The United States has signed a $11.5 million-military cooperation agreement with Egypt, the US Defence Department announced in a statement on its official website.

The contract stipulated that the Egyptian Air Force (EAF), the aviation branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces, will receive Lockheed Martin Corporation’s Advanced Block 52 F-16 multi-role fighters.

The not-to-exceed $11.5 million predominately firm-fixed-price contract has been awarded to Goodrich Corporation. The contract came as part of Egypt Peace Vector DB-110 Reconnaissance program, which was initiated in November 2010.

The US defence department’s statement added that Goodrich will also provide initial parts for two DB-110 reconnaissance pods and an initial study for one existing DB-110 reconnaissance pod.

Work will be performed at Westford, Massachusetts, and is scheduled to be complete by 18 August 2017.

“This contract is 100 percent foreign military sales to Egypt. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition”, the statement revealed. The Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program is the US Government’s program for transferring defense articles, services, and training to other sovereign nations and international organizations.

Early December, Egypt’s Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, paid a visit to Washington where he discussed Egypt-US defence, social and economic cooperation with the Chairman of the US House Committee on Armed Services Mac Thornberry.

Although global tensions and terrorist threats have shown few signs of trade diminishing, the US has ranked first global weapons sales for last years, signing deals for about $40 billion, or half of all agreements in the worldwide arms bazaar, according to official reports.

Forces loyal to Libya’s eastern government said they had carried out an airstrike against opponents in the central Jufra region, according to arabnews.com.

Ahmed Al-Mismari, a spokesman for the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), said the strike had targeted a camp used by the Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB), a force that the LNA has previously clashed with.

The LNA and the BDB are on opposite sides of a conflict in which two loose and shifting alliances have battled for power in Libya since 2014, aligning themselves with rival governments in Tripoli and the east.

In recent months the LNA, led by Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar, has made military gains in Benghazi and Libya’s Oil Crescent region, provoking several attempted counter-attacks by his rivals.

“This was a pre-emptive strike against militias that are mobilizing for an attack against the Libyan army,” Mismari said. There was no immediate comment from the BDB.

Images from the oasis town of Houn posted on local media sites showed thick smoke rising close to residential buildings. No casualties were reported.

The LNA carried out airstrikes this month to repel what it said was an attempt to recapture Oil Crescent ports it took control of in September. Shortly afterward, it launched strikes against opponents at a military base in Jufra.

The strikes have raised fears of a new escalation in Libya’s conflict. A UN-backed government in Tripoli has so far failed to reconcile Libya’s warring factions.

In meetings held near the Cairo International Airport, officials in regional security bodies have exceptionally accelerated their activity following the terrorist attacks that targeted the Middle East recently, aawsat.com reported.

Reports said that many extremists have been displaced to Libya, which suffers from weakness in its security and control of its airports. During one of these meetings, a security officer underlined the name of a Libyan man known by “Dikna”, whom they have been chasing for a while. First, it seemed that he was a dangerous man who stands behind all attacks that took place in the region. Yet, a Libyan officer said that “Dikna” was constantly tracked by many security bodies, but he vanished days before the explosion of the Coptic Church in Cairo.

One of the foreign security officials who participated in the meeting said that tracking extremists has become more difficult after the intensification of the International Coalition’s hits over ISIS’s strongholds in Syria and Iraq and the inspection operations on suspicious monetary transactions and the displacement of suspects; this official considered that this phenomenon has become international as terrorism in a country can lead to a disaster in another one.

Majority of Terrorists are from Arabs

The officer, who is a major regional security officer, said that the majority of extremist groupings are from Arab nationalities with some of them holding European citizenships; they have remarkably set up their strongholds in Libya to carry out cross-border attacks – especially in the neighboring countries and in the Middle Eastern countries, the sources added.

During one of their meetings, officials said that a Libyan man called “Marjini”, leading a group of Arab extremists escaped from surveillance within the past weeks. The regional security official revealed that both Dikna and Marjini might be members in the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood and that they are using an office in Misrata to import extremist, including Egyptians from Sinai and Palestinians from Gaza Strip. He added that according to investigations, those extremists have planned cross-border terrorist attacks and they received USD30 million to fund these operations.

Security sources close to the Libyan Presidential Congress said that political and military leaderships from Misrata discovered this office and launched investigations, in which an official participates from the Libyan intelligence body.

Proposals raised to refrain the office from its activities included the confiscation of funds allocated for extremist Arab and Libyan extremist groups. According to the same source, investigations include videos showing Dinka and Marjini while planning terrorist attacks days prior to the church’s explosion in Cairo; the search operations are still ongoing among the region to find the two men.

On another hand, officials said that important information reported that ISIS is planning to use Libya as a base to carry on operations in the Middle East and Europe, amid suspicions on cooperation between the two escaping men and ISIS.

Regional Security Cooperation

Apparently, cooperation among security officials in the Middle East have eased the solution of many security dilemmas; Al-Farouq Brigade – ISIS’s branch in Libya has brought its members from Ansar Bait al-Maqdis in Sinai along with many members from the Muslims Brotherhood in Libya and Tunisia.

Future Indications

The leaked information showed that ISIS has set mysterious plans based on complicated symbols for Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Mali, and Europe. Reports say that members transported from Iraq and Syria to Libya have reached 1000, including leaders who are responsible of Sinai, Alexandria, and Cairo.

As per “Dinka”, the man pursued by security forces, new information said that he has been residing out of Misrata and that USD50,000 were delivered to his relatives few days ago from outside Libya, which asserted that Dinka is still out of the country. Sources added that Misrata’s Airport received groups from Hamas and Ansar Bait al-Maqdis few weeks ago.

Unprecedented Activity

The intelligence official submitted a memorandum to the members of the Presidential council about the Brotherhood office in Misrata saying they are setting plans to target Egypt – this was not the first memorandum on such activities as the Congress previously received similar notifications on extremist groups joining ISIS’ members who escaped from Syria and Iraq.

The growth of extremist activity in Libya has raised significant concerns among intelligence and political circles.

According to military sources, the National Unity Government, the U.N., and Arabic and European parties were notified on the new concerns. After meetings in Cairo, all parties have agreed on maintaining cooperation and exerting more efforts to chase extremist leaders, mostly those who uses Libya as a base to attack neighboring countries.

Tunisia’s security forces called on the government on Sunday to take “exceptional measures” to combat the return of jihadists fighting for extremist groups abroad.

Tunisia has seen a wave of jihadist attacks since its 2011 revolution, including on foreign tourists, and the United Nations estimates that more than 5,000 Tunisians are fighting for extremist outfits, mainly in Iraq and Syria.

“The return of terrorists from hotbeds of unrest in Tunisia is worrying and could lead to the Somali-isation of the country,” said a statement from the internal security forces’ national union, referring to the al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab group in Somalia.

Battle-hardened fighters “have received military training and have learnt to use all sorts of sophisticated weapons”, it added.

The warning came a day after the authorities said they had arrested three people including the nephew of Anis Amri, a Tunisian suspected of carrying out a deadly truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market this week.

Hundreds of people gathered outside parliament in Tunis on Saturday to protest against allowing jihadists back into the country.

The demonstrators also chanted slogans hostile to Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the Islamist Ennahdha party, who had in the past backed the idea of “repentance” in exchange for renunciation of violence.

On Sunday, he said he opposed a ban on returning Tunisian jihadists, saying the country should “assume its responsibilities”.

“This disease has to be dealt with seriously,” Ghannouchi told a public meeting, saying his “treatment” was “justice, police, education and therapy”.

On Friday, Interior Minister Hedi Majdoub told parliament 800 Tunisians who had fought for extremist groups abroad had since returned home.

President Beji Caid Essebsi said earlier this month the authorities would refuse to pardon Tunisians who fight for jihadist organisations.

“Many of them want to return, and we can’t prevent a Tunisian from returning to his country,” he said, “but we will be vigilant.”

Following a storm of criticism in the press and on social media, on December 15 Essebsi told Tunisian television that “we will not be indulgent with the terrorists”.

On Sunday, the interior minister said five people had been arrested in Ariana, north of Tunis, suspected of “recruiting young people to send them to conflict areas”.

At least 13 militants were killed in Egyptian airstrikes in the restive Sinai Peninsula late Sunday, according to a local security source.

Apache helicopter gunships raided hideouts of alleged militants in southern Arish city in northern Sinai, the source said anonymously because he was unauthorized to speak to media.

The attack injured 10 other militants and destroyed a number of motorbikes and vehicles used by the militants, the source said.

Earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb killed a policeman and injured an army soldier in Arish.

Since mid-2013, when Mohamed Morsi — Egypt’s first freely-elected president — was ousted in a military coup, hundreds of Egyptian security personnel deployed in Sinai have been killed amid an ongoing militant insurgency.

The Egyptian security forces, meanwhile, continue to wage a fierce campaign — involving elements from both the police and the army — against what they describe as Sinai-based “terrorist groups”.

Egypt’s army-backed authorities say they are battling the Welayat Sinai (Province of Sinai) group, which is said to have links to the Islamic State terrorist organization.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Friday approving the expansion of the Russian naval base in the Syrian port city of Tartus, Russian news agency Sputnik reported.

The news about the new decree was further announced on the Kremlin’s website.

According to Sputnik, the statement on the Kremlin’s website reads: “Vladimir Putin signed a decree on signing the agreement between the Russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic on expanding the territory of the Russian logistics centre in the port of Tartus and on the arriving of Russian ships at the territorial sea, national waters and ports of the Syrian Arab Republic.”

The Russian Defence Ministry announced plans in October to establish a permanent naval base in the western Syrian port city of Tartus where it has been keeping a small naval maintenance and support facility since 1977, Sputnik said.

Russia has been steadily expanding its power and influence over the past several years.

In early 2014, Russia unilaterally intervened in the Ukrainian crisis and eventually annexed the Crimea, causing upset in Europe and NATO with a seemingly resurgent Moscow that was largely dormant after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 2015, Moscow militarily intervened in Syria after having run diplomatic interference for the Assad regime at the UN Security Council since 2011. Russian help was instrumental in the fall of Aleppo earlier this month.

Russia’s increasingly bellicose stance, however, has not come without costs as the Kremlin continues to wrestle with the economic turmoil brought about by Putin’s desire to reassert Russia as a major power on the world stage.

Authorities in Tunisia said to Reuters that Sudan had handed over a Tunisian accused of being a senior figure within Islamic State and helping plan a 2015 attack on the Bardo museum in Tunis, state media reported.

Moez Fezzani was a point of contact for Tunisian militants who traveled to Syria or Libya, sometimes returning to their home country to carry out attacks, Sofiane Sliti, a senior Tunisian judicial official, told state news agency TAP.

Fezzani had been sought under a number of national and international arrest warrants, Sliti said. He was reportedly arrested recently in Sudan, and had previously spent time in Italy and Libya.

Sliti said Fezzani was a suspect in the March 2015 Bardo attack, in which 21 tourists were shot dead, as well as in a plan to blow up the mausoleum of former Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba two years earlier.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Bardo attack and a beach attack in Sousse in June 2015 in which 38 foreigners were killed.

Tunisia has struggled with Islamist militancy since its 2011 Arab Spring revolution, and large numbers of young Tunisians left to fight in Libya and the Middle East.

A Tunisian believed to have carried out a deadly truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin was shot dead in Milan on Friday.

An airliner on an internal flight in Libya was hijacked and diverted to Malta where it landed on Friday, Maltese media reported.

The Airbus A320 was flying inside Libya for state-owned airline Afriqiyah Airways with 118 people aboard, the reports said. The two hijackers had threatened to blow the plane up, outlets including the Times of Malta reported.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat tweeted: “Informed of potential hijack situation of a #Libya internal flight diverted to #Malta. Security and emergency operations standing by -JM”.

alarabiya.net

Several people were wounded Thursday afternoon as armed clashes renewed at the Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in the southern city of Sidon.

The fighting between the mainstream Fatah Movement and the hardline Islamist group Jund al-Sham erupted after the funeral of Samer Hmeid – aka Samer Nejmeh – and Mahmoud Abdul Karim Saleh, who both were killed in Wednesday’s violence, state-run National News Agency reported.

“Clashes broke out on the al-Sifsaf-al-Briksat frontier before spreading to the Taytaba-Arab Zbeid frontier,” NNA said, noting that “machineguns, shoulder-fired rockets and hand grenades” were being used in the fighting.

Dozens of families who were trapped in their homes in the Arab Zbeid area were urging officials to exert efforts to halt the fighting, the agency added.

Media reports said residents were fleeing en masse from the camp’s eastern neighborhoods.

Wednesday’s unrest resulted in the death of three people and the injury of at least six others.

naharnet.com

Flush with success in supporting his ally in Syria, Vladimir Putin has a new ambition: supporting another one, this time in Libya. The effort is beginning to undermine the UN-backed government there.

Russian President Putin’s government is befriending a powerful military leader, Khalifa Haftar, who now controls more territory than any other faction in the tumultuous, oil-rich North African state. In two visits to Moscow in the past half-year, Haftar met the defense and foreign ministers, plus the national-security chief, to seek support. A top ally also visited last week and Russia is supplying funds and military expertise to Haftar’s base in the east.

“The longer we wait, the more likely it becomes that Haftar wins,” said Riccardo Fabiani, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at Eurasia Group in London. “It’s clear he’s getting military, financial and diplomatic support.”

By backing Haftar in his standoff with the government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj in the west, Russia could bolster its role in the region and secure billions of dollars from Libya in arms and other contracts. At the same time, it also risks igniting more conflict in the divided country, where forces loyal to Haftar, as well as rival armed groups, are accused by the UN of human-rights abuses including torture and extra-judicial killings.

Other players also support Haftar, though he’s opposed by powerful militias mostly across central and western Libya, where 70 percent of the population lives. Among his allies: the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, whose ex-army chief president, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, has close ties to the Kremlin. Putin branded the NATO-led campaign that overthrew Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi as a “crusade.”

Russia lost at least $4 billion in arms deals and billions of dollars more in energy and transport contracts after Qaddafi was ousted and killed, according to government and state-company officials.

The U.S. and the European Union support the UN-endorsed government in Libya. State Department spokesman John Kirby on Nov. 29 called on Haftar and his forces to submit to “civilian command” of the Tripoli authorities.

Putin’s strategy could cement a new partnership with President-elect Donald Trump, should Moscow and Washington align in backing Haftar’s self-proclaimed fight against radical Islamic groups, according to Mattia Toalda, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Trump has waxed enthusiastic about Egypt’s El-Sisi and his proclaimed war on terror.

Haftar, 73, a one-time Qaddafi ally, received military training in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. He speaks good Russian, according to media reports in Moscow. He also lived for two decades in the U.S. after falling out with the Libyan leader, working with the CIA by keeping contact with anti-Qaddafi forces, according to Saudi-Arabia-owned Al Arabiya channel.

After returning from exile to fight with rebels during the revolution in 2011, Haftar set up his own power base. He announced a campaign to take control of most of the strategic city of Benghazi in 2014 and in September of this year seized most eastern oil installations.

“You have to work from reality — the key here is military might and control of oil,” said Rafael Enikeev, head of Middle East studies at a Kremlin advisory group run by a former Foreign Intelligence Service general. “In such conditions, Haftar can dictate terms to Tripoli.”

Continued Resistance

Still, resistance to Haftar in the west of Libya is unlikely to crumble, raising the prospect of continued violence in the holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves. Armed forces from the West backed by U.S. air strikes this month ousted Islamic State from its last major stronghold outside Syria and Iraq after a seven-month battle that Haftar’s forces didn’t participate in.

Russia has used its military intervention in Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad against rebels backed by the U.S. and its allies, and against terrorist groups. This month Russian-backed government forces wrested back full control of Aleppo, the former commercial capital, in a major reversal for the opposition in the almost six-year civil war.

While UN resolutions allow only the unity government to export oil and receive weapons, Russia has friendly ties with Egypt, which is likely sending arms to Haftar and his Libyan National Army, according to Oleg Bulaev, an expert from the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. El-Sisi in May called for Haftar’s military to be allowed to import weapons, the Egypt Daily News reported.

Printing Money

In addition, Russia printed 4 billion Libyan dinars ($2.8 billion) on contract for the Libyan central bank — and transferred it to an eastern city that is loyal to the military chief. The money is being used across the country except for Tripoli and the western Misrata region, a hotbed of anti-Haftar sentiment.

In other ways too, Russia is helping Haftar’s efforts to gain the upper hand over the Government of National Accord. Set up in December 2015, its influence doesn’t extend much beyond the capital. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow said Dec. 2 in Rome after meeting his Italian counterpart that Haftar “can and must become part of the national accords.”

A Haftar supporter, Ali El-Tekbali, a defense-committee member of the eastern-based assembly, said that if the stalemate continues, “Russia’s involvement will be inevitable and it will be in support of the legitimate Libyan army that will restore stability.”

Conflict Escalation

That’s not guaranteed to produce the outcome Putin may prefer, according to a report this month by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It noted: “Russia’s support for Khalifa Haftar in the name of countering terrorism could instead escalate Libya’s conflict and undermine the UN-sponsored political process.”

So far, Haftar has allowed oil to flow from the fields and ports he controls and revenues go to the central bank in Tripoli. Wednesday, Libya reopenedtwo of its largest oil fields in the west and began loading its first crude cargo in two years from those fields. But the country’s economy has crumbled amid the continued political stalemate.

One possible outcome of the pressure: the Libyan prime minister could accept a deal in which Haftar would formally recognize Serraj’s government in return for getting full command of Libyan armed forces and becoming de facto ruler of the country, said Karim Mezran, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

That kind of “militarization” isn’t the solution, said Ahmed Maiteeq, the deputy prime minister in Tripoli.

Russia’s view is that people like Syria’s Assad and Haftar are “authoritarian leaders who are not liberal democrats and are unlikely to introduce democracy in their countries but they can bring order, and therefore we should support them,” said Andrey Kortunov, director general of a foreign policy research group set up by the Kremlin.

bloomberg.com