euronews.com

Libyan civilians ask for help as their country descends further into conflict and chaos

Glowering across a table in a Tripoli café, 28-year-old Mohamed has no kind words for Western leaders or any of Libya’s three governments.

“In 2011, NATO said it intervened in Libya to protect the human rights of civilians,” the young man, one of an estimated 50,000 people to have fled the coastal town of Sirte in the last fortnight alone, told IRIN.

“We lost even our most basic human rights under the (so-called) Islamic State,” said Mohamed. “And Libya’s three governments have given us no support at all. So where is NATO now?”

After the fall of Muammar Gaddafi (the ruler went into hiding in August 2011 and was killed in October), political factions and militias fought to control Libya and its resources, eventually forming two rival governments. One, backed by a group of militias mostly from Misrata and Tripoli known as the Libya Dawn, is based in Tripoli, Gaddafi’s former capital on the far northwestern coast. The other has its seat on the far northeastern coast, in Tobruk and Beida, and supports the army chief Major General Khalifa Haftar.

IS took advantage of the chaos to take nearly 200 kilometres of coastline, starting at Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown and one-time fiefdom, which it seized in February 2015. Estimates of how much support the group has in Libya vary.

In late March, the UN brokered a “unity government”, which now sits in Tripoli. Some Tripoli forces have lent it limited support, but some of the Tripoli government and the separate leadership in Tobruk reject its authority entirely.

As NATO mulls what role to play now, the rival governments have launched an assault on IS in Sirte. Civilians flee, if they can.

Year of fear

Mohamed said at least 300 people have been executed in Sirte since IS took over a year ago. IRIN couldn’t confirm this figure, but Human Rights Watch has documented at least 49 unlawful executions in the town.

The situation Mohamed describes before he left Sirte earlier this month is macabre. “They kill people every day, whether they announce those killings or not. Even children are forced to watch public executions, and everybody sees the bodies they hang up on scaffolding at the entrance to the town.

“There is a place on the town’s outskirts where IS throw a lot of bodies in a big pile, and families with missing relatives go there to look through the corpses trying to find them.”

Thousands of residents, in particular those threatened by IS or who formerly held government or military positions, had already fled Sirte during the past year, even before this recent, much larger exodus.

And it is not the only part of Libya in turmoil. Much of the country has descended into almost complete lawlessness – although there are pockets of order installed by militias and local leaders. Human trafficking is rife as thousands attempt to cross from Libya’s northern coastline to Italy. The European Union and NATO have committed to help Libya by patrolling the Mediterranean, but stopped short, so far, of any further intervention.

The battle for Sirte

The new “unity government” has been supporting an assault on Sirte from the west, led by troops from Libya’s third city of Misrata. After the armed forces operating under the Tobruk government announced an offensive to liberate Sirte from the east earlier this month, much of the remaining population decided to leave.

Siraj*, a member of a crisis committee formed by Sirte residents who fled last year to help newly displaced families in Tripoli and other towns in western Libya, estimated that only 15 percent of the town’s original population (around 150,000, according to a 2006 census) remain in the town.

He said that vehicles leaving Sirte have to face five-hour queues at IS checkpoints, where militants empty cars of food, cooking gas, petrol and even soft furnishings. Those residents allowed to leave are only permitted to take clothes, those who made it out told IRIN. Others, including families of suspected dissidents and a few former IS loyalists who have grown disenchanted with the group’s strict ideology, have been forbidden from leaving and made to return to their homes in Sirte.

With roads leading from IS territory to the east and the west sealed off by rival government forces, most families had to flee through the desert, navigating landmines locals who have left said had been laid extensively by IS.

Nowhere to go

Mohamed’s six-person family now lives with distant relatives, crammed into one room in Tripoli. They are amongst the luckier ones.

The sheer numbers flowing out of Sirte have overwhelmed small towns with already overstretched resources. Most have struggled to find support or even a place to stay.

“Many families who fled to nearby towns like Bani Walid are now living in schools, which don’t have adequate facilities such as enough toilets or showers,” said Siraj. “And many people are in urgent need of mattresses and blankets because they left literally with nothing.”

Families from Sirte arrive in Tripoli every day, but space is in short supply as even unfinished buildings and construction sites are already full of people displaced from other Libyan towns.

Ongoing fighting across the country has already displaced more than 417,000 Libyans, by the International Organisation for Migration’s latest count. Siraj hopes more people displaced from other Libyan town will be able to return home soon, freeing up much-needed space in the capital and elsewhere for those fleeing from IS territories.

“Most families who have fled can’t afford the high rents in Tripoli, and some have already been left with no choice but to go back to the Sirte [area],” he explained.

Three governments, little help

The fact that there are two separate and uncoordinated operations against IS in Sirte by rival armed forces that have been locked in civil conflict for two years is an obvious cause for concern.

“If the rival armies clash with each other around Sirte, the only people to benefit will be IS, who will just get stronger,” said Mohamed.

Another displaced Sirte resident, former policeman Hamed, 28, criticised the various governments for failing to protect civilians as IS spread, and for failing to support those forcibly displaced.

“We have received no help from any of the governments,” he said. “The threat of IS is being used by the political players in Libya and, meanwhile, the victims are ordinary Libyans. We have lost all faith and hope in Libyan governments and now we expect nothing.”

Salah Abdulkareem Efemhah, a member of the eastern-based parliament who represents one district partially occupied by IS, said he hoped its military wing would liberate Sirte swiftly.

He told IRIN that the prime minister of the eastern-based government, Abdullah al-Thinni, had pledged almost $4 million in support for families fleeing IS territory.

Some material support has already been given to those who fled east, Efemhah said, explaining that ongoing fighting made it impossible for aid to be delivered from the east to families in western Libya, such as those in Bani Walid, between Sirte and Tripoli.

Forgotten by everyone

The only aid to reach IDPs in Bani Walid so far has been food, mattresses and hygiene kits distributed by local branches of the Libyan Red Crescent.

Claudio Colantoni, country director for International Medical Corps, one of the most active NGOs working in Libya, said that, while the organisation continued to help“chronic numbers” of IDPs, particularly in Tripoli and Misrata, its scope was limited.

“We have no logistical capacity to work in Sirte or the surrounding areas… and we are very restricted by money,” he said.

“Libya is no longer one of the main recipients for international aid because its unstable security environment and the lack of any political settlement continues to keep the main donors away.”

Ahmed, a former security official from Bin Jawad, IS’s easternmost town, said the need for international help in Libya had never been greater.

“When the international community came to kill Gaddafi in 2011, they said it was to protect civilians but now civilians are in grave danger every day and no one wants to help,” he said.

“Innocent people are being executed in town squares, some as young as 15 years old, but it feels as if the world, as well as our own people, have forgotten about us.”

irinnews.org

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, after returning from a trip to the Middle East, last week shared his frank observation with an audience at George Washington University: A worldwide terrorist exodus is underway, and we are woefully unprepared to deal with it, he said. We are not winning this war, McCaul said. Violent extremists are not on the run, as the president says. They are on the march.

During former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency, neither she nor her acolytes will even hint at the current state of Islamic warfare occurring in the nation of Libya. In fact, the majority of American news outlets — hotbeds of Clinton advocates –appear to be intentionally or unintentionally oblivious to the jihad that was concocted by President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton through their incompetence.

After pushing for — and achieving — the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi that Arab nation has been and continues to be in a state of chaos that cost the lives of many more Libyans than were killed by Col. Gaddafi and ended the lives of four brave Americans including a U.S. ambassador.

Intelligence analysts Friday informed Conservative Base that evidence exists that reveals Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamists’ plan to deploy hundreds of fighters to reinforce the ranks of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in locations in Libya such as Benghazi. According to Homeland Security News Wire, this is just the latest intelligence that points to the growing cooperation between the two Sunni Muslim groups in North Africa.

Unfortunately, despite his rhetoric to the contrary, President Obama allowed the Islamic State of ISIS’s international jihad to spread into Afghanistan, Yemen and now Libya. It followed Obama’s toppling of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak which led to thousands dying at the hands of Islamic terrorists and the Muslim Brotherhood rising to power.

According to intelligence analysts at the Israeli non-profit, think-tank Meir Amit Information Center, “In 2015 ISIS established two strongholds beyond the borders of its power base in Iraq and Syria: the first in the Sinai Peninsula, where it wages determined fighting against the Egyptian security forces. The second is situated in the north- central Libyan city of Sirte and its surroundings, where it has established territorial control and from where it seeks to take over the entire country.”

The analysts claim ISIS plans to make Libya its base-of-operations for terrorist and anti-government operations in North Africa and southern Europe countries. ISIS could establish itself in Libya because of the chaos prevalent after the execution of Gaddafi. The U.S. government under Obama and Clinton failed to offer help for fear of appearing to be “occupiers.”

As in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, the overthrow of the central government almost instantly advantaged several nationalist and Islamist organizations as well as tribal militias. The Libyan branch of ISIS is filling the vacuum left by the absence of a functioning government and the absence of the U.S. and European nations. ISIS has established itself in the region around Sirte and plans to spread throughout Libya.

The British Telegraph quotes U.S. deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken who said that there were “reports” Boko Haram fighters were going into Libya, where ISIS now has an estimated 6,000 fighters.

“We’ve seen that Boko Haram’s ability to communicate has become more effective. They seem to have benefited from assistance from Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS that is favored by Secretary of State John Kerry. There were also reports of material and logistical aid being funneled into Libya from Nigeria.

According to the Meir Amit report on ISIS: “Like Iraq and Syria, Libya is a country that has disintegrated and is involved in an ongoing civil war that is likely to continue for a long time. That is the result of the deep divisions between the various centers of power and the access of the rival sides to military and economic assets like oil fields, the refugee-smuggling industry and large stockpiles of weapons and ammunition from the Gaddafi era (some of which are of high quality and are smuggled from Libya to its Arab and African neighbors). It is still difficult to assess ISIS’s ability to realize its far-reaching aspirations in Libya, but it has clearly established a stronghold it will not easily give up, in view of Libya’s perceived importance.”

Unfortunately, because of the sensitivity of Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi scandal, many observers aren’t holding their collective breath for the Obama administration to do anything substantial to save Libya or stop ISIS.

eurasiareview.com

Italy’s recent decision not to send troops to Libya is only “transitional,” former Defense Minister Giampaolo Di Paola told Al Arabiya English on the sidelines of a NATO seminar in Rome this week.

“The Italian government has followed a prudent path in Libya, which I consider to be correct, but I also believe that the time to go beyond this prudent line will soon come,” said Di Paola, who was defense minister during the 2011 military intervention in Libya, and chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 2008 – 2011.

He called for “a political and institutional framework with a large representation that will allow an important intervention not only militarily, but also politically and economically.”

Pledges

Following the ministerial conference on Libya in Vienna earlier this month, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said his country was ready to train Libyan forces and provide them with weapons, but not send troops, as requested by Fayez Mustafa al-Sarraj, chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya, and prime minister of the Government of National Accord.

Gentiloni said Libya’s unity and stabilization are Italy’s priorities. Earlier this month, during a meeting in Rome with Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Mohammed Taher Siyala, Gentiloni said Italy would continue to give humanitarian aid to Libya.

Italy was part of the NATO-led coalition that in 2011 militarily intervened in Libya in order to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 and end attacks against civilians by Muammar Qaddafi’s regime.

Italy colonized Libya for over 30 years from 1911 until a peace treaty was signed in 1947. In 2008, Italy apologized and compensated for its colonization.

Today, Rome’s interests in Libya include oil and gas, the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the exodus of refugees and migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy.

More than 153,000 migrants arrived in Italy by sea in 2015, with 34,000 arrivals in the first five months of 2016, according to the United Nations.

alarabiya.net

Forces loyal to Libya’s U.N.-backed unity government say they aim to encircle Sirte, Islamic State’s stronghold in Libya, having moved to within 15 km (10 miles) of the city center.

The forces, composed of fighters mostly from the western city of Misrata, are now closer to Sirte than they have been for nearly a year. Last summer Misrata brigades withdrew from Sirte and Islamic State took full control there.

Western states are hoping the unity government can bring together Libya’s competing factions to defeat Islamic State, though the new government has struggled to secure support beyond its power base in the west of the country.

Earlier this month Islamic State surged forward towards Misrata, which lies about 240 km northwest of Sirte, taking control of the town of Abu Grain and a number of villages and checkpoints in the area before being pushed back.

Military spokesman Mohamed al-Gasri said that after advancing along the road west of Sirte on Friday, government-backed forces were seeking full control of a steam plant about 15 km from central Sirte, as well as a road leading south from Sirte to Waddan.

“The next step is to encircle Sirte, and then we will ask the residents to try to leave,” he said. “We don’t want to enter now because of the residents. But if it becomes a battlefield we can enter within hours.”

Misrata brigades have suffered some of their heaviest losses for months in recent clashes. One single truck bombing killed 32 people last week, and some 75 fighters have been killed and more than 350 injured since the start of May, Gasri said.

He also said that dozens of Islamic State fighters had died, and the Misrata military operations room said on Saturday that these included a senior North Africa commander for the group called Khaled al-Shayab.

On the road south of Misrata burnt-out cars can be seen at the sites of more than half a dozen suicide bombings or mine explosions, and the government-backed forces are still struggling to de-mine areas where Islamic State advanced.

For now, the most visible forces on the government-backed side are young fighters with mismatched uniforms, pick-up trucks – resembling the rebel forces that fought in the NATO-backed campaign to topple Muammar Gaddafi five years ago.

About 50 km from Sirte troops are building earth and sand barriers on the coastal road as a defense against further bombings.

Gasri said last year’s withdrawal from Sirte would not be repeated.

“This time it’s different because there is an internationally recognized government that has pledged to support the army to fight Daesh (Islamic State).”

Though U.S. and European special forces are known to have been on the ground in Libya, Gasri said his forces had not received any direct international assistance.

Forces in eastern Libya that have clashed with Misrata in the past have announced a separate campaign to capture Sirte, leading to fears of renewed internal conflict.

The eastern forces are allied to a parliament and government based in the east that failed to formally endorse the U.N.-backed administration.

reuters.com

British SAS troops may be fighting in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya – but Parliament hasn’t been told about any of these deployments

Last week, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon tried to put to bed questions about whether Britain is planning to deploy the Army to Libya, where, just 200 miles from Europe, Isis has flourished amid a permanent state of chaos after the 2011 Nato-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

Fallon said Britain is not planning a “combat role” for British troops in Libya; if the army were to be deployed in Libya, Parliament would discuss it first.

But just two days after his comments the Times reported that British Special Air Service troops are already in Libya and were seen earlier in May blowing up an Isis vehicle laden with explosives near Misrata.

I first revealed in March that SAS troops were operating in Libya. What is still not clear is who exactly Britain is fighting alongside in a country that doesn’t have an effective government or army.

No one can deny that the threat to the world posed by Isis is stark and that military action is needed to stem the group’s growth across the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Government is not allowing the British public to know anything about where it is deploying British troops in the Middle East, and what they are doing in our name.

Over the past year there have been reports of SAS forces operating in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya – as well as advising allies in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Parliament hasn’t been informed about any of these deployments, let alone been given the opportunity to debate them and to decide if this military strategy is in the best interests of the British people.

The idea of collective responsibility in our democracy works only when we know what is being done in our name. As British citizens, we cannot be responsible for wars that our Government won’t tell us about. But we can certainly feel their consequences.

The Foreign Office website is already filled with warnings in its travel advice section, which include the information that British citizens are a target for terrorist groups across the world.

One of the reasons British people are targeted abroad is because of our Army’s visible presence in other countries. And now, without our knowledge, British soldiers are being deployed in numerous countries across the Middle East.

The Government ought to open up about its war against Isis. As Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, recently told me, the Government cannot keep SAS operations secret for ever.

Blunt said SAS operations require a veil of secrecy if they are to be effective – and he is correct – but he argued that, when those operations form part of a wider military strategy, that military strategy should be scrutinised and overseen by Parliament.

Going to war is one of the most important decisions a country can take. The British people deserve to know where our Government is sending our troops, what the danger is, and what it is they hope to achieve by sending them into battle on our behalf.

It’s time for a parliamentary debate about Britain’s secret wars in the Middle East.

Rori Donaghy for independent.co.uk/

Misrata militia, part of the forces of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) made more gains against the forces of the Islamic State as they retreat towards their stronghold Sirte.

General Mohammad al-Ghusri, spokesperson for Operation Strong, as it has been named, claims that Al-Baghla checkpoint has been secured which is 60 kilometers from Sirte. The Libyan Gazette must be referring to whole area not the city itself in its claim:The Libyan army made significant gains against ISIS forces on Wednesday after troops fighting in the Government of National Accord’s (GNA) military campaign against ISIS, called Operation Strong Foundation, killed 100 ISIS fighters in Sirte.Islamic State administrative offices in Sirte are reported shut down.

Al-Ghasr reported that the militia were advancing rapidly toward Sirte after they had captured 12 IS fighters subsequent to securing Al-Baghla. Al-Ghasri claimed: “We are making remarkable advances against the radical groups of ISIS and we are eyeing advance toward Sirte, ISIS’s stronghold.” He said that a large number of IS forces had fled the city after they suffered heavy losses in Wednesday’s battle. The Libyan air force carried out half a dozen air strikes on key IS positions after Al-Bagla checkpoint was taken causing them to abandon their positions. Eight IED’s planted by retreating IS forces were defused. The Libya Observer reports that Operation Strong had also secured the Al-Khamseen checkpoint on the coast road just 50 kilometers from Sirte.

While General Khalifa Haftar, commander in chief of the House of Representative (HoR) claimed he was launching an offensive against Sirte almost three weeks ago he so far has not engaged with them at all. He is rumored to be attempting to secure the oil ports at present controlled by the Petroleum Forces Guard. Representatives of Hafter’s GNA have met with the PFG in Ras Lanuf but there are conflicting reports about what transpired. Ras Lanuf is not far from the eastern border of territory controlled by IS. Instead of moving against Sirte, Haftar has launched Operation Volcano against the Shura Council of Derna a group of jihadists who were instrumental in driving the Islamic State out of the city of Derna.

His commander in chief in the west in Zintan, Abdul Razak Al-Nazhuri far from helping to attack the Islamic State has threatened to liberate the capital Tripoli from militia who support the GNA and provide security for the city. There is no response from Martin Kobler, Special Representative of the Secretary General, or from the PM of the GNA Faiez Serraj.

In the recent battle against IS, UK special forces reportedly fired a missile at an IS suicide truck loaded with explosives and blew it up. This helped stop the IS from advancing against GNA forces. Mohammed Durat, a troop commander in Misrata said: “My unit works just with English. I have met with them personally and they have destroyed two suicide vehicles that were targeting my fighters.” This report comes just two days after the UK defence secretary Michael Fallon to told the UK House of Commons:“We’ve made it clear that we are not planning any kind of combat role either for our troops or for the RAF in Libya. That is not part of our planning. If we considered further military action against the Daesh [IS], wherever it was – whether in Libya or anywhere else – we would of course come to this house to discuss it first.”

Many critics claim that the UK government has been less than candid about its role and plans for participation in an intervention in Libya. US special forces are also reported to be carrying out patrols and observations in Misrata. There are also reports of French, Italian, and Jordanian special forces being in Libya.

digitaljournal.com

SAS soldiers have destroyed an ISIS truck packed with explosives moments before it could carry out an attack in Libya.

The strike happened when a vehicle, acting as a bomb, approached a bridge leading towards the city of Misrata in the north-west of the country.

UK forces fired a single missile during the incident on May 12, military commander Mohammed Durat told The Times. It is the first time British troops have fought the terror group in Libya.

Describing the scene as the truck sped forward Commander Durat said: ‘Our British friends seemed quite calm about it that day.’Commander Durat, of Misrata’s Third Force, said the special forces had plotted the co-ordinates and ranges required for a successful strike, telling the paper: ‘It blew up the suicide truck with a huge explosion, the biggest we have seen yet.

‘Not one of our own forces was killed.’

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said they do not comment on special forces operations.

Last month a spokesman for the Foreign Office said the UK is focused on training Libyan security forces to provide their own security, and has no plans to deploy ground troops.

Earlier this year United Nations experts said they believe the political and security vacuum in Libya is being exploited by ISIS, reporting it has ‘significantly expanded’ the territory it controls in the nation and has become ‘increasingly attractive to foreign fighters’.

Middle East minister Tobias Ellwood said the current estimate of the number of ISIS fighters in Libya is between 3,000 and 6,000.

dailymail.co.uk