The first group of aircraft engineers to be sent to the Royal Jordanian Air Academy graduated on Wednesday after a 26-month-long training course.

According to a member of the Libyan embassy in Amman, the 34 students were sent by the Libyan Defence Ministry in August 2013 for training on jet fighter maintenance. They had initially enrolled at the Misrata Aviation Academy in late 2009 academic year, he added, but their studies interrupted by the revolution in 2011.

The 34 engineers soon would join the Defence Ministry “to operate and maintain the country’s fighters,” another diplomat added.

In the past two years, military personnel have been sent abroad for training to a number of countries including Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, France and the UK, although in the case of the latter, it ended badly with the British ending up sending them home.

Some sent fro training in Jordan also were involved in riots and brawls but Jordan has been looking to expand the military relationship. Just over three weeks ago, Khalifa Hafter, the commander general of the Libyan armed forces, on his second visit to Amman this year, signed a military cooperation MOU with the Jordanians that includes training.

libyaherald.com

Seventeen alleged militants were killed and 62 suspects arrested in North Sinai Thursday, military spokesperson Mohamed Samir announced.

On Thursday, the 11^th day of the large-scale “Martyr’s Right” military operation launched against Islamic State (IS) militants, “Security forces defused 53 explosive devices, burned down 42 terrorists’ hideouts, destroyed 16 vehicles and 13 motorbikes and destroyed seven explosive warehouses in North Sinai,” according to Samir.

A total of 438 suspected militants have been killed as of Thursday night, Samir announced in a Thursday statement.

“The operation, carried out by Egyptian air and naval forces, aims to achieve full control on North Sinai’s towns of Arish, Rafah and Sheikh Zuwayed,” Samir said.

Egypt has witnessed a significant rise in militancy since the military-backed ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 following mass protests against his rule. According to the Interior Ministry, militant attacks have killed more than 500 security personnel since then.

thecairopost.com

Militants attacked Tripoli’s airport on Friday and killed three security personnel, a Libyan official said, in an assault claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

“An armed group carried out an attack this morning on the prison located on the Mitiga air base, to try to free the detainees,” the airport security official said, adding that eight attackers also died.

An AFP journalist who was at the airport at the time heard an explosion followed by gunfire. IS later claimed the attack on Twitter.

Authorities in Tunisia, engaged in a battle against home-grown militants, have cashiered 110 members of the security forces for suspected links to extremist groups, the interior ministry’s spokesman said late on Wednesday.

Those cashiered belong to “different corps − police, national guard, the army, customs,” said Walid Louguini, without saying when the action took place.

Their sacking “is linked…to very serious suspicions of membership in terrorist organisations or sympathy towards them,” Louguini said, adding that they were the result of investigations dating to the beginning of the year.

Senior ministry official Taoufik Bouaoun told private Radio Med on Monday that “five or six” members of the security forces had been arrested for “direct links” with smuggling or terrorism.

Bouaoun said that since he joined the ministry after last November’s elections, it had been discovered that certain appointments had not been subjected to proper security clearances.

Since veteran ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted at the beginning of 2011, Tunisia has been plagued by an hardliner insurgency.

Two senior politicians and dozens of members of the security forces have been killed over the past four years, and 59 foreign tourists were shot dead in two attacks this year.

Tunisia has seen tourism numbers plummet after a gunman killed dozens of holidaymakers at a beach resort in June, but hopes increased security at hotels, airports and museums can start to restore some confidence in the North African country.

“We are scared Tunisia will disappear off the tourist map,” Abdellatif Hamam, the director general of the Tunisian Tourist Office said at a tourism conference in Germany.

“The top priority for the next years will be safety, safety, safety. We cannot afford any more incidents that (target) the tourism sector,” he added.

The country, which relied on tourism for around seven per cent of its gross domestic product, is under a state of emergency after two hardliner militant attacks on tourist sites.

Hamam said Tunisia had been slow to halt the gunman in Sousse and that the country was now learning from security forces from Germany, France, Britain and Italy.

gulftoday.ae

The EU and single EU countries will be allowed to intervene in Libyan waters against boats seeking to smuggle migrants and refugees into Europe, according to a resolution submitted at the UN, the Associated Press reported.

The text authorises the EU and member state to “employ all necessary means”, in UN jargon, military action, “to contrast human traffickers and migrant smugglers”.

The resolution condemns “repeated tragedies resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives”.

It stresses the need for “an international response to address the issue at the heart and prevent” exploitation of human beings by traffickers.

The draft authorises naval operations by the EU and single countries to inspect suspect vessels and provides that they can be seized if there is confirmation that the vessels are used “for migrant-trafficking from Libya”.

This is a chapter 7 resolution as it entails the use of force as a measure of last resort and authorises the inspection, seizure and destruction of boats for a year.

According to diplomatic sources, quoted by AP, because of the different laws applied in Europe, Italy can already seize vessels, but Germany and the UK, whose ships are part of European operations, will first need approval by the UN Security Council. The resolution was submitted at the UN Security Council during a closed door session.

A top police officer has been killed in a drive-by shooting by Islamic State group jihadists in Egypt’s restive north Sinai.

Assailants in a car yesterday opened fire at a police point killing Major General Khaled Kamal Othman in Al-Arish city, the Ministry of Interior has said.

The police forces cordoned the area and currently searching for the attackers, the statement said.

Later, Egypt’s branch of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility of the attack.

Egypt’s North Sinai has witnessed many violent attacks by militants since the January, 2011 revolution that toppled the ex-president Hosni Mubarak.

The attacks targeting police and military increased after the ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by military following massive protests against his rule.

Over 600 security personnel have been reported killed since then.

The military has launched security campaigns in the area, arrested suspects and demolished houses that belong to terrorists, including those facilitating tunnels leading to the Gaza Strip.

The Untied States has warned all its citizens still in Libya to leave straight away.  In a travel advisory published today the US State Department repeated its January warning that American citizens should avoid going to Libya. However, it added the recommendation that “US citizens currently in Libya depart immediately”.

Said that the Libyan security situation remained unpredictable and unstable.

The US embassy in Tripoli was evacuated in July 2014 for security reasons. The mission first moved to Malta but has since relocated in Tunis, to where the majority of other embassies had evacuated.

Military forces allied with Libya’s self-declared government in Tripoli said  they had captured a Russian-flagged oil tanker and its crew trying to smuggle oil from the port of Zawara.

Twafik Alskir, a senior official with Tripoli-allied naval forces said 11 Russian crew had been detained. Alskir said the tanker and crew had been taken to Tripoli port.

Libya is caught up in a conflict between two rival governments – one internationally recognized, and the other self-declared after its forces took over Tripoli last year. Both are backed by loose coalitions of armed groups who helped oust Muammar Gaddafi four years ago.

“A Russian-flagged oil tanker was captured this afternoon when it tried to smuggle oil off Zawara,” Alskir said. Further details were not immediately available.

There was no immediate comment from the internationally recognized government.

Oil ports and fields are often caught up in the conflict for control of assets in the North African OPEC state. The United Nations is trying to negotiate an end to the conflict.

In the chaos since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, different actors in the conflict have sought to sell Libyan oil without permission from the weak central government authorities at the time.

Since last year, the internationally recognised government and elected parliament have operated out of the east since an armed faction called Libya Dawn took over the capital and installed a self-declared government and reinstated the previous parliament.

The rival governments claim to be the legitimate authority for the state-run National Oil Corporation, though international oil traders have mostly avoided breaking with current contracts with the NOC based in Tripoli.

Two soldiers and 55 “terrorists” were killed on Tuesday in an ongoing joint security operation in al-Arish, Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid of North Sinai, said an army statement.

The statement added that 12 were injured in a fire exchange between the security forces and “terrorists” while 35 suspects were arrested following the clashes.

Tuesday marks the ninth day of an operation launched by joint police and military forces, dubbed the “martyr’s right” operation.

Since the beginning of the operation on September 7, a total of 415 militants have been killed and more than 300 arrested.

North Sinai militants have stepped up attacks targeting security forces since the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013, after mass protests against his rule.

albawaba.com

Tunisia has seen tourism numbers plummet after a gunman killed dozens of holidaymakers at a beach resort in June, but hopes increased security at hotels, airports and museums can start to restore some confidence in the North African country.

“We are scared Tunisia will disappear off the tourist map,” Abdellatif Hamam, the director general of the Tunisian Tourist Office said on Tuesday at a tourism conference in Germany.

“The top priority for the next years will be safety, safety, safety. We cannot afford any more incidents that (target) the tourism sector,” he added.

The country, which relied on tourism for around seven percent of its gross domestic product, is under a state of emergency after two Daesh militant attacks on tourist sites.

Thirty-eight people were killed by the gunman at a hotel in Sousse on the Mediterranean Coast in June, just three months after 21 tourists were killed in the Bardo National Museum in Tunis.

Hamam said Tunisia had been slow to halt the gunman in Sousse and that the country was now learning from security forces from Germany, France, Britain and Italy.

He said more spot checks were being carried out at hotels, both by Tunisian authorities and the hotel companies themselves, and the government had the power to close any hotels that were not complying with new tougher security provisions.

He added that Tunisia was also providing German partners with weekly updates on security.

gulftoday.ae