Several House of Representatives’ members in Tobruk, eastern Libya who are loyal to Khalifa Haftar, voted for the labelling of Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, like reported by libyaobserver.ly.

About 20 HoR members – who back up Haftar’s war on Tripoli – held a session on Monday in order to discuss the convening of sessions by over 50 members in Tripoli.

According to analysts, the labelling of Muslim Brotherhood Group as terrorist is just a way to get under the wings of the US administration that is currently mulling labelling the group as terrorist on its own list, knowing that the HoR in Tobruk voted for the same label after the Gulf crisis to get the blessings of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The HoR spokesmen Abdullah Blihiq said the sessions are legal only if they are held in Benghazi or Tobruk, referring to the holding of HoR sessions for members rejecting Haftar’s war on Tripoli in the capital.

He added that the HoR decided to form a committee to supervise the distribution of oil resources in coordination with the UN, saying the Presidential Council is using the oil money to pay militias.

Blihiq accused the Presidential Council of squandering public funds and spending over 2.4 billion dinars on armed militias in Tripoli, calling on the Attorney General and the UN to assume their responsibilities regarding such matters.

“We call on the UN to stop supporting the Presidential Council and we have formed a committee to communicate with the international community to clarify things and the reality behind the Tripoli military operations.” The HoR said.

Over 50 HoR members have been convening sessions in Tripoli for “correcting the HoR’s policies and returning it to its own duties.”

The Libyan National Army (LNA), commanded by Khalifa Haftar, accused Turkey of supporting terrorism in Libya, like reported by aawsat.com.

LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly makes statements against the army, adding that Ankara is actively supporting the militias, chaos and terrorist groups in Libya.

Moreover, he stated that the militias of Government of National Accord chief Fayez al-Sarraj have now resorted to using drones to attack LNA forces after they lost several of their jets.

“We realize fully that cleansing Tripoli of militias means that Turkey will lose a golden base that is compensating it for its losses in the international arena,” he told a press conference in the eastern city of Benghazi.

He also accused Turkey of supporting the militias in Misrata city, east of the capital Tripoli.

Mismari said that the Libyan Airlines planes were delivering weapons from Turkey to Misrata.

On the ground, he revealed that the LNA had reached the outskirts of Tripoli and the militias were starting to collapse after their commanders were targeted in the capital.

Addressing the threat of ISIS, he explained that the terrorist group’s movement in the southwest was aimed at distracting the LNA from its Tripoli operations.

The ISIS movement coincided with an escalation in Tripoli and the collapse of terrorist militia defenses, Mismari noted.

Commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), Khalifa Haftar, opened a new battlefront on the advance on Tripoli by sending forces to the coastal city of Sirte, like reported by aawsat.com.

Military sources told local media that the LNA dispatched major forces to Sirte, the hometown of late leader Moammar al-Gaddafi. They said that the move was part of the LNA’s operations to liberate Tripoli from terrorist gangs.

Haftar did not officially announce the move on Sirte, but the LNA circulated photos that showed its forces heading towards Sirte on Saturday morning.

Forces loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Sirte had denied over the past two days that the LNA was marching on the city. They have since deployed patrols in the city suburbs.

In Tripoli, meanwhile, the LNA continued to make major strides in capturing the capital, by advancing in its southern districts, most notably the al-Aziziya area.

The LNA also carried out air strikes on several militia positions in the Wadi al-Rabih and Ain Zara areas.

United Nations envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame has, meanwhile, been touring European countries in an attempt to reach an immediate ceasefire to the fighting.

He is set to hold talks with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Monday.

Salame has been calling for a return to political dialogue in Libya. The envoy has remained in the Libya even though the UN mission has reduced the number of its staff in the country.

Three people were killed on Thursday in an hit-and-run attack by Islamic State militants on a town in southern Libya, residents and a military official said, the second such attack within days, according to reuters.com.

Gunmen stormed the town of Ghadwa, opened fire before retreating back into the desert, residents said.

The attack came after nine soldiers were killed on Saturday in an attack claimed by Islamic State on a training camp belonging to the eastern Libyan forces of commander Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar has concentrated his forces in the northwest, where they have been embroiled for the past month in a battle for the capital Tripoli with fighters allied to the divided country’s internationally recognized government.

Islamic State is active in the south to where it retreated after losing its stronghold in the central city of Sirte in December 2016.

Separately, two boats carrying 214 migrants were intercepted by the Libyan coast guard late on Wednesday and taken back to the shore, the U.N. migration agency said. 

Palestinian Islamic Jihad was “about to launch rockets at Tel Aviv when the ceasefire [with Israel] stopped it from happening,” the terrorist group’s leader, Ziad Nakhala, told the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV station on Tuesday, according to jns.org.

Nakhala, who was in Egypt when the latest round of violence between Israel and Gaza-based terrorist groups erupted last Friday, outlined in the interview how events unfolded and also issued threats against Israel.

“We used sniper fire in response to [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers shooting at our innocent, demonstrating civilians,” he said, adding that “we will continue until all our objectives are met. What happened in the most recent escalation was a preparation for the next major battle. From now on, the rocket fire will focus primarily on Tel Aviv and other large cities.”

Nakhala, who currently resides in Beirut, continued: “The test will be during the March of Return demonstrations on Fridays, on Nakba Day and on the one-year anniversary of the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to holy Jerusalem. If there are casualties among our people, it is our right to respond and that’s what we will do. We will intercept the enemy’s soldiers on the border and launch long-range rockets beyond Tel Aviv. We are not afraid of the Zionist enemy. We defeated the occupation army in every round of escalation and we will do it again.”

The terrorist leader claimed that “Israel attacked civilian buildings and that forced us to respond strongly. There was no prior plan for it. We still insist that Gaza is under siege and demonstrators are coming under live fire during the March of Return protests. The siege must be lifted from Gaza. We are handling it. In the meantime, Israel is making promises to Egypt and isn’t keeping them.”

Nakhala took aim at countries in the Arab world, accusing them of remaining silent in the face of what he said was U.S.-backed Israeli aggression.

He also said there were numerous signs that a war against Gaza would be launched “this summer,” and that his organization was prepared. Asked if he thinks such a war will entail demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, Nakhala said yes.

Nakhala believes that the United States and Egypt sought the current ceasefire. According to the terrorist leader, Israel faced a dilemma: on the one hand it wanted to continue fighting, and on the other were Independence Day celebrations, set to begin Wednesday night.

Hence he expects a war to erupt over the summer. In his view, it will be a large-scale war amid the backdrop of American machinations the region.

The Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), one of the Islamist groups behind the recent wave of attacks against Israel, has admitted that a pregnant woman and a 14-month-old baby died as a result of a misfired rocket that landed in Palestinian territory, like reported by thetower.org.

“A leak from the heroes of the [Islamic Jihad’s] Sarayat al-Quds (Jerusalem Brigades) on the circumstances of the death of the baby Saba Abu ‘Arar indicates that a rocket of the resistance exploded inside the family’s home due to a technical failure, and prematurely exploded,” a Hamas-affiliated news outlet reported.

The report specified that “the technical failure was caused by low-grade explosives in the rocket,” and said, “There is no doubt that the baby’s death has nothing to do with the enemy’s [Israel’s] planes.” Hamas later deleted the message posted on the encrypted social media platform, Telegram.

The pregnant woman and the baby died last Saturday night, and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry immediately blamed Israel for their deaths. Israel categorically denied the claim and said both were killed by a dysfunctional rocket fired by one of the Gaza-based terrorist groups.

Members of PIJ reportedly met with the family of the victims on Sunday morning to offer them financial rewards and to qualify the baby as a “martyr” in exchange for their silence on the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

It was also reported that most Palestinians killed in the latest round of violence were members of Islamist terrorist organizations. At least eight of the Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since Friday were members of the Al-Quds Brigades, a military arm of PIJ.

The Al-Quds Brigades confirmed the identity of their fighters on its website. Three other terrorists killed were claimed by Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The IDF also killed a Hamas field commander, Hamed Hamdan al-Khodari, in a targeted strike.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry claimed that 29 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes. An IDF spokesperson could not immediately verify those numbers.

With hundreds of missiles raining down on southern Israel, one of the most important stories is the one you won’t read about — because it hasn’t happened, like reported by algemeiner.com.

The Gaza missiles have hit homes, a synagogue, a hospital, and a school, and killed four civilians (and only civilians). The story you won’t read is the one quoting anyone from the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, or any other “humanitarian” organization decrying these absolutely clear violations of the law of war.

Every single one of the attacks is a clear, intentional attack on a civilian, and every single one is illegal under international law. Every single one is a violation of the human rights of the Jews who are the targets (though some of the first civilian deaths in this latest avalanche of missiles were Bedouin and another was an Israeli Muslim).

This latest unprovoked attack by the terror groups that run Gaza is only the most recent display of the simple strategy that for the last 20 years at least has animated Arab “military” efforts against the Jewish state: having learned long ago that they cannot defeat Israel’s soldiers, Arab efforts to destroy Israel are crafted entirely to cause civilian death and destruction.

The sickest part of this strategy is that they think they win, regardless of whose civilians are killed or wounded, or whose homes, hospitals, and schools are destroyed. If they are Jewish civilians, the Arabs have killed the enemy. If they are Arab people or Arab buildings, then they’ve created victims they can cry for in front of the television cameras.

In this respect, this weekend’s rocket attacks are like the weekly scheduled riots on the Gaza border fence. There as well, the goals are two-fold: destroy the fence so Hamas “soldiers” can penetrate into Israeli territory and murder Jewish civilians; and create Arab victims so the Jewish state can be accused of human-rights violations, thereby damaging its legitimacy. Death on either side of the fence, in Hamas’ view, is a win.

This should be repugnant to any decent human being.

Such an evil plan would come to an end quickly except for one thing: It works.

It works because so much of the media and what passes for international institutions join in the charade that Israel — and only Israel — violates the law of war when deaths occur that are the inevitable result of this Arab “strategy.”

News agencies are likely to report on the violence with a headline like this one from UPI: “Gaza militants fire rockets; 5 Palestinians killed in strikes.” A caption under the picture at the top of the article explains that of the five Arab deaths, “three [occurred] in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip and two during protests after Friday prayer near the border with Israel.”

Were Jewish civilians killed intentionally by Arab rockets? One would never know about it from that headline.

Similarly, only a few weeks ago, a UN commission issued a report attacking Israel for killing civilians at the Gaza fence, disgracefully and falsely accusing Israel’s army of intentionally targeting the unarmed. This despite the fact that Hamas pays civilians to be at the fence; intentionally mixes civilians in with its own “fighters”; and then, like the Palestinian Authority that controls the West Bank, pays salaries for life to any of its people who kill Jews, or to the families of such people if they’re in Israeli prisons or killed during their attacks.

Oh, and by the way, the money used to pay those pensions comes from international subsidies provided by purportedly well-intentioned European countries. They used to come from US tax dollars as well, until the Trump administration and Congress refused to put up with such insanity any longer.

People who claim to be looking for a “just and lasting peace in the Middle East” are wasting their time as long as they fail to tell the Arab world that they no longer countenance this evil strategy. When that message gets through, peace will follow soon. And until that message gets through, there will be no peace in the Holy Land because the Arabs think they gain too much from death — both the Jews’ and their own.

Less than two months ago, ISIS was driven from its last redoubt, the isolated farming area of Baghouz in eastern Syria. With Iraq having declared victory over the group in 2017, this moment marked the end of the so-called caliphate it had once sought to establish across both countries, like reported by thenational.ae. However, on Saturday, it reared its head once more, claiming responsibility for a horrific attack, in which nine soldiers were killed. The group struck a Libyan National Army training camp located in the south-western city of Sebha, issuing a stark reminder of the threat it poses in this fractured and febrile nation.

Since the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, Libya has been divided. The country’s eastern regions are ruled by the perilously weakened UN-backed Government of National Accord, led by Prime Minister Fayez Al Sarraj. The west and parts of the south are in the hands of the Libyan National Army, headed by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Powerful militias, formed along ethnic and regional lines, operate openly across the country. In Tripoli, the GNA has delegated security to such groups, bringing a culture of fear to the capital. Adding to the burden of ordinary Tripolitans, the city also became a battleground for both governments last month, when the LNA launched an offensive to retake it and wipe out extremist factions.

This turbulent environment is the perfect breeding ground for an organisation such as ISIS, which has been allowed to linger in Libya, after its reported defeat by militias loyal to Mr Al Sarraj in 2016. However, the group simply withdrew to the south-western desert, where Sebha is located. In January, Field Marshal Haftar’s forces took control of this area, but it is now obvious that the battle against ISIS is far from over.

Just last month, the group launched an attack on the town of Fuqaha in central Libya, which claimed the lives of two people. In fact, since the final loss of its Syrian territory, ISIS and its affiliates have carried out an ongoing campaign of violence. In a propaganda video released last Monday, the group’s reclusive leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi spoke about Libya specifically, congratulating the perpetrators of attacks in the country. He also boasted about pledges of allegiance from several African terror groups and claimed the Sri Lanka Easter Sunday attacks, which killed 253 people. Evidently, he has not given up on his ambitions to control a feared global organisation. The situation in Libya is precarious and it is clear that the GNA’s attempts to dislodge ISIS have failed. Libya’s beleaguered citizens deserve much better than to have their country become a base for violent extremists and this outcome must be avoided at all costs.

The remains of an apparent Chinese-made missile point to an escalating drone war in Libya, like reported by nationalinterest.org.

In mid-April 2019, aviation expert Arnaud Delalande received from sources photos that appeared to depict the wreckage of a Chinese LJ-7 air-to-surface missiles. LJ-7 wreckage was found in and around Tripoli on no fewer than four separate occasions on April 17, 20 and 21, 2019, Delalande wrote.

The LJ-7 is the main armament of the Chinese-made Wing Loong drone. The Wing Loong, which is roughly similar to the U.S.-made Predator drone, is popular with Middle East air arms, including those of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Not coincidentally, both Egypt and the UAE have deployed forces for combat in Libya, where the Libyan National Army faction led by warlord Khalifa Haftar is battling the United Nations-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

Haftar’s forces in April 2019 escalated their attacks on the GNA. U.S. president Donald Trump abruptly announced his support for Haftar during a mid-April 2019 phone call with the Libyan strongman. Trump’s support of Haftar undercuts the U.S. State Department, which along with many Western governments has backed the GNA.

But the UAE and Egypt support Haftar. The Emirates built up Al Khadim air base, a former airport in Al Marj province in eastern Libya, and in 2016 deployed Air Tractor manned attack planes and Wing Loong drones to the base in order to provide air cover for Haftar’s forces.

“This small fleet was engaged in air-strike and reconnaissance missions in support of Libyan National Army troops fighting islamist groups in Benghazi, in particular the Islamic State and the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, or BRSC — a group with ties to Al Qaeda,” Delalande wrote.

“Tripoli is far from this UAE-built air base, so the Wing Loongs might be operated from an alternative runway close to the Tripoli front in order to stay longer in the air for carrying out close air support [for the] LNA.”

The Wing Loong and other Chinese drones fast are proliferating. Beijing happily will sell armed unmanned aerial vehicles to pretty much anyone, meeting a demand for robotic warplanes that the United States refuses to satisfy. Export laws bar American companies such as General Atomics, which manufactures the iconic Predator and Reaper, from selling to many countries.

The Saudis alone have ordered around 330 Wing Loongs at a cost of more than $10 billion, Scramble reported.

Chinese unmanned aerial vehicles had their combat debut in Nigeria in 2015, when the Nigerian air force deployed missile-armed CH-3 drones against Boko Haram militants. The Wing Loong is a bigger and more powerful aircraft than the CH-3 is.

In April 2018, a Saudi Wing Loong fired an LJ-7 missile to assassinate Saleh Ali Al Sammad, the president of the rebel Houthi council in Yemen. A year later in April 2019, Houthi forces in turn shot down a Saudi Wing Loong. “The [drone] most probably fell victim to a man-portable air-defense system,” Scramble reported.

It’s worth pointing out that the Houthis have their own, small drones. In January 2019 the rebels flew an explosives-packed drone into a Yemeni government base during a gathering of Yemeni officials. The UAV exploded, reportedly killing six soldiers.

Some U.S. officials worry that Chinese drones could beat out American models on the world market and give authoritarian regimes and U.S. rivals access to the same high-tech capabilities that Washington would prefer to belong only to America’s closest allies.

“China is advancing its development and employment of UAVs,” the Pentagon concluded in the 2015 edition of its official report on Chinese military capabilities. “Some estimates indicate China plans to produce upwards of 41,800 land- and sea-based unmanned systems, worth about $10.5 billion, between 2014 and 2023.”

The RAND Corporation, a California think tank with close ties to the U.S. Air Force, warned that the spread of Chinese drones “could have worrisome implications for United States.”

The advance of the army of general Khalifa Belqasim Haftar towards Tripoli raises again the issue of Russia’s ambitions to control Libya’s deep-water ports of Tobruk and Derna, like reported by portseurope.com.

For Moscow, the port of Tobruk is an ideal logistics and technical base for its navy, on the doorstep of Southern Europe. It is rumoured that Russia already has established two small military bases in the eastern part of Libya. Tobruk (Tobruck, Tubruq, Tobruch, Tubruk) is a port on Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast, near the border with Egypt.

The sailing distance from Tobruk to the port of Valletta in Malta is only 214 nautical miles. From Tobruk, Moscow could control the transportation of oil to southern Europe in case it gains a foothold in Libya’s energy industry.

It is widely reported that Russian private military company Wagner Group controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin from President Putin’s inner circle has been supporting Haftar, the rebel commander of Libya’s breakaway eastern half, with hundreds of mercenaries, and provided his Libyan National Army (LNA) with arms, drones and ammunition

Field Marshal (general) Haftar is a Libyan-American and the head of the LNA, currently engaged in the Second Libyan Civil War. Haftar served in the Libyan army under the ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi. He also took part in the coup that brought Gaddafi to power in 1969, but later tried to topple Gaddafi.

In April, Moscow also established the Libyan Russian Oil & Gas Joint Company in Benghazi in order to guarantee for itself access to Libya oil and gas riches. Haftar’s LNA has been seizing oilfields in a campaign that began in January.

Moscow is backing Haftar also because it wants its navy to have access to Tobruk, which is a better positioned and equipped warm water port than Russia’s existing Mediterranean facility at Tartus in Syria. Russia also has printed banknotes for the Tobruk government loyal to Haftar. A “warm water port” is a port where the water does not freeze in winter. Because they are available year-round, warm water ports can be of great geopolitical or economic interest,

Russia is also eyeing the oil storage facility at Tripoli port in Libya, 30 kilometres from the Syrian border and 60 kilometres from the port of Tartus.

Russia is expected to sign by the end of April a 49-year lease contract for the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartus, according to Russian deputy prime minister Yury Borisov. The agreement includes possible extensions by 25-year periods.

The agreement to rent Tartus was provisionally reached in 2018. The use of the port will give Russia influence over eastern Mediterranean. It also allows Russian Navy to expand its technical support and logistics base, located on the northern edge of the port of Tartus.

Tartus is the Russian Navy’s only Mediterranean port facility, sparing Russia’s warships the trip back to their Black Sea bases through the Bosphorus Strait. It is the Russian Navy’s only overseas base. In the Syrian civil war, Russia sided with and saved the regime in Damascus.

The Tartus military facility, leased in 2017 also for a 49-year period, can currently accommodate up to four medium-sized vessels but only if both of its 100 m floating piers are operational.

Russia was preparing the ground for taking over Tartus for years. In October 2018 Syria’s Transport Ministry said it is cooperating with Russian company Stroytransgaz in a project to expand the seaport of Tartus.

Last week, the Syrian authorities have concluded a 49-year investment contract with Stroytransgaz for the expansion and operation of the port of Tartus, transport minister Ali Hamud said.

A total of $500 million (€449.5 million) will be invested in the reconstruction of the port, including the expansion of the port in the north and the construction of new infrastructure. As a result, its handling capacity should increase from the current 4 million to 38 million tonnes per annum.

The minister noted that the experience of working with a Russian company in Tartus could be extended to other Syrian ports.

Stroytransgaz has been operating in Syria since 2000. To date, contracts have also been implemented for the construction of the Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP) with a length of 319 kilometres and the gas processing plant No. 1 (South Middle Area Gas Exploitation Project) – GPP-1.