Khyali, mayor of the southern city of Sabha, a migrant smuggling hub.

"If the Europeans want to allow them stay, they can have them in their own lands, which are larger, but not in Libya because we have our own problems to take care of."

smuggling gangs to develop entrenched networks. They typically demand thousands of dollars from migrants for a risky journey across the desert before cramming them onto ill-equipped boats for a perilous crossing of the Mediterranean. An estimated 4,500 migrants drowned in 2016.

ome migrant detention centres already exist in Libya. A U.N. report in December said migrants in Libya were exposed to widespread abuse in the centres, which are generally controlled by armed groups though some have official status. The report also said some local officials were collaborating with the smugglers.

'DANGEROUS STEP'

Hussein Thwadi, mayor of the western coastal city of Sabratha, the departure point most frequently used for Mediterranean crossings by smugglers in Libya right now, said keeping migrants in Libya would be a "dangerous step".

But the authorities in eastern Libya, which oppose the U.N.-backed government and control swathes of the south used by the human traffickers, this week rejected the Italian-Libyan deal.
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/worl...igration-crisis-should-not-be-dumped-on-them/
 
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the Benghazi Medical Center has been rocked by a blast in the surgery department of the building.

Sources from the center said two explosive devices went off simultaneously in the surgery section and caused a lot of damage to the building but no human casualties.
 
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car bomb near the city's Jala hospital,(Bengazi) which destroyed several vehicles, scattered the body parts of victims and shattered windows in nearby buildings.

11/22/2016
 
Wednesday 26 August 2015 18:06 UTC
BENGHAZI, Libya - Benghazi has had a few turbulent years since the bloody overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Today, Libya’s second city looks vastly different from the Benghazi of four years ago, although conflict and violence continue to grip the birthplace of the 2011 revolution.

Since General Khalifa Haftar launched his Operation Dignity a year-and-a-half ago, which aimed to root out what he called as “Islamist and terrorist forces” from the city and beyond, key pockets of resistance remain and fighting rages on.

In May 2014, many city residents welcomed his announcement that he planned to boot out religious militias like Ansar al-Sharia and end a long season of murders and kidnappings.

But Haftar has been unable to claim victory. After 16 months of war, 1,600 people are thought to have been killed and more than 100,000 people, or about a quarter of the entire Benghazi population, are internally displaced.

Haftar claims to control 90 percent of Benghazi, but militants of the Shura Revolutionary Council, which is linked to Ansar al-Sharia and Fajr Libya (militias close to Tripoli's government), are holding out in strategic areas and are understood to be in full control of the city’s port and several of the city’s central neighbourhoods.

Amid the chaos, the Islamic State group has entered the fray.
In the Lithi ruins

In March, Haftar was named the supreme commander of Libyan army, which is formally linked to the Tobruk-based government chaired by Abdullah al-Thinni. But with an arms embargo in place, Haftar has not been able to adequately arm or train his men for the battle against the militias.

The Ministry of the Interior has set up a special force that supports Haftar along the frontlines and makes up part of a mosaic of forces in the field: government military forces, in conjunction with some smaller Salafi militias against Ansar al-Sharia, and citizen brigades have taken up arms to defend the city.

Despite this, the situation is deadlocked and there are 11 open frontlines in the city alone, according to fighters in Benghazi.
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Haftar militiaman
 
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