Who Fueled Violence in Tripoli?

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TEHRAN (FNA)- According to Western media outlets, Saudi Arabia gave millions of dollars to Khalifa Haftar to help pay for his Tripoli campaign.

They say few days before Libya's renegade General Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive on the capital, Tripoli, Saudi Arabia offered tens of millions of dollars to help pay for the operation. The offer came during a visit by Haftar to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in the run-up to his April 4 military campaign.

The latest conflict in the North African country pits Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) against forces allied to the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). The GNA controls Tripoli, situated in Northwestern Libya, while the LNA is allied to a parallel administration based in the East of the oil-rich country, which splintered into a patchwork of competing power bases following the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

As a consequence, UNICEF says children are now suffering, and death like their long-suffering counterparts in Yemen – half a million and counting. A new report by UNICEF says "More than half a million children are at direct risk in the Libyan capital of Tripoli" and just like in Yemen, the UN agency has appealed to all parties "to refrain from committing grave violations against children".

The World Health Organization (WHO) also reported that many people have been killed and wounded over the past few days of fighting in this besieged country. Doctors without Borders warn that "refugees, migrants, and children are suffering from alarming rates of acute malnutrition."

Though all acknowledge the terrible conditions, the EU representatives claim "there is little we can do" because "Libya is a sovereign country" with which Europe cooperates. It's sickening hypocrisy. They have never bothered to demonstrate more than minimal interest in ending the needless violence.

Even so, the new report by UNICEF should put everybody at the UN on notice. They should tell "Fortress Europe" what it has done to Libya by thwarting the will and wishes of the world community and by violating international law and the UN Charter. Soon its leaders will wake up to the nightmare of a new humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean region. They better start erecting new razor-wire fences and walls along their shores to stop the influx of refugees – this time from Libya. 

The crucial part of the picture is that this is the same regime-change cabal that overthrew Gaddafi in 2011 because they didn't want to allow Russia or China to horn in on their Libyan market. The United States, France, and Britain, which turned this once stable and prosperous nation into a failed state on the pretext of "democratization," cannot be allowed to escape responsibility, either.

Today, Libya is still a failed state - just like Yemen - as well as a haven for terrorist groups and proxies. The foreign policy establishment in the West insists it has a lock on wisdom, but a new report by the UN Support Mission in Libya points out otherwise. It confirms that "Libya's infrastructure continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate while basic services, including in health, water and electricity are eroding".

For that, the new reports by the UN and others suggest that words have not translated into action yet. The world should never be ashamed of doing the right thing by exposing a myth. The NATO-led intervention was immoral and the world should decide on what is right and stick to it. The UN must show some moral backbone to address the violence, those who fuel it, and hold them to account.

The UN should turn its reports into meaningful measures and call on the NATO-led interventionists and their Mideast lackeys to take responsibility for their actions and help stop the violence. This is the same war that Barack Obama admitted was the worst mistake of his presidency, and the same “democratic” intervention that President Donald Trump has described as “a catastrophe.”

There's a lesson to be learned here: In this deadly power struggle, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to take sides. The UN should resume serious peace talks and draw up an election roadmap, instead. Supporting two parallel governments vying for territory and oil wealth won't bring a swift end to the violence; it won't make a difference for half a million children. The situation will only get worse unless meaningful action is taken by the UN to immediately stop the violence.

CIA-Trained, Saudi-Backed Warlord Tearing Apart Libya

By: Kayhan Int’l 

Libya is again being embroiled in a crisis as the various armed factions battle each other for control of the divided country which the US, West European powers, and the Persian Gulf reactionary regimes, have destabilized and virtually destroyed in their greed for control of its oil wealth.

Khalifa Haftar, a 75-year old veteran of Libyan politics and longtime CIA agent, recently ordered his self-styled Libyan National Army (NLA) to advance on the densely populated capital, Tripoli, where the United Nations-backed government is seated.

At the moment battles are raging around Tripoli and there are fears of a full-scale civil war in the North African state, which is still reeling from the NATO-backed intervention of 2011 to oust and brutally kill longtime strongman Mu’ammar Qadhafi. 

Haftar’s announcement of an advance on Tripoli came as the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was wrapping up a peace-brokering mission in the country, in which he met with Haftar as well as the UN-backed prime minister, Fayez as-Serraj.

Guterres lamented: "I leave Libya with a heavy heart and deeply concerned. I still hope it is possible to avoid a bloody confrontation in and around Tripoli.”

The developments have come ahead of UN-brokered peace talks slated for April 14-16. 

As a matter of fact, it is US state terrorism in West Asia and North Africa that led to the wholesale destruction of Iraq and Syria, and now produced figures like the CIA-trained Hafter in Libya, where Washington’s involvement is resulting in black Africans being sold as slaves in open-air markets.

The situation is alarming, but the criminal regime of Donald Trump seems to relish the situation, and is waiting for an excuse to militarily invade and occupy oil-rich Libya. 

If Haftar succeeds in seizing power, he would control the largest oil reserves in Africa, although he already controls many oil fields.

His ambition to rule is decades old. He was among a group of officers involved in the coup against King Idris that brought Coloner Mu’ammer Qadhafi to power in 1969. After being taken prisoner by Chad in 1987 while working for Qadhafi, he turned his back on the Libyan leader.

After his release, which was secured by the US, Haftar joined the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, an opposition group supported by the CIA, to prepare an army that could overthrow Qadhafi. He was eventually flown to Langley, Virginia — where the CIA is headquartered — and lived there for two decades, working with the CIA to topple the Libyan leader from abroad. He and 350 fighters loyal to him were admitted into the US and given refugee status. His men are trained by American intelligence officials in sabotage and other guerilla skills.

In 2014, Haftar, shortly after returning from the US to Libya, seized control of Benghazi. In 2016 he took control of key positions in the "oil crescent” from the UN-backed government.

According to reports, the UN-backed government of Prime Minister of as-Sarraj is also uninterested in talks with Haftar to resolve the crisis, which means the situation is bound to worsen.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and certain European states, like France, seem to be lined behind Haftar.

All of this augurs misfortune for the people of Libya, who have been trapped the devil and the deep blue, with anarchic elements, such as al-Qa’eda and Daesh, spreading around the country, and involved in the US-backed terrorism to tear apart the country. 

Libya is Now a Failed State Within a Failed State

Written by Adam Garrie 

Ever since NATO’s monstrous invasion and destruction of Libya in 2011, the country has failed to have a single government. Instead, the country is home to lawless bands of terrorists, slave traders and desert pirates whilst multiple pseudo-regimes continue to compete for power in the country’s largest cities. For approximately two and a half years, the two largest pseudo-governments in Libya have been the Tobruk based House of Representatives and the Tripoli based Government of National Accord.

The Tobruk government is internally backed by the Libyan National Army which is led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. The Tobruk government likewise receives external backing from Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The Tripoli government by contrast is backed by the major western powers whilst a smaller government/military force in Misurata are backed by Qatar and Turkey. Recently, the Misurata forces have apparently allied with Tripoli against the Libyan National Army of Haftar.

After making many successful territorial gains throughout 2018, Haftar’s forces are reportedly nearing Tripoli. The Libyan  National Army intends to take Tripoli without a fight and has pledged to offer an amnesty to those who lay down their arms. Because the Misurata forces are ostensibly stronger than the minimal military might that can be mobilised by Tripoli, it remains anyone’s guess as to what kind of fight Haftar will have in his mission to take Tripoli.

But while the military conclusion of Haftar’s long march to Tripoli is far from a foregone conclusion, what is already true is that Libya’s status as a failed state has been transformed into that of a failed state within a failed state. Not only has the western backed government in Tripoli long been little other than a gangsters’ nest of incompetent imbeciles, but now it is on the verge of collapsing under the weight of an Army backed by America’s allies Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Making matters all the more embarrassing is that Haftar is himself  a US citizen having moved to America in 1990 after having a major falling out with Libyan revolutionary leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Just to recap, the US and EU backed Tripoli government is now under direct military threat from a Libyan with US citizenship whose Army is backed by western allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia. This makes it clear that Libya’s competing factions for rule over a terrorist dominated failed state each have connections to the same overall set of international allies.

In this sense, no matter how one views the situation, there is plenty of embarrassment to go around. Not only has Libya been balkanised into multiple lawless entities, most of which are controlled by terrorists, but even nations that are otherwise incredibly close allies cannot agree on which corrupt and failed faction to unite behind.

The 2011 criminal destruction of what was once Africa’s most prosperous nation continues to scar Libyan and all of Africa.

Adam Garrie

Adam Garrie is Director at Eurasia future and co-host of The History Boys with George Galloway.