Libya News and Interests

Libya: ‘Substantial civilian casualties’ in Derna
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/01/1030312

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ISIL, or Da’esh, terrorist fighters took over Derna in 2014, leading to a succession of battles for control of the city, involving the Shura Council of Mujahideen, a coalition of pro-sharia law Islamist militants, the Libyan national army and local militias.

In addition to substantial civilian casualties, Ms. Ribeiro said that recent intense fighting has reportedly resulted in deteriorating infrastructures and services, leaving some civilians without basic food, water and urgent lifesaving medical care for families and the wounded.

ack in December, a trauma hospital in Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city, was hit and before that media reports said that Da’esh had claimed responsibility for attacking the Foreign Ministry in the capital, Tripoli.

In November, fighting between armed militia damaged a Tripoli hospital for Women and Childbirth, resulting in a doctor being shot and a three-day halt to non-emergency medical services.

Meanwhile, migrants and refugees are being subjected to "unimaginable horrors" from the moment they enter Libya in what Ghassan Salamé, the head of the UN political mission there (UNSMIL), told the Security Council last month was a “hidden human calamity”.
 
UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner described the current situation in Libya as catastrophic, as a result of the political vacuum.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Steiner accused some groups of exploiting the disorder to earn illegal money, saying these groups would not allow a genuine democratic process, to protect their interests.
 
Disappearance of Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr cast shadow on Libya’s participation in Beirut summit
https://www.libyaobserver.ly/news/d...st-shadow-libya’s-participation-beirut-summit

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A group of Shiite protesters taking down the Libyan flag

The invitation of Libya to take part in the Arab Economic Summit in Beirut has sparked controversy between Lebanese President Michel Aoun and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

The summit is scheduled to be held in Beirut on Jan. 19-20, but Nabih Berri, who heads AMAL Movement, is rejecting to invite Libya because of the disappearance of Shiite cleric and founder of the movement Moussa al-Sadr in Libya in1978.

Lebanese media reported that a third country could seek to convince Libya to voluntarily withdraw from the Beirut summit to avoid a likely confrontation with Speaker Nabih Berri and to preserve the security of the summit and its participants.

Lebanese sources said the Shiites have threatened to take to the streets of Beirut to protest Libya’s participation in the summit, which could put the fate of the entire summit at stake.

A video was posted on YouTube on Sunday showing a group of Shiite protesters taking down the Libyan flag from the street, ripping it up and replacing it with the flag of AMAL Movement.

The desecration of the flag has sparked Libyans’ anger on social media, who demanded the Presidential Council to boycott the summit and submit a strongly worded condemnation to its Lebanese counterpart.
 
Libyan Airlines making efforts to unify its administration
https://www.libyaobserver.ly/inbrief/libyan-airlines-making-efforts-unify-its-administration

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Spokesman of the Libyan Airlines in Tripoli, Mohamed Giniwah emphasized the company's continued efforts to unify its governing body, in coordination with the airline's department in the eastern region.

"The management of the company in Tripoli would not mind being transferred to any other Libyan city, under the condition of unifying the work under one administration, Giniwah clarified in a press statement.

He added that the state administrative division has negatively affected the functioning of Libyan Airlines, and contributed to the aggravation of the company's problems.
 
Turkey's Libya Gambit
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/turkeys-libya-gambit-41242
n December 18, 2018, customs authorities seized three thousand Turkish-made pistols in Khoms, a Libyan port about forty miles east of Tripoli. The shipment of which Turkish authorities pleaded ignorance , represented a clear violation of the UN arms embargo on Libya. At least one of the shipments was labeled on the Turkish manifest as foodstuffs. Soon after, Libyan port authorities seized upwards of four million bullets onboard a Turkish freighter.


In the wake of former Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi’s death, the oil-rich North African state divided in two (and, if lawless southern Libya is considered, then three): In Tripoli, a UN-recognized government effectively splits power with Islamist groups while, closer to the Egyptian border, the Tobruk-based House of Representatives government fights Libya’s Islamic State and Al Qaeda-affiliated militias. While Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates support the more secular, anti-Islamist Tobruk government, Turkey has joined Qatar and Sudan to prop up Libya’s Islamists. It is against this context that Turkish weapons entered the scene. Simply put, as Qatar has become the go-to financier of the Muslim Brotherhood and its more radical offshoot groups around the globe, Turkey has become their armorer.

Turkey’s goal might not only be the empowerment of radical groups to destabilize Libya. Erdoğan sees the rise of Abdul Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt as an affront, both because Sisi’s rise reversed Muslim Brotherhood control of Egypt, and because Erdoğan subsequently lost lucrative contacts inside Egypt. An Islamist Libya could provide refuge for groups dedicated to undercutting Egypt’s stability and returning Islamists to power.

Algeria, too, is also worried by Erdoğan’s latest moves. Algiers is convinced that at least some of the weaponry which Turkey sought to smuggle into Libya were destined for terrorist groups in neighboring Algeria.
 
LNA forces launch operation to ‘purge’ south
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1436956/middle-east
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Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar’s forces announced a military operation on the country’s south. (File/AFP)
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Libya has been torn between rival administrations and a myriad of militias
Daesh has carried out repeated attacks across the country, targeting both Haftar’s forces and the rival Tripoli-based authorities

BENGHAZI, Libya: The forces of Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar on Wednesday announced a military operation to “purge” extremists and criminal gangs from the south of the conflict-hit nation.

A spokesman for the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA) said its fighters had advanced in “several regions in the south” from an air base some 650 kilometers (400 miles) from the capital Tripoli.
The aim is to “assure security for inhabitants in the south-west from terrorists, be they the Daesh group or Al-Qaeda, as well as criminal gangs,” spokesman Ahmed Al-Mesmari said.

The LNA said it was also looking to secure petroleum facilities and tackle flows of clandestine migrants heading northwards to the Mediterranean coast.
It called on armed groups in the target area, mainly made up of tribal fighters, to withdraw from military and civilian installations.

Military sources told AFP that numerous LNA units had taken up positions in recent days around the region’s main city of Sabha.
Libya has been torn between rival administrations and a myriad of militias since the NATO-backed overthrow and killing of dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Haftar supports an administration in the east of the country that is opposed to the internationally backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

The chaos has seen extremists and people traffickers gain a foothold in the south of the country.
Daesh has carried out repeated attacks across the country, targeting both Haftar’s forces and the rival Tripoli-based authorities.
 
Libya reopened on Thursday all its oil loading terminals where operations were suspended for nearly a week due to inclement weather, S&P Global Platts reports, quoting a source close to the developments.

Libya’s crude oil production and exports have been severely disrupted since early December due to previous port closures courtesy of bad weather as well as security incidents and issues at the country’s largest oil field Sharara, which has been shut in since December 8.

As a result, Libya’s crude oil production in December plunged by 172,000 bpd from November—to 928,000 bpd from 1.1 million bpd, according to OPEC’s secondary sources in the cartel’s Monthly Oil Market Report released today. The drop in Libya’s oil production last month was the second steepest decline among OPEC producers after Saudi Arabia, which cut production by 468,000 bpd from November to 10.553 million bpd in December.

Libya’s oil ports were closed last Thursday due to bad weather, adding to the existing shut-in at Sharara and further disrupting Libyan oil exports.
 
After nearly a doubling of oil production between July and October last year, the Arab Petroleum Investments Corp. wrote that growth beyond 1.4 million by 2020 was “plausible” if stability lasted in view of renewed but cautious investment by foreign operators and service providers (OGJ Online, Nov. 21, 2018).

But in December, militants struck again, this time in El Sharara oil field in southwestern Libya, shutting in 300,000 b/d of production.

Haftar’s Libyan National Army this month began a campaign to secure El Sharara facilities.

Success of the operation, says Verisk Maplecroft North African Analyst Hamish Kinnear, would “hugely” strengthen Haftar’s control over Libyan resources. “This, in turn, would shore up Haftar’s bargaining position in ongoing negotiations with the [GNA].”

Partly because the LNA must rely on local alliances with southern militias, however, success won’t happen quickly.

And to sustain El Sharara production, the LNA would need support from southern groups that include the Fezzan Anger Movement, protests of which preceded last December’s takeover of the field.

For LNA, Kinnear says, “diplomatic abilities will prove to be just as important as their military strength.”

(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted Jan. 25, 2019. To comment, join the Commentary channel at www.ogj.com/oilandgascommunity).
 
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LNA reportedly captured the al-Wigh Airbase, constituting its biggest advance into the southwest (only 140km~ from the borders with #Chad and #Niger, 260~ from #Algeria) and a significant strategic achievement in the southern campaign
 
Hundreds rescued from slavery in Libya are coming to Canada, immigration minister says
https://nationalpost.com/news/canad...ya-coming-to-canada-immigration-minister-says

Canada has begun resettling hundreds of people rescued from slavery in Libya, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen says.

Canada was “one of the few countries” to respond to a request from the United Nations refugee agency in 2017, Hussen said in an email Wednesday. More than 150 people have been resettled and another 600 more are expected over the next two years through the regular refugee settlement program, he said.

“We are also taking action to resettle 100 refugees from Niger, rescued from Libyan migrant detention centres, including victims of human smuggling,” he added.

Canadians have always been welcoming to newcomers, and that generosity has helped offer protection to those fleeing persecution, terror and war

Libya is a major stopping point for asylum-seekers from Africa, who intend to cross the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe.
A video of what appeared to be smugglers selling imprisoned migrants near Tripoli became public in 2017, prompting world leaders to start talking about freeing migrants detained in Libyan camps.

The program follows recent refugee resettlements of about 1,000 Yazidis from Iraq and 40,000 Syrians, threatened by Islamic State militants and Syrian forces.
 

Libya has cracked down on African migrants seeking to flee to Europe. As a result, Morocco has become the new jumping off point from the African continent.
One flashpoint is Ceuta, a Spanish enclave at the northern tip of the country. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, explores the migration tension and allegations of human rights abuses in Morocco.
 
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Libya’s Large Shut-in Oil Field Faces Possible Rival Clashes
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-...n-Oil-Field-Faces-Possible-Rival-Clashes.html

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A unit of forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed government in Tripoli has been sent south to secure the country’s largest oil field, Sharara, which has been shut in for nearly two months after it was occupied by an armed group, in what could turn out to be another clash for a major oil asset in Libya between forces loyal to the government in the west and those pledging allegiance to a strongman in the east.

A unit of the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) of the Libyan government of national accord, supported by the United Nations, is heading to Sharara, which has the capacity to pump 340,000 bpd, but which has been under force majeure since December 9, 2018, Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV reported on Wednesday.

Sharara has been under force majeure after armed militia claiming attachment to the local PFG seized control and demanded ransom to re-open it.

Nearly two months later, Sharara remains offline, and Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), which refuses to yield to ransom demands, said in December that
Oil production will now only restart at Sharara after alternative security arrangements are put in place.”
Click to expand...

Last month, forces loyal to eastern strongman General Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) said that they had started a military operation to secure oil sites and facilities in Libya’s south, where Sharara is located.

LNA has already seized the main city in the southwest, Sebha, and a spokesman for LNA, Ahmed al-Mismari, has told Bloomberg that after seizing the city, the forces would move on to Sharara and other oil facilities in the area.


NOC’s chairman Mustafa Sanalla said that
“With some reluctance we have concluded that the preferred solution is a professional PFG force managed by NOC.”
Click to expand...

Yet, according to Bloomberg:
Rival Powers Claim Command of City Near Libya's Biggest Oilfield
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...s-on-haftar-forces-to-end-airstrikes-in-south
the rival forces haven’t shown they are willing to cooperate to keep the Sharara oil field safely operating.
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The revolution has already brilliantly succeeded in bringing down the entire Gaddafi regime paving the way for the establishment of a democratic and modern Libya,” said Ahmed Shebani, President of Libya’s Democratic Party. “We are not going to be held back by dictatorship nor by backwardness and demagogy.”
“The Democratic Party affirms that there will be no return to military rule in Libya as is the case in Egypt," Shebani told The Media Line.
^ :rolleyes:

But despite the vows of Shebani and other Libyans placing hope in next month’s United Nations-sponsored National Conference—billed as a transition to a civilian-led, pluralistic future—Khalifa Haftar has launched an operation in southern Libya ostensibly aimed at rooting out "terrorists" and foreign fighters but which could result in the emergence of an Egypt-like security state with popular participation in government symbolic at best.

Haftar’s Libyan National Army—which remains at odds with the internationally-recognized government—is focused on securing control of critical oil infrastructure in Fezzan province where there were no signs of Revolution Day celebrations.

“Looking back, the revolution became chaotic and allowed for ISIS and criminals to get a very strong footprint in Libya,”
Click to expand...
Salem El Senoussi, a resident of the eastern city of Al Baidaa, told The Media Line. “And it also allowed for foreign states and their greed to interfere with our politics and security.”

Up to one-third of Libya’s proven petroleum reserves are located near Fezzan’s el Sharara Field and there are increasing signs that Washington is aligning militarily with Haftar in the south, even as American officials maintain rhetorical support for the UN political process focused on the more heavily populated West.

“The United States is committed to using all available tools to sustain pressure against terrorist groups, at the request of and in coordination with the [Tripoli-based] Government of National Accord,” said Deputy State Department spokesperson Robert Palladino.

This week U.S. Africa Command said it “is not involved in the reported raid of an al-Qai'da site in Ubari, Libya.” The attack, according to some unconfirmed reports, was carried out by French fighter jets.

Paris also officially denies any military intervention in Libya, but French authorities openly stated that their Mirage 2000 fighter jets targeted armed elements that tried to cross the border into Chad

President Emmanuel Macron has made clear that France wants a united national army that includes Haftar, thus joining the Egyptians and Unite Arab Emirates in backing the 75-year-old general as the most effective leader to battle Libya’s Islamist militants.

“The next several months may end up being dominated by a sense of euphoria as the Haftar camp makes dramatic progress through military and financial means,” said Jalel Harchaoui, a geopolitics lecturer at the University of Versailles near Paris.

“But the old 'secular army versus political Islam' trope has very little to do with the current reality which is a pure struggle over which factions in Libya control the resources,” he told The Media Line.
 
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Benghazi municipal guard attacked, one staffer injured
https://www.libyaobserver.ly/news/benghazi-municipal-guard-attacked-one-staffer-injured

the media office of the municipal council said on Facebook that one of the attackers - using three cars including a military one - was wearing a military outfit and he used a Kalashnikov to shoot at the personnel working at the municipal guard, injuring "Ali Al-Tajouri" with three pullets.

Al-Tajouri was sent to Al-Jalaa Hospital and was lodged at the Intensive Care Unit.

This isn't the first time a security headquarters gets attacked in Benghazi by people wearing military outfits and driving military vehicles.
Earlier, police stations and security posts were attacked by armed persons loyal to brigades commanded by Khalifa Haftar's sons.
 
Gaddafi funded Sarkozy's elections campaign with 7 million euros, Senussi tells French judges in Tripoli
https://www.libyaobserver.ly/news/g...ion-euros-senussi-tells-french-judges-tripoli

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rench website Mediapart revealed that French judges arrived in Tripoli earlier this month as part of their investigation into the suspected funding by the Gaddafi regime in Libya of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign.

The website explained that the judges questioned, for the first time face-to-face, Gaddafi’s former spy chief, and brother-in-law, Abdulla Senussi.

Mediapart said it had gained access to extracts from the statements provided by Senussi, who detailed to the French judges how he oversaw the payment of 7 million euros for Sarkozy’s campaign, as ordered by Gaddafi.

Senussi also confirmed that, as part of the deal between Gaddafi and Sarkozy, the former French president’s personal lawyer and friend Thierry Herzog was involved in moves to overturn an international arrest warrant issued against him after his conviction in absentia by a Paris court for his part in the blowing up of a French airliner in 1989.

"The deal to buy spying devices was done and the mediator Ziyad Taqi Al-Deen got 4 million euros for it. Then, Sarkozy's lawyer visited me with some families of the victims of the bombing. After that, Sarkozy himself assured me that my case will be settled in France in 10 months." Senussi added.

Senussi added that Sarkozy had ordered airstrikes on his houses to destroy evidence.

France's judiciary has been tracking down Sarkozy, his Interior Minister and the financial manages of his elections campaign for charges of corruption, bribery and using foreign money in the elections campaign.

Sarkozy, on the other hand, has been denying the accusations and has described Senussi as a gangster who has no credibility, saying Senussi tried to use the expertise of his lawyer to be exonerated from the bombing's charges, but the lawyer rejected.

Senussi, however, says the 7 million euros were sent to Sarkozy in two installments - a bank transfer of 2 million on November 20, 2006 on the account of Ziyad Taqi Al-Deen and was depicted by French judges, and then 5 million transferred by Taqi Al-Deen to the Interior Minister who gave it to Sarkozy in cash.

Mediapart adds that Senussi's testimony is in line with some of the evidence collected by the investigators, yet some details still need fact-checking.
 
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Oded Berkowitz
‏ @Oded121351

#Libya- photos of LNA fighters from El Feel (Elephant) Oil Field and Murzuq
 
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