Libya News and Interests

[anatta]

Libyan oil production has risen to more than 800,000 b/d for the first time since 2014 but a dispute with German energy company Wintershall is hindering further increases, said the head of the north African country’s national oil company.


Libya’s production is being watched closely as Opec countries prepare to meet later this month in Vienna to decide whether to extend a supply cut deal past the initial six-month period. While others have enacted output cuts, Libya has been exempt.
https://www.ft.com/content/e7eed8f8-35a7-11e7-bce4-9023f8c0fd2e

 

[anatta]

Thrush S2R-T660 turboprop border patrol aircraft

U.S.-Made Airplanes Deployed in Libya's Civil War, in Defiance of U.N.

At least six U.S.-made turboprop planes appear in satellite images of an airbase in eastern Libya, deployed in support of the forces of rogue Libyan general Khalifa Haftar, whose army is fighting the U.S. and U.N.-backed government located in Libya’s capital, Tripoli.

The planes offer fresh evidence of a clandestine proxy war in Libya, in which Egypt, the U.A.E., and Russia are siding with Haftar in a military campaign against forces allied with the U.N.-brokered government. Officials in Haftar’s camp accuse Turkey and Qatar of arming Islamist-leaning militias.

Libya is increasingly becoming a battlefield for a geopolitical contest among regional and international powers. Haftar frames his military campaign as a battle against Islamist “terrorists,” and the Emiratis share the general’s enmity toward the Muslim Brotherhood and related Islamist groups across the Middle East.

he warplanes could up the stakes in Libya's civil war. The country is rich in small arms but poor in heavy weapons, thanks in part to the international arms embargo. The country is awash in AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and other light arms taken from the old regime’s stocks or smuggled across the country’s long desert borders.
http://time.com/4746914/libya-civil-war-airplanes-haftar-uae/

 

[anatta]

Germany, Italy float EU mission to stop migrants in southern Libya

Migrants sit on a truck that will take them from Niger across the Sahel desert to Libya as part of their journey to Europe.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and his Italian counterpart Marco Minniti want a joint EU mission to patrol Libya's lawless southern border with Niger to stop migrants from reaching Europe, the German weekly newspaper "Welt am Sonntag" reported on Sunday, citing a letter the ministers sent to the European Commission.

"The first months of this year have shown that our efforts up to this point have been insufficient. We must prevent hundreds of thousands of people who are in the hands of smugglers from risking their lives in Libya and the Mediterranean," the ministers wrote in a letter to the EU's executive.

More than 43,000 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, have used Libya as a springboard to reach Europe up to the middle of April of this year, according to the UN. More than 1,150 people have died at sea. The pace of migrant crossings is expected to pick up as the weather improves.

most migrants are picked up at sea by the Italian navy, joint EU navy mission Sophia and private charity organizations before being brought to centers in Italy.

However, the burden of dealing with a new migrant crisis cannot be the sole responsibility of a few countries like Italy, the ministers said.

"The goal is as quickly as possible to build up an EU mission on the border between Libya and Niger," they said. That way, migrants using the route could be stopped before reaching war-torn Libya.

EU member states have sought to boost support to the internationally recognized government based in Tripoli, but it has a weak or no control over large parts of the country. A rival government is set up in the country's east. Militias and armed Islamist groups, some involved in the human trafficking trade, are rife.
http://www.dw.com/en/germany-italy-float-eu-mission-to-stop-migrants-in-southern-libya/a-38834301

 

[anatta]

Since longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi was overthrown and killed by a howling mob in 2011, Libya – the oil-rich gateway to northern Africa – has had no government. Or rather, it has three competing governments, each claiming to be the country’s rightful ruler. Oh, and did we mention 1,600 – count them – armed militias? Not a recipe for stability.

To make matters worse, the country’s infrastructure has crumbled. Electricity is available only for a few hours a day, even in the capital, Tripoli. Oil production, which made Libya one of the most prosperous nations in the region, is at between a third and a half of capacity. Civilians are kidnapped – or worse – by marauding gangs. Banks refuse to let customers withdraw more than $20 at a time. And more than $40 billion in international aid has simply gone missing.

The various militias, including some allied with Al Qaeda and ISIS, fought among themselves like Bloods and Crips, resulting in at least 55,000 deaths, many of them civilians.

The country, whose population is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, nonetheless is divided by geography. In the east, tribal leaders are still nursing a longtime grudge against the poor treatment they received from Qaddafi during his 42 years in power. The east is ruled by Kalifa Haftar, a former officer in Qaddafi’s military who promoted himself to general of the so-called Libyan National Army, which is effectively a big militia. Haftar, who lived for 20 years in exile in Virginia, has spurned U.S. support in favor of closer ties with Russia, though he remains open to contact with the Trump administration.

Libya also has an elected parliament, which fled Tripoli and took refuge in Tobruk, in the east. And a weak cabinet holds court in Tripoli, surrounded by armed jihadi militias.

In the west, and around Tripoli, various jihadi militias battle each other — and Haftar’s troops, when they venture out of the east.

When Italy’s prime minister visited the White House last month, he urged Trump to take an interest in Libya’s future. The president’s response: Libya is not a priority.

 

[Buckly J. Ewer]

Trump's only priority now is trying to save his own ass from howling mobs...
LMFAO

 

[unfooled]

There is nothing about Libya that interests me.

 

[anatta]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Libyan soldiers upon her departure from Tripoli in Libya on October 18, 2011
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/op...ed-as-a-Peoples-Revolution-20170522-0018.html

For the people of Libya, Gaddafi's overthrow has actually meant moving towards oppression and slavery of the most monstrous levels.

When the uprising against the Libyan Jamahiriya broke out in 2011, it was widely considered, especially in the West, to be a popular and democratic revolt against an oppressive and despotic regime with extreme poverty.
The orientalist images of millions of Arabs oppressed by their own government seeking to liberate themselves with the help of the democratic Western nations were propped up, and grotesque stories such as the claims of the Gaddafi government distributing Viagra pills to soldiers of the Libyan Army were propagated on an enormous level. It was soon found that there was hardly any real basis for such claims. Nevertheless, such stories persisted and new horror stories were fabricated, with the aim of demonizing Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his rule which lasted from 1969 to 2011.

These narratives helped pave the way towards the overthrow of Gaddafi in October 2011 and the establishment of a highly unstable pro-Western government which has since been dismantled in Libya's second civil war in the 21st Century. Many in the West continue to believe that the new government represents Libya's move away from oppression and slavery. For the people of Libya, however, it has actually meant moving towards oppression and slavery of the most monstrous levels.

The Jamahiriya government, which lasted for over four decades, came about in the wake of a 1969 military coup led by Colonel Gaddafi against the corrupt pro-Western rule of King Idris. The coup saw the overthrow of the King, the abolition of the Libyan monarchy, and the establishment of a new republic with values of social justice and anti-imperialism. Gaddafi at that time was the young 27-year-old figurehead of the "revolution", who realigned Libya towards the Soviet Union and Libya's neighboring pro-Soviet states like Egypt and Syria.

Libya under the leadership of Gaddafi drastically improved the living standards of the Libyan people. Universal healthcare was available to all of the Libyan population. Average life expectancy, which was around 55 years in 1969, was over 70 years in 2011 and has not increased since then. The average literacy rate of Libya reached 91 percent, one of the highest rates of literacy in Africa and comparable to countries in Europe. School enrollment in Libya was also among the highest in Africa. In 2010, Libya had the highest Human Development Index score in all of Africa, an index used to measure the level of development in every country. Libya had very low rates of malnourishment, which was under five percent. Poverty likewise was minimal, with less than ten percent of the population living below the poverty line, which gave Libya one of the lowest poverty rates in Africa and in the world. Oil production was close to two million barrels per day before 2011 but dropped to less than 400,000 barrels per day afterward.

Having a highly internationalist and anti-imperialist outlook, the Libyan government sent military assistance to numerous countries and causes, such as the Provisional IRA, Ethiopia, Uganda, Grenada, the Polisario Front in Western Sahara, Palestine Liberation Organization, the Basque ETA, and Nelson Mandela's Umkhonto we Sizwe. Colonel Gaddafi upheld pan-Arabism and pan-Africanism; the African Union was established after the Sirte Declaration of 1999, enacted in Sirte, Libya, the city where Gaddafi was born in 1942 and murdered in 2011. Gaddafi chaired the African Union from 2009 to 2010. In 2010, he apologized for the enslavement of black Africans by Arabs, "I regret the behavior of the Arabs… They brought African children to North Africa, they made them slaves, they sold them like animals, and they took them as slaves and traded them in a shameful way. I regret and I am ashamed when we remember these practices. I apologize for this." Gaddafi was one of the most staunch advocates of a pan-continental unity in Africa.

The civil war in 2011 ended in October of that year with the killing of Gaddafi and the overthrow of his government. The achievements of the Libyan Jamahiriya were destroyed in the resulting period of extreme sectarian violence and Libya is currently divided between rival governments, tribal forces, and affiliates of the Islamic State. An attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in the city of Benghazi by the Ansar al-Sharia group in September 2012 resulted in a major political scandal in the United States. Black Libyans and migrants from sub-Saharan African countries, in particular, have been brutally attacked by militias that helped overthrow the Libyan government in 2011. Many were scapegoated as mercenaries hired by Gaddafi and subject to violence from the rebels. Kidnappings, beatings, lynchings and acts of ethnic cleansing have been reported; the black-majority city of Tawargha was depopulated by anti-Gaddafi forces and became a ghost town. Black Libyans, as well as migrants, have been sold into slavery. With the stable and popular Jamahiriya overthrown, it is certain when and under what circumstances that the ongoing violence in Libya will come to an end.


Regime change in Libya, disguised as a people's revolution, has an important lesson for progressives that uprisings aided and funded by the United States and its allies should not be supported whether they present themselves as "democratic", "anti-dictatorship" or another label. There is nothing to expect from the Western nations on the liberation of peoples in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Any movements and "revolutions" brought in by the West are inherently regressive in that they are efforts not to oust governments that do not represent the interests of their citizens but to oust governments that do not represent the interests of Western finance capital. As a result, when a government in a post-colonial country is attacked as "dictatorial" and targeted for regime change, the correct side for progressives is that of the targeted government and not the "freedom fighters."

 

[anatta]

^Tripoli, new fighting
Libyan militia groups opposed to the UN-backed government have launched a series of attacks on loyalist forces in the capital, Tripoli.

At least 28 people were killed and about 130 injured, officials said.

Explosions were heard across the city and witnesses said residential areas in the south had been shelled.

The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) has struggled to establish itself in Tripoli since it arrived there in March 2016.

It wields little control beyond parts of the capital and relies on a complex network of armed groups with shifting allegiances.

Friday's fighting began at dawn around a complex of luxury villas in the south of the city.

Militias opposed to the GNA said they had attacked loyalist forces.

The health ministry was not able to say if civilians were among the dead but reports suggested most casualties were fighters.

Until recently, the area had been the headquarters of militias supporting former Prime Minister Khalifa Ghweil. He was ousted when the GNA was set up and refused to recognise the new administration.

Forces loyal to the GNA seized the complex in March but dozens of armed groups still operate there.

Also in southern Tripoli on Friday, an armed group loyal to the GNA reportedly seized al-Hadhba prison where former officials of ousted dictator Col Muammar Gaddafi are held.

 

[anatta]

he Egyptian military has carried out several airstrikes against purported terrorist training camps in Libya after unknown gunmen attacked a bus carrying Coptic Christians south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, leaving at least 28 dead.

^the bus
State television, citing an army statement, reported that Egyptian warplanes carried out at least six airstrikes against "terror camps" in the eastern Libyan city of Derna.

It added that the aerial raids had been carried out after making sure that men from those camps were involved in the bus attack.

said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Friday evening in a televised speech hours after the terrorist attack in the country's Minya province.

Sisi went on to say that an airstrike against the camps was being conducted as he spoke, adding that the carnage would not be left unanswered.

Meanwhile, east Libyan forces, led by military strongman Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, said in a statement that they had participated in the Egyptian airstrikes on Derna. It further said the raids targeted forces allegedly linked to the al-Qaeda Takfiri terrorist group at a number of sites, adding that the aerial raids would be followed by a ground operation.

Haftar's forces have already besieged the militant-held city and conducted occasional airstrikes on the terrorists' positions.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/0...bus-attack-Minya-Coptic-Christians-Sisi-Daesh

 

[anatta]

Muammar Gaddafi's followers seek to make a political comeback
They present themselves as the "third force" non-aligned with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in the east and Fayez Mustafa al-Sarraj in the west of the country.

Followers of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi seek to revive the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, considering it the only way to break the vicious circle of bloodshed, RIA Novosti contributor Igor Gashkov writes in his recent article.

The journalist quotes Tahar Dehech, a former official of the Gaddafi government, who had managed to survive the catastrophe of the Libyan Civil War of 2011. The former official is a co-founder of the Supreme Council of the Libyan Tribes and Cities. Currently, he is gathering supporters under the Jamahiriya banner.

Dehech told RIA Novosti that he had experienced first-hand what it's like to be suppressed by Gaddafi's rivals and their US and European backers.
He revealed that the Western powers' troops directly took part in ground operations in Libya aimed at toppling Gaddafi's government.

In 2011 Dehech was captured by Libyan insurgents with the assistance of the French intelligence services.
The captive was tortured brutally. Fortunately, Dehech managed to escape; in 2013 he filed a lawsuit in the French court accusing the government of France of having a hand in his imprisonment and torture. Although the court accepted his appeal the legal proceedings are still pending.

Fighters of Libyan forces allied with the U.N.-backed government take position near the front line of fighting with Islamic State militants in Ghiza Bahriya district in Sirte, Libya November 22, 2016.

Today, Tahar Dehech works in the tribal council, which set an objective of reviving the Jamahiriya. According to Franck Pucciarelli, the Council spokesman, the number of supporters of the deposed Libyan leader amounts to about 20 thousand people in Libya and as many abroad, in exile. Meanwhile, Gaddafists have no access to ports and oil, therefore their influence is limited," Gashkov elaborated.

he journalist noted that the Jamahiriya proponents pin their hopes on the population of the southwestern Libyan region of Fezzan, where Gaddafi's loyalist General Ali Kana is drumming up support.

Gaddafi's family members maintain continuity of the deposed Libyan leader's policies.

Citing French magazine Le Point, the journalist specified that in 2017 Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was earlier captured by one of the Libyan militant groups, gained his freedom. At the same time, the European Union lifted its sanctions against Aisha Gaddafi.

Meanwhile, Libya remains a war-torn country engulfed by terrorism and insurgency. Remarkably, Gaddafists have not aligned themselves either with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the head of the Libyan National Army, or Fayez Mustafa Al-Sarraj, the Chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya and Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord of Libya. In the eyes of Gaddafists both lack the necessary resources to unite the country.

Gaddafists suspect that the European Union is seeking to solve its refugee crisis at Libya's expense, by establishing numerous refugee camps in the country with the tacit approval of the Government of National Accord of Libya.

To add to the controversy, Al-Sarraj was not elected by the Libyans, Pucciarelli highlighted, adding that currently, the prime minister enjoys the Muslim Brotherhood's support in the country.

As for Haftar, he is regarded as a man defending American interests," Pucciarelli told RIA Novosti, "Haftar's forces consist of former Gaddafi army officers, but they are interested only in obtaining weapons to fight against Islamists."

Gashkov noted that the Jamahiriya supporters present themselves as the "third force" which considers the Libyans' tribal self-organization as the major vital force of the country.
Gaddafists also call attention to the fact that their movement is a secular one, not a religious. According to them, politics should be free of either moderate or radical Islamism.
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201706011054210842-gaddafi-libya-comeback/

 

[anatta]

Part of the Sahara desert in Niger

At least 44 migrants, including babies, en route to Libya through Niger died of thirst in the Sahara desert after their vehicle broke down, an official in Niger has said.

Most were from Ghana, though some were Nigerian. The dead included three babies, two children and 17 women. There were only six survivors who stumbled on a remote village the official told AP.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has calculated that around 300,000 migrants made it through Niger in 2016. It has warned of the exploitation and abuse migrants suffer at the hands of smugglers, including murder, sexual crimes and slavery.

Meanwhile, so far this year over 4,030 stranded migrants have been sent home from Libya as part of IOM’s voluntary humanitarian return scheme. Of these, 108 were unaccompanied children under 18 years old and 56 had been victimised by their traffickers.

 

[anatta]

Sergei Lavrov meets with GNA leader Fayez Sarraj in Moscow.

While the attention of the West is largely focused on Russian efforts in Syria, Moscow has been strengthening its presence in other parts of the Middle East to fortify its position as a key international player. Notably, Russian involvement in the Libyan civil war has increased substantially since 2015. It provides political support and military assistance to General Khalifa Haftar, who controls the eastern part of Libya, and helped him to wreck the UN-led Libyan agreement of 2015 aimed at launching a reconciliation process. But Moscow is also involved in the diplomatic settlement of the conflict between the main factions – Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army and the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).

Neither security concerns nor economic interests explain Moscow’s increased presence in this part of the Middle East. Until recently, Russia never voiced much concern about the rise of jihadism in Libya or any potential spillover as it has in Syria. Certainly Moscow lost investments when Muammar Gaddafi’s government fell in 2011. Although the overall scale of losses is unknown, Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport estimates its financial losses in Libya up to $6.5 billion, and Russian energy companies such as Gazprom, Lukoil Overseas and Tatneft were also either involved in or planning to invest in Libya. But this loss was still manageable.

The real driving forces behind Russian involvement in Libya are a mixture of ambition, opportunism and anti-Western sentiment. First of all, the GNA is seen in the Kremlin as a Western-backed government that will ignore Russian interests in Libya if Moscow does not have its own leverage to influence the behaviour of the GNA and its sponsors. The Kremlin is concerned that if Libya is left as it is, Moscow would be excluded from participation in the crisis settlement as well as from political and economic life in post-war Libya. Connections between Haftar with the US could be re-established, especially if Haftar’s Egyptian sponsor, President Sisi, improves relations with the Americans. Consequently, Moscow has tried to position itself as Haftar’s main supporter outside the region.

Russian involvement in Libya is also part of its global power games with the West. By stepping into the Libyan conflict, Moscow is demonstrating to Europe and the US that it is not ‘confined’ to Syria or Ukraine, and that its ‘success’ in Syria was not accidental.

It is also about avoiding international isolation. Russia sees no reason to limit itself to supporting Haftar. It is happy to talk to all sides in the Libyan civil war. By increasing its support for Haftar while establishing good relations with GNA leader Fayez Sarraj in Tripoli and representatives of the Misratan brigades (another influential military force), Moscow is trying to assert itself as a mediator and thus create a new bargaining chip for its negotiations with the EU. This tactic is working. Analysts close to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are having unofficial consultations with European countries over Libya. And Moscow invested diplomatic effort into an early May meeting between Haftar and Sarraj, demonstrating a readiness for consensus. The unofficial signs are that, while suspicious of Russian intentions, Europe is reluctantly persuaded that it needs to talk to Moscow on this issue.

However, Russian dialogue with the West requires a quid pro quo. Moscow will expect a return on its apparent flexibility on Libya – such as less pressure over its actions in Syria. In establishing a dialogue with Europe on Libya and exploiting EU concerns over migration, Moscow is trying to widen the rift within the West over their approach to Russia. It generates influence, looks for weaker players in the EU and tests their willingness to apply pressure, on Ukraine in particular.

Last but not least, the Kremlin is using its involvement in Libya to strengthen cooperation with key regional players, primarily Egypt and the UAE. Some sources close to the Russian MFA have indicated that it was Egyptian President Sisi who persuaded Russia to support Haftar, and Moscow agreed to do this to flatter him. Thus, Russian-Egyptian cooperation on Libya brought substance to the dialogue between Moscow and Cairo.

The Libyan adventure is cheap. Haftar visited Moscow three times (though only two meetings were officially confirmed by the Russian authorities) in 2016 and Russia is believed to be supplying him with weapons and printing bank notes for the Libyan central bank in the Haftar-controlled territories. Yet, according to some Russian military experts, Russian weapons are delivered to Haftar by Moldovan air-companies – with logistical help from Egypt and financial support from the UAE. Moscow is effectively just opening its weapons warehouses and issuing export permits.

 

[anatta]

Egyptian air strikes in Libya unlikely to affect infiltration of Islamic State jihadists into Egypt's Western Desert
*Since December 2016, Islamic State operations have intensified in both the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt's 'mainland', west of the Suez Canal. The incorporation of foreign fighters from Iraq, Libya, and Syria has increased the group's operational capabilities.
*In response to the 26 May 2017 attack, the Egyptian army has launched several airstrikes in Libya targeting alleged militant training camps. The airstrikes, however, did not target the Islamic State.
*The Islamic State is likely to continue to expand operations west of the Suez Canal, aided by the lack of an effective government anti-terrorism strategy and overstretched security resource

 

[anatta]

Is Egypt bombing the right militants in Libya?
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was quick to launch air strikes on militants in Libya in response to a deadly attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt - but the attacks do not seem to be targeting those responsible.

The response was popular with many Egyptians. The country's state-owned and private news media celebrated it as swift justice, but the president has been vague about exactly who he is attacking.

The strikes have been directed at Islamist groups other than Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for Friday's massacre of dozens in the southern province of Minya, and seem to be intended to shore up Sisi's allies in eastern Libya.

"The attacks in Minya were claimed by Islamic State, and there are Islamic State elements active in Libya, but the reports coming indicate Cairo is targeting other groups," said H.A. Hellyer, senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

In any case, analysts say the strikes will not do much against Islamists in Cairo, Sinai and Upper Egypt, where they have had a stronghold since the 1990s and have been attacking tourists, Copts and government officials.

Bombing the camps in Libya is seen as a diversion for a failure to defeat Islamists inside Egypt.

"It's easier to strike a terrorist camp in Libya by air than it is to clean up serious problems inside Egypt; sectarianism, radicalization, that led to this and other attacks," said Michele Dunne, director of Carnegie's Middle East program.

"All the horrific terrorism that is happening inside Egypt has purely domestic drivers and probably would be happening if Islamic State did not exist. It is not all that different from the home-grown terrorism Egypt experienced in the 1990s, before Al Qaeda or Islamic State even existed," she said.

LIBYAN ALLY

The Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC) released a short video showing Derna after its “liberation” from the Islamic State.

Egyptian and Libyan officials said strikes had been launched on camps and ammunition stores belonging to the Derna Mujahideen Shura Council (DMSC). Areas targeted include the western entrance to Derna, Dahr al-Hamar in the south, and al-Fatayeh, a hilly area about 20 km (12 miles) from the city.

Yet the DMSC has never been involved in attacks outside Libya and in fact mostly limits its activities to Derna, rarely fighting in larger conflicts within Libya, according to Mohamed Eljarh, an Atlantic Council political analyst in Libya.

The group has denied taking part in attacks inside Egypt.

In fact, many suggest the air strikes had been planned in advance to shore up support for Sisi's main Libyan ally, Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), and that the Minya massacre was used as a pretext to launch them.

Forces loyal to Haftar, a military strongman like Sisi, have long been fighting the DMSC, cutting off supply routes to the city and hitting it with occasional air strikes. Despite the LNA's siege, the military situation in Derna has been in stalemate for months.

Egypt has also carried out strikes in Jufra, where the LNA has been fighting Islamists who fled Benghazi as well as forces linked to the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli.

The LNA lost dozens of men there in a surprise attack on an air base earlier in May, but has since consolidated control.

The Minya attack was a catalyst for those inside the Egyptian government and military who are in favor of military intervention in Libya, said Mokhtar Awad, who researches extremism at George Washington University.

"This is Egypt taking action not because of the Minya attack but ... to drive out as many extremists as possible from the east," he said.

 

[anatta]

A day in Libya’s capital, just as the civil war reignites
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...2a442afe285_story.html?utm_term=.47b1fd75e2e9

Smoke rises Friday after an explosion inTripoli, Libya.


The fighting also underscored the security and logistical challenges British investigators could face if they consider visiting Libya to pursue clues in the Manchester concert suicide bombing that killed 22 people this week. The bomber, Salman Abedi, was of Libyan origin, and his father and brother were arrested in Tripoli. Both are in the custody of a counterterrorism militia aligned with the Western-backed government.

Those challenges were evident during an hours-long drive Friday in a city fragmented as much by politics, ideology and geography as it is by violence and the thirst for power. In the southeastern enclaves, militias deployed tanks and used heavy artillery, leaving families trapped inside their homes and sending many civilians and fighters to hospitals with injuries. Authorities could not provide reliable casualty figures.

ut in the northern neighborhoods, untouched by Friday’s violence, Tripoli residents surreally socialized in cafes and water-skied in the Mediterranean Sea, even as the sound of explosions and gunfire thundered nearby. Huge plumes of black smoke from burning buildings rose over the city.

“This has become normal for us,” said Shukri Salim, 27, a Libyan Airlines employee, who was having coffee with friends in a cafe and watching a televised soccer match.

“I knew it was Ramadan and the war is going to start,” said his friend Ayoub Aldabaa, 27, an accountant, who was with him. “We’re so accustomed to this.”

 

[anatta]

In the days after the 22-year-old Abedi detonated a bomb at the Manchester Arena, the British press generated almost daily reports on the telltale signs that were overlooked. These included numerous tip-offs from friends to authorities, his expulsion from Didsbury mosque after a public dispute with an imam, and reports of his family's links to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – an Islamist organisation loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda which opposed Soviet forces in Afghanistan and Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya.

"The Abedi case is looking a lot more like an intelligence problem," says Kyle Orton, from the Henry Jackson Society, a London think-tank.

"I know that's said after every one of these [attacks]," Orton adds. "It's usually not true, because intelligence agencies are very good at detecting extremists, but in this case he has been abroad many times and he comes from a background that should have been under a great deal more scrutiny."

bedi is the British-born son of Libyan parents. His father Ramadan Abedi was arrested in Tripoli, along with another of his sons following the attack. He fled Libya for England in the 1990s but told Bloomberg he did not belong to extremist groups, as claimed by the Gaddafi regime.

Manchester would become home to Britain's largest Libyan community. Arthur Snell, a former British diplomat posted to Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa, and now with security consultants PGI Intelligence, says Britain initially turned a blind eye to Libyan arrivals in Britain, believing "these people are not a threat to the UK".

"Libya [under Gaddafi] was seen as a rogue state, so people who were in opposition to the Libyan regime were not [seen] as problematic," he told Fairfax Media.

"Where it gets complicated is where the West's attitude to Libya changed," he said. "If we're honest, the authorities in this country largely ignored the Libya issue because up until the moment of the Arab Spring, the radical threat in the UK was not seen as coming from that quarter."

That has changed with the case of the Abedis, with reports Ramadan Abedi took his sons to Libya "on holiday" to take part in the civil war against Gaddafi.

Mr Snell said some of the groups operating in Libya at the time were at the "jihadist end of the spectrum, but the focus of their militancy was the Gaddafi regime".

Mr Orton says the government's "don't ask, don't tell" policy was a terrible mistake.

"That came back to bite us when in the mid-2000s those networks mobilised to send people to Iraq and they came back again over Syria and a lot of these networks went over to [Islamic State], when the split formally happened with al-Qaeda [in early 2014]," he said.

Third-generation homegrown terrorists overwhelmingly show up in three spots across Britain: east London, Birmingham and Manchester. A report released earlier this year by the Henry Jackson Society showed three-quarters of all those convicted of terrorism offences came from these three areas.

Abedi in Manchester city centre on the day of the suicide bombing. Photo: Greater Manchester Police
http://www.smh.com.au/world/salman-...nded-bloodily-in-britain-20170529-gwfxix.html

 

[cancel2 2022]

In the days after the 22-year-old Abedi detonated a bomb at the Manchester Arena, the British press generated almost daily reports on the telltale signs that were overlooked. These included numerous tip-offs from friends to authorities, his expulsion from Didsbury mosque after a public dispute with an imam, and reports of his family's links to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – an Islamist organisation loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda which opposed Soviet forces in Afghanistan and Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya.



bedi is the British-born son of Libyan parents. His father Ramadan Abedi was arrested in Tripoli, along with another of his sons following the attack. He fled Libya for England in the 1990s but told Bloomberg he did not belong to extremist groups, as claimed by the Gaddafi regime.

Manchester would become home to Britain's largest Libyan community. Arthur Snell, a former British diplomat posted to Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa, and now with security consultants PGI Intelligence, says Britain initially turned a blind eye to Libyan arrivals in Britain, believing "these people are not a threat to the UK".

"Libya [under Gaddafi] was seen as a rogue state, so people who were in opposition to the Libyan regime were not [seen] as problematic," he told Fairfax Media.

"Where it gets complicated is where the West's attitude to Libya changed," he said. "If we're honest, the authorities in this country largely ignored the Libya issue because up until the moment of the Arab Spring, the radical threat in the UK was not seen as coming from that quarter."

That has changed with the case of the Abedis, with reports Ramadan Abedi took his sons to Libya "on holiday" to take part in the civil war against Gaddafi.

Mr Snell said some of the groups operating in Libya at the time were at the "jihadist end of the spectrum, but the focus of their militancy was the Gaddafi regime".

Mr Orton says the government's "don't ask, don't tell" policy was a terrible mistake.

"That came back to bite us when in the mid-2000s those networks mobilised to send people to Iraq and they came back again over Syria and a lot of these networks went over to [Islamic State], when the split formally happened with al-Qaeda [in early 2014]," he said.

Third-generation homegrown terrorists overwhelmingly show up in three spots across Britain: east London, Birmingham and Manchester. A report released earlier this year by the Henry Jackson Society showed three-quarters of all those convicted of terrorism offences came from these three areas.

Abedi in Manchester city centre on the day of the suicide bombing. Photo: Greater Manchester Police
http://www.smh.com.au/world/salman-...nded-bloodily-in-britain-20170529-gwfxix.html

Damn right, I said many times to Mott that he should go to places like West Ham, East Ham and Plaistow in East London to see it for himself. Parts of it are like Little Baghdad.

Sent from my iPhone 25 GT Turbo

 

[cancel2 2022]

This made me laugh!!

https://mobile.twitter.com/SamWhiteTky/status/871782332985888768?s=04

Sent from my iPhone 25 GT Turbo

 

[anatta]

Fresco in 1,700-year-old roman villa in Ptolemais

Archaeologists have unearthed statues, elaborate mosaics and other treasures in a 1,700-year old villa in Ptolemais, a key trading port for the ancient Romans on the Libyan coast.

bronze sestercii

The artifacts and a hoard of 553 sestercii silver and bronze coins hailing back to Republican times were found in a vast building about 600 square meters in area, dating to the 3rd century C.E.

Oil lamp depicting gladiatorial combat. Miron Bogacki

Most of the coins were found inside a room inside the house where terracotta lamps were manufactured. The coins may have been the earnings of local craftsmen, said archaeologist Jerzy Zelazowski of Warsaw University.

The ancient city was established almost 2,300 years ago, at the turn of the 4th century B.C.E., by ancient Greeks. Its original name is not known, but it gained the name "Ptolemais" during the reign of the Ptolemaic empire over Egypt.

The Ptolemaic Kingdom had been founded in 305 B.C.E. by Ptolemy I Soter, whose Hellenistic dynasty ruled a vast area stretching from Syria to Nubia, with its capital in Alexandria. The Ptolemaic rulers declared themselves successors to the Egyptian Pharaohs: the famed Cleopatra was a daughter of the late Ptolemaic ruler Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos.

As the power of the Romans rose, however, that of the Ptolemys waned, and they began losing territory to Macedonia and the Seleucids.
Hoping to preserve what they had, the Ptolemies became vassals of the Romans.
Cleopatra's father would pay the Romans through the nose in order to secure his dynasty, but after his death, Cleopatra ultimately failed to hold onto power.


In 96 B.C.E. the entire province of Cyrenaica, including Ptolemais, was handed over to the Romans peacefully (400 years before the house in question was built).

Rome however showed little interest in their new province, which deteriorated into a pirate’s nest. Not until the Wars of Mithradates (between the Roman Empire and the tiny Kingdon of Pontus south of the Black Sea, ruled by King Mithradates IV) in the 1st century C.E., did the Romans make an effort to restore order to Cyrenaica, to Romanize the locals and while about it, to resolve conflicts brewing between the Greeks and Jews living in the province.

Images of the gods

The villa with the recovered mosaics was built hundreds of years later around a courtyard in classic Roman peristyle arrangement. Among the loveliest of its mosaics is one depicting a sleeping Dionysus and Ariadne – a daughter of King Minos, who according to legend, would become the god's wife.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/1.794244

 

[anatta]

Mosaics depicting Dionysus and a sleeping Ariadne discovered in Ptolemais

Another mosaic depicts the Achillean cycle (the collection of epic poems about Achilles' adventures) representing Achilles on the island of Skyros – where his mother, fearful that he would meet his death at Troy, dressed him as a girl to avoid military recruiters.

Two other mosaics in the villa, one in the courtyard and one in the dining room, bear the name "Leukaktios". The name was superimposed on the stonework at a later date, possibly due to ownership change during its centuries of occupation.

^ The villa walls bore colorful frescos,
imitating marble revetments with geometric designs. Several walls are covered with figural paintings, mainly depicting various species of birds.

The end of this elegant house, after centuries of occupation, was probably due to the endless earthquakes plaguing the region. Two in particular, striking in the mid 3rd-century C.E. and in 365 C.E, may have doomed the house: the treasure of silver and bronze coins were found within the destruction layers inside the house.

The city of Ptolemais, however, survived. At least for a while. It would remain the capital of Cyrenaica until the year 428, when it was destroyed by the Vandals, who invaded North Africa too from their Germanic home base. Ptolemais would be rebuilt under Justinian I, the byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. But after the Arab forces razed it again in the 7th century, that would be its end