Russia may supply Algeria and Egypt with the onboard defense system President-S (ODS) used for military and civil aircraft, as pre-contract work on delivery is underway, the developer of the system said Monday.

ODS is designed to protect planes and helicopters from being hit by missiles, air defense and anti-aircraft artillery. The defense system is currently installed on Ka-52, Mi-28 and Mi-26 helicopters.

“A pre-contract work on the delivery of the onboard defense system President-S to Algeria and Egypt is ongoing,” Igor Nasenkov, the first deputy general director of the Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies (KRET), told RIA Novosti at the Dubai Airshow-2015.

ODS includes a control device, a radar warning receiver station, laser and missile attack warning stations, an air dispenser for aircraft consumables, settings for active radio-interference stations, as well as a laser optical-electronic suppression station.

The system allows automatic detection of a rocket launching in the vicinity and initiates passive and active interference in infra-red and radio frequencies, to disrupt a rocket’s targeting system.

The ODS system can be located inside an airframe fuselage or as an external unit on helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.

Soon after Russian planes began dropping bombs on Islamic militants in Syria a month ago, in an effort to prop up the country’s embattled dictator Bashar al-Assad, ISIS vowed that Russia, and by extension its citizens, would be a target. Last Saturday, Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 departed Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and flew directly over the homebase of an ISIS affiliate with the ambition, and perhaps the capability, to make good on that threat.

The growing fears that an explosive device may have brought down the airplane, killing all 224 on board, stems in part from the rise of the ISIS affiliate in the northern part of the Sinai peninsula.

Over the past four years, the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s branch in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula has grown into a formidable threat. It “is one of the group’s most active and potent ISIL affiliates,” a U.S. counterterrorism official told The Daily Beast, using an alternative acronym for the group.

The branch, which calls itself the Islamic State of the Sinai, or Wilayat al Sinai, has twice claimed responsibility for taking down the Russian airliner, most recently on Wednesday. But it hasn’t offered any of ISIS’ trademark evidence, such as martyr statements or videos of the plane crashing. Rather, the group said essentially: “Trust us, we did it.”  And that only added to the mystery about how the plane came down.

U.S. officials said this week that some intelligence points to ISIS or its affiliate in Sinai as having detonated bomb on the Russian airliner, though the Obama administration has yet to publicly make that claim, and scant evidence has been put forward.

If Wilayat al Sinai turned its sights on foreign citizens, it would mark a significant evolution in ISIS’ regional strategy, from gobbling up territory to launching attacks on civilians beyond its holdouts in Iraq and Syria. It would also stand as one of the deadliest attack by a terror group since 9/11, and the first successful attack since then against civilian aviation.

“The group has waged a long-standing insurgency against Egyptian authorities,” the U.S. official said, emphasizing that he wasn’t commenting on the cause of the Russian Metrojet crash.

Wilayat al Sinai evolved from an indigenous terror group that joined forces with self-proclaimed caliphate and has expanded its campaign of attacks beyond Egyptian authorities towards international targets. The group may still have a focus that’s close to home.

“Terrorist groups are often focused on local grievances, which helps extremists present themselves as defenders of their communities and develop grassroots support,” the official said. “While ISIL Sinai uses the ISIL moniker, it wouldn’t be surprising if future attacks by the group feature a mix of targets to satisfy their focus on targeting the Egyptian government, while also heeding ISIL leadership calls to strike enemies of the so-called caliphate.”

It’s not clear if the group has developed the capability to smuggle a bomb aboard a plane. But it knows how to move weapons.

“The Sinai is well-known for illicit smuggling and ISIL Sinai has been able to acquire and use a range of weapons,” the official said. “As an ISIL affiliate, the group could also draw on the resources and expertise of other ISIL affiliates and supporters in the region.”

To be sure, Egyptian authorities have yet to draw any conclusions about who was responsible for the jet downing, if indeed it was not the result of an accident or some catastrophic mechanical failure.

But British Prime Minister David Cameron, on the eve of a state visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sissi, suspended all flights from the Sinai amid growing reports that a bomb may have brought down the flight.

On Thursday, Cameron, defending his decision, said it was “more likely than not a terrorist bomb” was responsible. The same day, Germany’s Lufthansa and Turkish airlines followed suit and suspended flights. France and Belgium urged all but essential travel to the Sinai.

Sissi declined to criticize the decision while he was in London but other members of his government did not hold back. “I greatly regret the British government’s decision to halt flights,” Hisham Zaazou, Egypt’s tourist minister, told The Daily Beast on Thursday, “It seems to have been hasty and I do not understand the logic behind it.”

thedailybeast.com

Libya’s self-proclaimed government in Tripoli wants a relaunch of UN-sponsored talks aimed at ending the country’s civil war because it says the outgoing UN envoy is biased in favour of an internationally recognised rival administration in the east.

The chief negotiator for the Tripoli-based government said United Nations envoy Bernardino Leon had demonstrated his bias by accepting a post in the United Arab Emirates, a country Tripoli sees as backing its rival.

After months of talks, Libya’s two warring factions remain deadlocked over a UN-proposed national unity government and Leon, a Spanish diplomat, now plans to quit in December to take up a post at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy.

“This impacts the track of the dialogue, of course,” the Tripoli faction’s chief negotiator Awad Abdulsadek told Reuters.

“The replacement of Leon should start all over again, now we know Leon was biased in favour of one of the sides.”

Britain’s Guardian newspaper, citing emails it said came from Leon, said the diplomat was first offered the UAE post in June and that this called into question his impartiality. Leon told the paper there was no conflict of interest.

Tripoli believes the UAE, along with Egypt, is providing military support to the rival government in eastern Libya led by Abdullah al-Thinni.

US officials said last year the UAE and Egypt had staged air strikes against Libyan Islamists, though Egypt publicly denied this and a senior UAE official suggested the allegations had been promoted by anti-UAE Islamists.

The United Nations said on Wednesday Leon would be replaced in the coming days by veteran German diplomat Martin Kobler.

Libya’s El Watan party, led by former Islamist fighter Hakim Belhaj, said on Thursday it was suspending its participation in the UN talks while Leon remained part of them.

Leon had presented the sides with a power-sharing government that envisages an executive council comprising a prime minister, five deputy prime ministers and three senior ministers. It is meant to represent Libya’s traditional regional balance.

Hardliners say no

The elected House of Representatives (HOR) in the east would be the legitimate legislature, while a second consultative chamber, the State Council, would be made up mostly from members of the Tripoli-based General National Congress (GNC).

Hardliners on both sides say the deal is not acceptable. Neither parliament has voted on a final deal.

Abdulsadek said HOR and GNC members had already held direct talks and suggested that might offer the best way forward.

“We have started a direct dialogue with the HOR because what has happened in the past 10 months has not been welcomed by either side,” he said. “We can achieve a Libyan-to-Libyan dialogue perhaps in two months.”

But Abdulsadek said the Tripoli faction still wanted amendments to any unity government agreement, including recognised legitimacy for the GNC and more power-sharing.

Tripoli also wants guarantees that General Khalifa Haftar, who leads the eastern government’s forces, would not be part of any new national administration or armed forces. The eastern government has made Haftar their chief of staff.

“He must be isolated forever,” Abdulsadek said.

news24.com

In Misrata, a statue of a fist crushing a U.S. fighter jet that rebels seized as war bounty from Muammar Gaddafi’s compound stands testimony to the city’s part in Libya’s 2011 revolution.

Four years after they helped defeat Gaddafi, Misrata’s armed brigades are expected to play their part among the former rebel forces, tribal fighters and other factions who will determine whether a U.N. plan to end Libya’s crisis survives or fails.

A conflict between two rival governments and parliaments — a self-proclaimed body in Tripoli and the internationally recognized set-up in the east — has left the North African nation effectively partitioned.

After months of talks, the United Nations has offered a deal to create a power-sharing government to represent each faction and reflect Libya’s traditional balance among its regions and cities.

But even if political leaders agree — that is still far from clear — it will be the brigades of former rebels in Tripoli, Misrata, Zintan and those in the east who decide how a political settlement works out on the ground.

The importance of Misrata, a port city and regional economic power, was underlined last year when it backed the takeover of Tripoli from rival factions to establish the self-proclaimed government there.

Now most of Misrata’s brigades — including the powerful Al-Majoub and Halbous units — support the U.N. deal.

“This is the only solution. There is no a way through arms,” said Ismail AlMjaree, a brigade commander in Misrata. “There is a new awareness among revolutionaries, they are asking: ‘Why are we still fighting, why isn’t the country being built?'”

Libya’s post-revolt history though is not encouraging.

In the past two years, armed brigades have invaded Tripoli’s parliament to oppose political decisions, taken over ministries and even kidnapped a prime minister.

With no national army after the fall of Gaddafi, the rebel brigades were incorporated into quasi-official military units, assigned to ministries and government offices. Tens of thousands of fighters are on the state payroll.

But as the post-Gaddafi transition fragmented along regional lines, those brigades often stayed more loyal to commanders, tribes or cities than to the idea of a Libyan state.

Less than 18 months ago, Misrata brigades battled in Tripoli with rivals from the western city of Zintan, who had controlled the airport since 2011.

That conflict forced the Zintan fighters out and destroyed the international airport. Most diplomats left the capital.

Libya’s internationally recognised government and elected parliament now operate out of the eastern cities of Beyda and Tobruk, backed by a loose coalition of forces including former Gaddafi ally Gen. Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army.

In the capital, the self-declared National Salvation government is supported by Misrata forces and a patchwork of Tripoli brigades, who operate independently under the nominal command of the interior ministry.

Western governments have been pushing for the U.N. deal, worried that Libya’s chaos has allowed Islamist militants and people smugglers to expand in the security vacuum. But western officials acknowledge reactions on the ground will be vital.

“We have to recognize there will be hardliners who will not accept this. But we have to get as many of the military commanders as possible to accept and to implement this,” said one Western diplomat.

FLUID SCENARIOS

Splits have emerged in both camps as hardliners dig in. For the east, Tripoli is controlled by Islamist extremists; For Tripoli, Haftar in the east embodies all they fought against to oust Gaddafi.

The U.N. agreement calls for a unity government led by a presidential council of a prime minister, five deputy prime ministers and three senior ministers — an unwieldy arrangement meant to appease all parties.

The elected House of Representatives (HOR) will be the main legislature, alongside a second chamber, the State Council, that includes members of the reinstated General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli. The deal also envisages demobilisation of armed factions.

Both houses are still to vote on the deal. But already critics in both camps dismiss it as U.N.-imposed violation of Libyan sovereignty or reject the proposed candidates. Others question the legitimacy of the elected parliament.

“Many people have what I call the Gaddafi virus. People who have power, don’t want to give it up,” said Abu Qassem Egzait, a GNC member who leads a block supporting the agreement.

“It’s impossible that the GNC will vote. We are dealing with a very difficult situation. Maybe we can get support of independents for the deal without the GNC,” he said.

That may mean the emergence of a HOR supported by moderates within the GNC that leaves hardliners out of any deal.

For those against the U.N. accord, though, other options exist. Direct meetings between HOR and GNC members already took place in Tripoli, lawmakers said.

“Every sensible person supports dialogue,” said Mohamed Busidra, a GNC member opposing the U.N. deal. “But it’s a mess. We were supposed to accept what was imposed on us, we were not even part of this.”

DIVISIONS ON GROUND

Even if the U.N. agreement works, questions remain about what happens next, with problems likely in the disarming of armed groups and the formation of a national army.

The European Union and international leaders are promising aid and financing for a new government. But it will be hard to manage the disparate armed factions after a settlement.

Installing any new national government in Tripoli may mean negotiating with six or seven local commanders.

This week, clashes broke out Tripoli between one local faction, the Tripoli Revolutionary Brigade, and Misrata forces, officials said. Last week, clashes erupted in western Libya between armed groups backing each of the rival governments.

More worrying are divisions in the east, where one group in favour of regional autonomy controls major oil ports and this week banned some tankers from the Zueitina terminal.

The key question for both camps is Haftar and his Libyan National Army. Haftar has waged war on Islamist militants in the eastern city of Benghazi and this year he was named commander in chief by the elected parliament in Tobruk.

For many in the east he represents the possibility of national army away from the influence of city-based brigades.

For Misrata and the west, the former Gaddafi general is unacceptable. Misrata commander AlMjaree says Libya needs a unified military force that includes members of Misrata, Zintan and other brigades. But there is one red line: Haftar.

“If he has any part, it will be the first reason for the new government to fail,” he said.

A car bomb targeting a policeman’s club in the Egyptian city of El Arish killed six people on Wednesday, security sources said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which also wounded 10 people.

Islamic State’s Egypt affiliate, Sinai Province, has killed hundreds of soldiers and police since the army toppled Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for NATO powers to help rebuild Libya, beset by violence since an uprising backed by the Western military alliance toppled leader Moamer Kadhafi, in an interview.

Sisi was quoted in British newspaper the Daily Telegraph ahead of a visit to London in which he is to discuss security co-operation with Prime Minister David Cameron.

“Libya is a danger that threatens all of us. If there is no government then this only creates a vacuum where extremists can prosper,” Sisi said, according to the Telegraph.

“It was a mission that was not completely accomplished… We must support all efforts to help the Libyan people and the Libyan economy.”

Libya has descended into chaos since longtime dictator Kadhafi was ousted in 2011 and killed in the midst of an uprising supported by NATO states.

Chronic insecurity, with armed groups battling to control its energy resources and two governments vying for power, has made Libya a key launching point for people smugglers feeding Europe’s migrant crisis by sending boatloads of people across the Mediterranean.

“We need to stop the flow of funds and weapons and foreign fighters to the extremists. All the members of NATO -– including Britain –- who took part in the mission to overthrow Kadhafi need to give their help,” Sisi said.

It is Sisi’s first visit to Britain since his 2013 toppling of Egypt’s first freely elected civilian leader Mohamed Morsi, whose divisive 12-month rule had drawn mass protests.

In the interview, Sisi dismissed claims that a Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula could have been brought down by a missile or bomb as “unfounded speculation”.

He also criticised Western efforts to combat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, according to the Telegraph, saying: “The map of extremism and instability is expanding and not retreating. We need to reassess our priorities.”

Libya’s self-declared Islamist government has issued a veiled threat to send “hundreds of thousands” of extra migrants to Europe if Brussels does not recognise it.

Officials say they could hire boats to send large numbers of Africans across the Mediterranean, massively adding to the numbers already reaching Europe’s borders.

A tripartite meeting involving Italy, Algeria and Egypt will be held here Monday to discuss the situation in Libya, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says.

The meeting, which is part of the consultations among the three countries, will bring together Algerian Minister of Maghreb Affairs, African Union and Arab League Abdelkader Messahel, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry and Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Co-operation. Paolo Gentiloni, according to the statement.

“The ministers will examine the situation in Libya and means likely to accelerate the inter-Libyan dialogue process, sponsored by the United Nations, to find a political solution leading to the formation of a national unity government,” said the Ministry statement.

It will be also an opportunity for the three ministers to discuss the implications of political and security instability in Libya on its neighbourhood and in the region in general, it added.

It took a painfully long time to get to the world’s third-largest desert. The astonishingly slow-moving train from Tunis was halted by rail complications. Stranded on the side of the highway, I hitched a ride with some sympathetic offduty cops who drove me to the nearest city. From there, it was several crowded hours in a taxi collectif to Ben Gardane, a town that felt like a lightly restrained version of the Wild West.

Tunisia’s border with Libya starts 12 miles from here, at the Ras Ajdir checkpoint, and continues for nearly 300 miles, a land of sprawling flats and dunes uncontrolled by the central government. A sophisticated network of illicit exchange operates seamlessly between the people on either side, for whom the desert is a mere extension of their backyard.

It’s across this border that weapons are smuggled into the country. It’s here that terrorists such as Seifeddine Rezgui, who killed 39 tourists in June, allegedly cross to wage jihad. And it’s here that the Tunisian government is building a wall to try to stop them.

“There is a real monster of terrorism in Tunisia,” Mazen Cherif, a security analyst at the Tunisian Center for Global Security Studies, told me. The first high-profile attack, reportedly orchestrated by Tunisian terrorist cell Ansar al-Sharia, struck the US embassy in 2012.

In March 2015, gunmen stormed the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, killing 23. A few months later, Rezgui, wielding a poorly hidden Kalashnikov in a beach parasol, shot up a resort in Sousse. Both attacks this year targeted foreigners. According to police, the men involved in the 2015 massacres were trained in Libya and used arms smuggled across the porous border. Following the Sousse attack, the government announced it would build a barrier with Libya to combat terrorism and stem the flow of contraband.

The first portion of the wall will stretch 140 miles south from Ras Ajdir to the Dahiba border crossing in Tataouine. The government is working with nine national companies and the army to build the first section, a line of sandbags protecting a moat six and a half feet deep; construction began in July. A second phase, comprising an electronic sensor system, will start next year. Observation towers and drones will bolster the entire wall.

According to Habib Essid, the Tunisian prime minister, Libya is Tunisia’s “biggest dilemma.” Following a civil war, the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi, and a series of NATO-led air strikes, Libya descended into anarchic chaos that has created a successful microclimate for terrorist groups to flourish and for arms from the old regime to be trafficked.

But Tunisia’s security problems are arguably equally internal. “It’s easier to say that [terrorism] is coming from Libya than to say we have problems inside,” said Abdel Karim Kebiri, former senior adviser for the United Nations International Labor Organization.

Tunisians, like many around the globe, began to see modern jihad as a means to achieve political and religious goals in the 1980s, prompted by opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It was there that Tunisian terrorist Seifallah Ben Hussein (nom de guerre Abou Iyadh) cut his teeth; he would go on to become one of the top lieutenants in al Qaeda.

Since 2011, more than 7,000 Tunisians have left the country to join the Islamic State in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Terrorist cells have popped up in the country’s interior—16 have been uncovered by the Tunisian police since March. Two hundred Islamic State–affiliated military combatants operate in the Mount Chaambi region, where checkpoints have been routinely attacked with IEDs and arms are smuggled in.

Then there’s the rampant corruption that has plagued the country’s already weak security apparatus. In mid September, 110 members across law enforcement were dismissed on smuggling and terrorism charges. Corruption in the country, at both the security and governmental level, has actually increased since the 2011 revolution.

How can one wall fix all this?

The majority of products smuggled from Libya into Tunisia are disappointingly banal: hair masks, plastic bikes, potatoes grown in Egypt, sneakers made in China, polyester blankets. Largely ignored by the government in Tunis, southern Tunisia is plagued by high unemployment and underdevelopment; many in Ben Gardane support themselves by smuggling or selling such products. People from across the country know to come here to buy discounted goods in the open-air market Souq Libya.

Since the revolution, they also know they can come here to buy weapons. AK-47s and rocket launchers are brought into Tunisia under the cover of night, far from patrolled checkpoints. A smuggler drives a Land Cruiser (the apparent vehicle of choice and an intriguing sponsorship opportunity for Toyota) across the desert. Outfitted with Tunisian license plates, it’s packed with food products, a decoy in case of a random police stop.

At the border, a plateless second car carrying weapons waits, headlights turned off. The drivers switch vehicles and drive back into their respective countries. Most cars aren’t tracked, and drivers who are stopped, locals told me, can resort to bribery.

The arms trade has increased tenfold since the 2011 ouster of Tunisian dictator Ben Ali. Though goods started crossing the Sahara in 1987, following normalized relations between Ben Ali and Qaddafi, illicit trade was tightly controlled by Ben Ali’s in-laws, who were known to enjoy a lavish lifestyle subsidized through largely illegal means. “A fly could not cross the border,” Kebiri told me with a laugh.

Most security experts and residents of Ben Gardane agree that the wall will decrease the amount of goods crossing into Tunisia. For citizens living on the border, that’s not good news. As I walked around the town, eyes narrowed at me from under baseball caps, arms were crossed, and answers were terse. People were tired, suspicious, and frustrated. One young shopkeeper, tipped back in a desk chair, looked at the wall as he told me that “the decision to build this wall will not only be catastrophic, it will literally kill the economy in the region… The young people here have no hope, no future, no education, no social leverage, which narrows down their aspirations and leaves the souq as their only source of living.”

It’s plausible that the wall could affect the number of arms smuggled across the border (official statistics are not available), although, after four years of weakly guarded borders, many weapons are already stockpiled across the country. What’s harder to prove is whether the wall will reduce terrorist attacks.

Ahmed Ounaies, the former foreign minister under Habib Bourguiba and then Ben Ali, told me that “the wall will be effective… This idea came to us later, but it originated from a vaster, solid system.” Citizens back in Tunis are equally optimistic. “It’s a logical solution,” a middle-aged cab driver said. Out of everyone I spoke with in Ben Gardane, though, it was only Beshir, a retired shopkeeper, who told me brightly that “the wall will be very efficient and there will be no more terrorists.”

Other residents were incredulous, although reluctant to comment much on the terror implications of the wall. They told me that most terrorists already cross the border down south, far from the wall. Besides, Karim Mezran, a Tunisia and Libya analyst at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, said, “Terrorists tend to fly first-class into the country where they want to be.”

The wall could conceivably shield Tunisia from the violence that has engulfed Libya, but as a defense mechanism, it seems to be more of a Band-Aid solution. As a young university student in Ben Gardane said nervously, “Terrorism is bigger than the Tunisian police. These people have weapons we can’t even dream of. Anyway,” he added ominously, hands clasped in his lap, “the ideology itself is bigger than the wall they are trying to build.”

Security analyst Cherif agrees. “The problem is in Tunisia. If we make a barrier between Algeria and Libya, there are still terror cells in Tunisia [with terrorists] who have agreed to die for their mission. They are ready to die for God.”

Since the 2011 revolution, Tunisia’s economy has taken a hit. The 2015 attacks sent tourism plummeting in the country, and its GDP subsequently dropped. The economy is now in a technical recession. And yet, Tunisia has gone ahead with plans to build a wall, whose efficacy is not guaranteed, for more than $81 million.

National funding will be used to cover the first $5 million, a significant contribution for a recessive economy. Sources told me that the government is attempting to secure funding for the remainder of the wall and the electrical fence from European countries, particularly Germany (the German embassy in Tunisia did not respond to press inquiries). French defense contractor Thales Group is rumored to be working with the Tunisian government, though the company declined to comment on its involvement.

The EU itself is not financially supporting the project, however. Samia Boulares, press representative for the EU Delegation to Tunisia, emphatically denied any EU funding, saying it was strictly an internal project.

European countries certainly have a vested interest in containing Tunisia’s terrorist problem, which could trickle across the Mediterranean. But several security experts pointed out that an in-depth inquiry was not put in place before making the decision to build the wall. “It’s not a scientific strategy,” Cherif said. “It’s the easiest thing to do in terms of material.”

“It’s just a symbolic gesture [that] doesn’t mean anything,” Mezran added. “The government is trying to show to the people and to the international community that they are doing something.”

Tangible barriers might inspire confidence in some citizens and placate the European community, but a wall can only be part of a comprehensive strategy that addresses the root issues of terrorism, overhauls the country’s weak and corrupt security apparatus, and critically allocates funds.

After all, as Cherif said with a sigh, “What can you do with a wall?” He paused. “A wall is nothing.”

vice.com