Militias loyal to Libya’s U.N.-backed unity government headed by Fayez Sarraj are seeking to convince the cabinet to submit an international request to impose an air embargo on the oil crescent region in order to prevent the national army, led by Khalifa Haftar, from controlling it.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said: “The situation in Libya is worrying and has gotten worse.”

“Haftar’s offensive does not go in the right direction. There is a real risk of going backwards,” he told reporters in New York.

Ayrault said that seeking to seize oil facilities for political purposes would lead Libya nowhere and it was crucial that the country’s official National Oil Corporation (NOC) control fields under the auspices of the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) of Sarraj.

Libya is highly dependent on oil export revenue and needs to revive production to prevent economic collapse.

“The production and commercialization of oil must be done in the framework of the NOC under government control, otherwise the risks of clashes in Libya are considerable,” Ayrault said.

On the other hand, Libya’s Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) said on Tuesday its output had risen to 210,000 barrels per day (bpd) from between 145,000-160,000 bpd after production resumed at the Nafoura and Hamada fields.

“We will maintain production at this level and we are capable of increasing it, though we are suffering from a financial crisis at the moment,” AGOCO spokesman Omran al-Zwai told Reuters.

Meanwhile, Italy said two of its nationals have been abducted in Libya; media reports suggested a Canadian was also missing. Little is known about the location from where they were taken or their identities.

The Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed two Italians were kidnapped on Monday.

The two Italians were abducted at dawn on Monday in Ghat, a southern Libyan city, along with a Canadian citizen, according to Komani Mohamed Saleh, the mayor of the city of Ghat, as quoted on the Tuniscope Arabic website.

All three of the kidnapped worked for an Italian company that performed maintenance operations at Ghat airport, the website said.

aawsat.com

Regarding increased ISIS’ defeats in Syria and Iraq and the fact that in the not too distant future bases of the terrorist group are going to be in their most vulnerable position since 2014, a question arises that has ISIS any plan to  relocate into another place in the Islamic world?

Activities of ISIS terrorists indicate that they have their eyes on somewhere. Studying ISIS’ operations outside of Iraq and Syria, one may conclude that the terrorist group’s next bastion will be in the North African region, most likely in Libya.

ISIS measures show that its current infiltration rate and gains in Libya are quite similar to those of the terrorist group in the beginnings of the Iraqi and Syrian crises.

After the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, the dead Libyan dictator, there have been endless internal conflicts and wars in Libya. Currently, there are two governments ruling over different parts of the country. One of these governments is Secular and the other is Islamic. Due to this discord, the Libyan military is also in a bad situation.

Aside from the military vulnerability of Libya, there are other factors that make this country suitable in ISIS’ eyes. Libya’s significant reserves of energy (such as the oil reserves in northern regions of this country, which could be a good substitute for the lost regions of Iraq and Syria), short sea lane to Europe, being close to unstable African countries such as Egypt, Algeria, and Sudan, are all reasons for Libya to be a platform for ISIS, especially since ISIS terrorists are currently losing their strategic bases in Iraq and Syria.

Over the past few weeks and after the heavy defeat of ISIS in Fallujah, News about mass transit of commanders and prominent clerics that are affiliated with ISIS to Sirte have been heard. Sirte is ISIS’ base in north of Libya.

The question that the international community and especially Europe should answer to is: Is it possible to prevent ISIS from spreading in North Africa? In other words, is the scenario of defeating ISIS terrorists in Iraq repeatable in Africa?

To answer this question, one must look at the causes and factors of the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and then examine the possibility of implementing the same factors in North Africa.

Role of the Foreign Players in Suppressing ISIS

During the positioning and establishment of ISIS in Libya Europe’s security, particularly its southern coast, has been declining. European intelligence services understand this situation better than any other organization, because they are currently involved in containing terrorist cells active in their countries. On this basis, if ISIS’ presence in Libya continues to increase, it is expected that Europe take serious measures in dealing with this Takfiri and terrorist group.

Attempts will be taken by Europe to cut off and control the regional support that ISIS receives. Also, NATO’s military presence and wide aerial attacks in form of a European coalition will be probable in the future. Thus, it can be speculated that transregional countries will take a stance towards the Libyan crisis that is similar to the stance and activities of US and some European countries towards Iraq and Syria.

National Unity

Over the past few weeks, international and regional players have made efforts to establish and support the national unity government in Libya. These efforts are indicative of international concern for Libya’s lack of a central and powerful government.

However, the persistence of numerous and political and military conflicts among different groups in the country, will definitely help the establishment and growth of a group like ISIS in Libya.

The efforts of the international community and especially Europe in removing obstacles that are present in the way of the formation of a national unity government in this country. These efforts includes sanctions against the Libyan Security Council, regional powers’ secret and public support of establishing a form of a proxy war in Libya, and the tensions between the Secular and Islamic governments.

It seems that in the near future, a national unity government will be formed in Libya, with direct support of Western countries. But it is very unlikely that the formation of such government would be able to solve the fundamental issues and problems that are present among different groups and parties in Libya. With the arrival of ISIS commanders and a considerable number of terrorists to Sirte, the power of ISIS in Libya is constantly increasing.

The formation of a national unity in Libya in order to fight the ISIS terrorists is quite difficult and seems unlikely, but it is not completely impossible.

Resistance

Undoubtedly, if ISIS’ operations in Libya keep intensifying, it is very likely that the three abovementioned factors will come true, with similarities and differences to what went on in Syria and Iraq.

 But what makes a major difference in the fight against terrorist threats between Eastern Muslim world (especially in Iraq and Syria) and the Western Muslim world (especially Libya) is the lack of the most important factor in combating terrorism, which is resistance.

The North African countries generally lack the concept of popular resistance. Even ancient religious structure such as al-Azhar lack the general public’s support, due to their extremely conservative positions and historical alignment with dictatorial powers. Even if such structure existed, the North African region lacks operational infrastructure needed to make use of it.

 In Iraq and Syria, the potential capabilities of Islamic resistance have been activated through Resistance Axis, led by Iran, and have been manifested in different organizations, such as Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. However, it is a completely different story in North Africa. The countries in this region either completely lack the infrastructure that is needed for Resistance, or like Egypt, with a very traditional and classic military and security structure, does not have the power needed to deal with modern security threats such as ISIS. In fact, despite a substantial position in the country, the Egyptian army has been unable to establish full security in Sinai. This further shows the role and importance of resistance in providing security.

Therefore, due to the lack of Resistance, North Africa, areas surrounding it such as the eastern and central parts of Africa, and even the southern shores of Europe are exposed to ISIS threat. Also, the situation of these regions is ambiguous, and the future of these areas will depend on the decision of Western powers and their allies.

abna24.com

The terrorist threat is “more worrying” at the level of the Sahel-Saharan strip which requires the continuation of dialogue and cooperation between Algeria and France, said Monday, in Paris, the Speaker of the Council of the nation Abdelkader Bensalah

“It is obvious that the terrorist threat is even more worrying at the level of the Sahel-Saharan strip, the main focus of our discussion today,” he said, underlining that the situation has worsened by “the proliferation of organized crime in all its forms, as well as subversive actions of transnational terrorist organizations aimed at destabilizing this region, North Africa and the western basin of the Mediterranean.”

For the speaker of the Council of the Nation, terrorism is “one of the greatest threats” to peace and security in “our region and all the world,” adding that this phenomenon “strikes without distinction our immediate environment, in the Sahel, West Africa and also Europe.”

“We still have in memory the images of barbaric acts which plunged France into mourning, criminal and despicable acts that my country strongly condemned while affirming its solidarity with the friendly French people.”

In the face of these threats, he called on the two parliamentary institutions to “encourage” the two countries’ governments “ to continue their dialogue and cooperation on shared objectives as part of the United Nations’ strategy” of fight against terrorism.

aps.dz

When forces led by General Khalifa Haftar swept through key oil facilities in eastern Libya, they met almost no military challenge despite the stakes involved.

The capture of the oil terminals upsets the balance of political forces in Libya and makes the survival of the leader of the UN-brokered government in Tripoli less likely. The Government of National Accord, headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, is almost entirely dependent on oil revenues for its income. It said Libya was at a “turning point” after the assault on the oil ports.

No rival military force is considered able to threaten Haftar’s success in putting most of the country’s oil wealth under his grip.

Misrata militias, the main military power of the government in Tripoli, are tied up battling Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in Sirte. Any attempt to roll back Haftar’s gains by mobilising other militias protecting the government from rival Islamist groups would likely throw Tripoli into more chaos.

“The operation was carefully prepared in total secrecy with regard to ammunition, weapons and soldiers. The storming and takeover of the gates of the terminals were carried out in a record time of about 15 minutes,” Colonel Fawzi al-Mansouri, one of Haftar’s military spokesmen, said of the capture of the oil facilities.

“The resistance lasted 45 minutes with some fleeing and others were taken hostage and the seizure of their weapons,” he added in a statement.

Three soldiers were slightly wounded, Mansouri said, detailing the capture of the oil terminals of Ras Lanuf on September 12th and Zueitina the day before. Brega and Sidra followed within 24 hours.

“The latest outpost of Jadhran was taken over,” Mansouri said in reference to the commander of the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) forces, Ibrahim Jadhran, an ally of the Tripoli authority who had controlled the terminals since 2013.

About 90% of Libya’s oil exports flow through the seized facilities.

PFG militiamen are recruited from tribes scattered near oilfields and oil terminals and other facilities including al Magharba tribe of Jadran.

“The whole operation was prepared with the support of tribal chiefs. The tribal chiefs and leading figures of the tribes gave orders to their men in the PFG to avoid using their weapons and withdraw or let Haftar’s forces take over the facilities,” said Libyan political activist Kamel al-Houni.

“That is why there was no bloodshed. The operation was very peaceful because of the broad backing of the tribes and their chiefs,” he said.

“Even Jadhran was aware of the upcoming operation. He had evacuated his family from the area more than one week before the attack.”

Houni said that tribes in the eastern oil basin switched their backing from Jadhran to Haftar because they see Haftar as the “saviour of Libya” from its political infighting and regional and ideological divides.

“They dumped Jadhran as he proved lacking vision to propose an alternative to the crisis. He floated the idea of protecting the oil wealth from corrupt politicians in Tripoli by shutting down the oil exports,” said Houni.

“But over time, that move proved wrong because the closure had cost the loss of a lot of revenues from the oil for the whole population,” he added.

The victory for Haftar is likely to bolster his image after he was seen in the West as having no role in the settlement of Libya’s problems because of his negative view about building a democracy in the country under the dominance of Islamists, whom he views as terrorists.

The United States and other Western countries have called on Haftar’s forces to withdraw from the seized oil terminals, ironically drawing a rebuke on September 12th from the internationally recognised parliament, which had elevated Haftar to field marshal to reward him for the move.

The United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain said Sarraj’s government was the “sole steward of these resources”, adding that “Libya’s oil belongs to the Libyan people”.

“The ports of Zueitina, Brega, Ras Lanuf and Sidra were handed over to the National Oil Company” (NOC), said Colonel Ahmad Mesmari, another spokesman for Haftar.

“The entire oil crescent is under the NOC’s administration,” he added, stressing that a force under Haftar’s control would continue to guard the ports without any involvement in the operations.

UN envoy Martin Kobler had struck a deal with Jadhran in July to try to resume oil exports but the move failed.

The NOC blamed Jadhran, who attempted to sell oil tanks without government approval, for causing the country to lose more than $100 billion from his blockade of oil exports.

“I said always that General Haftar must have a role in this joint united army structure, and I would like to sit together with him and discuss it,” Kobler said after briefing the UN Security Council September 14th.

middle-east-online.com

Forces of Ibrahim Jodran’s so-called Petroleum Facilities Guard have withdrawn from the oil crescent region in east Libya, hours after retaking Sidra and Ras Lanuf oil terminals from Dignity Operation militias.

The Defence Ministry in the UN-proposed government indicated that foreign warplanes have played a key role in defeating PFG forces.

The PFG accused Egypt and the UAE of bombing their forces near the residential district of Ras Lanuf. Four PFG fighters were killed in the airstrikes, local media reported.

“There are strong indications that UAE and Egyptian warplanes have bombed PFG forces in Ras Lanuf and Sidra, we are now making sure of these indications,” Defence Minister-designate Al-Mihdi Al-Baraghati told Ajwa Net.

In July, French warplanes intervened to rescue Dignity Operation from an imminent fall after Defend Benghazi Brigades advanced toward Benghazi. 13 DBB fighters were killed in the French airstrikes in Jilidiya district, 60 km east of Ajdabiya. The DBB halted their advance as a result.

libyaobserver.ly

Libya halted loading what would be the first overseas crude shipment from the port of Ras Lanuf since 2014 as rival armed forces began fighting for control of the facility, complicating efforts to end a five-year conflict that has slashed oil exports from the Opec country.

Clashes erupted on Sunday between local Petroleum Facilities Guard units and military forces that last week occupied Ras Lanuf and the country’s largest oil port of Es Sider in east Libya, Nasser Delaab, petroleum operations inspector at Harouge Oil Operations, said by phone. The fighting forced the tanker Seadelta to suspend the loading of 781,000 barrels of oil for shipment to Italy, he said.

The vessel was loading crude from onshore storage tanks, said Delaab, who helps organise oil movements at Ras Lanuf, Libya’s third-largest oil port. The Seadelta arrived there early Sunday from Trieste, Italy, according to tanker tracking data.

Libya is seeking to boost crude exports after fighting among rival militias slashed oil production following the 2011 ouster of former dictator Muammar Al Gaddafi. The conflict halted exports from the nation’s main oil ports of Es Sider, Zueitina and Ras Lanuf as the country struggled to form a unified national government.

The National Oil Corporation planned to resume exports from the ports after reaching an accord with Khalifa Haftar, a military commander who seized control of the facilities last week.

Libya will be selling into an oversupplied market in which crude is trading at about half its 2014 levels. Harouge, which pumped about 100,000 barrels a day through the end of 2014, halted operations at that time due to fighting in the country, Delaab said. The company produces at five oil fields around Ras Lanuf, according to its website.

timesofoman.com

Standing next to a tank, Libyan commander Abdul Hadi Lahwal picks up his walkie-talkie and speaks with snipers positioned in a disused school on the frontline of the battle against Islamic State. He was attempting to recover the bodies of two of his men, killed the day before.

The “liberation of Sirte has cost a lot,” Lahwal, a former merchant, said. “Hands and legs have been amputated, women widowed, children have become orphans. We must not let the future of our country slip from our hands as we did in 2011.”

The battle to oust the jihadist group from its last major stronghold in the North African nation looks to be nearing the end, with the militants holed up in two small areas in Sirte. When the guns fall silent, the victory will largely belong to militias from Misrata, whose predecessors ended the Libyan uprising five years ago by tracking down Muammar Qaddafi as he hid in a culvert. More than five years on, they are now fighting under the auspices of the United Nations-backed unity government seeking to stabilize the holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves.

With the losses mostly theirs, the price the Misratans have paid has curbed their enthusiasm for further conflict, according to interviews with local political leaders, residents and fighters from the city. That shift may be tested, though, after Khalifa Haftar — the commander who dominates Libya’s east, opposes the unity government and is a foe to many Misratans — at the weekend took over ports in the vital oil crescent without losing a fighter.

‘Easier to Fight’

Haftar’s move has roiled fragile alliances in Libya, where fighting has fractured the country’s major power structures. The resulting instability fed Europe’s migrant crisis, and enabled Islamic State to expand its self-declared caliphate based in Syria and Iraq along the Mediterranean.

Lying on the coast midway between Tripoli and Sirte, Misrata has emerged as a key player in the post-Qaddafi era. The reaction of its people and leaders to Haftar’s consolidation of power in the east will help decide the course of the conflict.

“Misrata has lived through revolution, retaliation and domination, then war again — and now reconciliation,” said Zeid Ragas, a Libyan political commentator. And yet, leaders who in the past have held sway over the city “can’t be guaranteed not to use the euphoria of victory over Islamic State to drag Misratan forces into other wars. It’s much easier to fight for oil than to negotiate for it.”

Dozens of residents, former rebels and officials interviewed in the city said, while the fight against Islamic State was an existential battle against terrorism, they want to avoid another war.

Daily Funerals

Of the 510 Libyans who have died combating the jihadists in Sirte, about 85 percent were from Misrata, according to Abdul Aziz Essa, spokesman for the city’s general hospital. The dead include several prominent civilians who took up arms in the absence of a national army, such as Mohamed Swalim, labor minister in the first post-Qaddafi administration, and Abdul Rahman al-Kissa, who headed the country’s bar association.

Most militia members, though, are young — too young to have even played a role in removing the old regime.

“Some were born in 2000, huge numbers of the casualties are under 20,” said Mohamed al-Shawsh, head of the field hospital in Sirte. “We share the same enemy as the whole country, so why is it that all the suffering and burden is on my city?”

Funerals of fighters are held almost daily in Misrata. Yet in other ways the city is a rare thing in today’s Libya: It’s well stocked with both weapons and fighters, but there’s little armed presence in the streets and gunfire is seldom heard. Local authorities are working, down to the level of issuing new vehicle registration plates. Traffic lights function most of the time, and there aren’t hours-long queues to withdraw cash from banks.

`Good at Fighting’

The Sirte conflict is the fifth Misrata has been involved in since the 2011 uprising. The city’s fighters allied with the Libya Dawn movement that seized large parts of the capital in 2014 after an Islamist-Misratan coalition suffered electoral defeat. When it later refused to cede power to the internationally-recognized government, Libya effectively split, with rival power centers in the west and east.

In that year, Libya Dawn forces launched “Operation Sunrise” to wrest oil terminals from Petroleum Facilities Guard leader Ibrahim Jadran, then allied to the eastern administration. Along with a fire that raged for nine days, the fighting damaged installations and slashed oil production — on whose revenues Libya depends — to about a fifth of pre-war levels of 1.6 million barrels per day.

Haftar ousted him from his role securing the ports on Sunday, a move welcomed by many Libyans.

“Politics in Libya is built on alliances, but Misrata lost most of its due to the conflicts that it got into, one after the other,” said Mahmoud Mlouda, a university lecturer in Misrata. “Misratans were always good at fighting, not politics.”

‘Dying Nation’

When combatants return home, “you have two options to avoid trouble — you either reward them or direct them to another enemy to keep them busy,” Mlouda said. “Unfortunately, this is what has happened in Libya.”

In downtown Misrata last week, Emad Shuaib, 38, was somber as he stirred sugar into black coffee and discussed the battle in Sirte with friends, some of whom had just returned from the frontlines.

“I fought in Libya Dawn and I really regret it,” Shuaib said. “But this war is a must and if we don’t fight, the state will never be stabilized. We’re rescuing a nation dying from terrorism.”

Responding to Haftar’s seizure of the ports of Es Sider, Ras Lanuf and Zueitina, — Haftar has said he’ll hand the facilities to the National Oil Co. — UN-backed unity Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj called on all sides to “halt provocative actions” and agree to talks, which would include potentially explosive issues like the sharing of oil revenues.

“I am not prepared to rule one part of Libya, nor to lead a war against another part,” he said.

Misrata municipal council spokesman Osama Badi said on Wednesday the city supports Serraj’s administration. “Misrata contains different political orientations,” he added. “We can’t speak on behalf of them all.”

bloomberg.com

It’s considered the star performer of the ill-fated Arab Spring, the one country in the region where representative democracy has made major strides. But even here, the fight against radical Islamic violence requires an unceasing vigil.

The head of a secretive U.S.-backed counterterrorism Fusion Center based in the capital says Tunisian government authorities are keeping at least 1,000 people under surveillance in the nation on suspicion that they are clandestine operatives of the Islamic State group.

“Some have come back from Libya and some from Syria and Iraq,” said Karim Ammar, who heads the center at the heart of a growing struggle to prevent the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIS and ISIL, from undermining Tunisia’s tenuous democratic rule.

There is little question that tiny Tunisia — sandwiched between the chaos in Libya and an authoritarian regime in Algeria — remains the lone beacon of hope left from the revolutions that began here in 2011 and rapidly spread across much of the rest of the Middle East.

But this sun-drenched patch of North Africa, just 62 miles across the Mediterranean from Italy, is also gripped by a difficult and dirty secret. It’s by far the No. 1 source country for foreign fighters for the Islamic State, with as many as 7,000 — more than twice the total from any other nation — having traveled to join the terrorist group’s purported “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq.

Tunisian officials, analysts and ordinary citizens say their nation is on a knife’s edge, setting a precedent for freedom in the Arab world while scrambling to establish a post-dictatorship security state that can contain the threat of attacks by hardened Islamic State fighters who have returned — all without falling back into traditional patterns of authoritarian rule.

washingtontimes.com

NNA field reporter in Marjeyoun on Wednesday said that a landmine exploded at around 15:30 under the wheels of a vehicle belonging to the Spanish unit affiliated with UNIFIL in the outskirts of Ibl Al Saki.

No casualties were reported in this regard.

nna-leb.gov.lb

Khalifa Hafter must have a “role in the unified Libyan army”, United Nations Security Mission in Libya chief Martin Kobler has told the UN Security Council (UNSC).

“I have always said General Hafter must have a role and I would like to sit together with him and discuss it”, Kobler told a press conference after briefing the 15-member UNSC with a report on the latest developments in Libya.

In the report, Kobler spoke of the “fragile peace” in Libya’s Oil Crescent which suffered a “fierce blow” when army units commanded by Hafter attacked four oil terminals previously under control of forces loyal to the Presidency Council.

“This development will further hinder oil exports, deprive Libya of its only source of income, and increase the division of the country. This has to stop,” Kobler explained.

The UN official said that a country as wealthy as Libya should be making better use of its resources  instead of having its people queue for long periods of time in front of banks to withdraw the daily limit of $40 to cover rising costs of basic needs.

On the question of laying the foundation for stability and rebuilding the country Kobler said, “It is high time that Libyans join forces to urgently address the burning political, security and economic problems of Libya”.

middleeastmonitor.com