Forces loyal to Libya’s top eastern military commander, General Khalifa Haftar, say they have pounded Islamist militia fighters who captured the key oil ports in the country. Haftar’s forces had controlled the Libya’s “oil triangle” district since September of last year, like reported by voanews.com.

Libyan media reports that air force fighter jets loyal to General Haftar attacked Islamist militia forces holding part of the oil port of Sidra and an airfield in the nearby oil port of Ras Lanouf. Haftar’s spokesman, Colonel Ahmed al-Mismary described the fighting to journalists.

He said that airstrikes are continuing and that his forces have begun a counterattack against the Islamist militia holding the area and recaptured part of the Ras Lanouf airfield, while reinforcing the area around Ras Lanouf with fighters from the east of the country. He said the goal was to crush the militia, so that it won’t return to the area.

Militia forces, calling themselves the “Benghazi Defense Brigades,” began the surprise attack on Sidra and Ras Lanouf on Thursday. A militia spokesman, Yasser Jebali, claimed his men were holding their ground.

He said there was heavy fighting in the area and that 50 or 60 armored personnel carriers loyal to General Haftar tried to encircle his forces, but failed.

The militia attack coincided with a visit to Moscow by Libya’s internationally-backed “national unity” government Prime Minister Fayez el-Seraj. Seraj, whose government still has not been approved by the country’s parliament in Tobruk, said his forces were not responsible for the attack.

Seraj also insisted that both General Haftar and parliament speaker Aguila Saleh were blocking mediation efforts by Egypt to hold a face-to-face meeting between himself and the general.

Qatar-based Libya al-Ahrar TV, which backs Islamist militias in Tripoli and Misrata, claimed that the “Benghazi Defense Brigades” were made up of fighters from Benghazi, which is now under Haftar’s control. It claimed that Haftar was using mercenaries from Chad, a charge which his spokesman denied.

The “Benghazi Defense Brigades” were reported to have captured the Libyan desert oil oasis of Jaffra in December. It was not clear who was supporting the group, but former U.N. special envoy for Libya Tarek Mitri said in an interview last year that certain Gulf countries were backing them covertly.

Mamdouh Salameh, a London-based oil analyst, told Libyan TV that “control of the country’s two largest oil ports [Ras Lanouf and Sidra] are always a main interest of the country’s militias and of the national unity government because they are the key to the country’s economy and ultimate control of Libya.”

Martin Kobler, the outgoing U.N. special envoy for Libya, in a tweet late Friday, urged “all parties to refrain from further escalation and to ensure the protection of civilians and of Libya’s natural resources and oil facilities.”

https://youtu.be/9Ak4VFhf3Po

A website published by the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah published a video clip earlier this week showing strategic sites throughout Israel that the group plans to attack, including nuclear facilities, power plants, and desalination centers, like reported by thetower.org.

Among the facilities mentioned was Israel’s nuclear research center in Dimona, which Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah explicitly threatened to attack earlier this month.

“I call upon the Israelis not only to evacuate the ammonia tank from Haifa, but also to dismantle [the] Dimona nuclear facility,” Nasrallah declared. “The Israeli nuclear weapon that represents a threat to the entire region, we will turn it into a threat to Israel.”

Nasrallah was referring to an ammonia tank at Haifa’s port, which he has previously threatened to bombard with rockets. Destroying the tank would “cause a disaster whose effects could exceed that of the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II,” Prof. Ehud Keinan, a chemistry expert at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, warned in January.

According to the United Nations’ 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, attacking the Dimona facility could constitute nuclear terrorism. An attack on such a facility could cause the release of radioactive material, which would lead to mass casualties among the surrounding population.

On Feb. 24, 2017, photographs taken by Libyan National Army Air Force technicians — and which appeared on social media — revealed that Russia appears to have supplied at least one warplane to forces under the command of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, like reported by warisboring.com.

Haftar’s army, concentrated in eastern Libya and based in Tobruk, is the chief rival of the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord based in the western capital of Tripoli. The 73-year-old marshal, who once lived in exile near the CIA headquarters in Virginia, has received military support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries.

And, as the evidence strongly suggests, Russia as well.

Indeed, a MiG-23 Flogger, likely a MLD version — with the distinctive Russian air force roundel on the tail appeared Al Abraq air base, which is under the control of Haftar’s forces. The aircraft seems to have been sent in parts for final assembly in Libya, which would have made the aircraft easier to smuggle into the country.

On Jan. 15, 2017, the LNA-AF’s sole MiG-23ML in service — serial number “26453” — was shot down over Benghazi. One month later, two new MiG-23BNs returned to service, with serial numbers “9119” and “8772.”

Three MiG-23UBs — including serial numbers “‘8008” and “8133” — are currently being refurbished.

Overhauling a fighter plane is not an easy or inexpensive process. The good news for the LNA-AF, however, is that the Flogger is probably in fair-to-good condition as Russia withdrew the type from front-line aviation units between 1997 and 1999 when the jets still had relatively few flying hours.

Several of the type continued to fly in reserve and training units, while others went into storage.

Haftar has been building a relationship with the Kremlin for some time. On Jan. 11, 2017, Haftar toured the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov during the vessel’s return voyage from the Eastern Mediterranean, where the carrier supported combat operations in Syria.

In addition, the Libyan general spoke with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu via video conference, and — once back on land — met with Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian military’s General Staff at a military base in Tobruk. The official purpose of these talks was the fight against terrorism in the Middle East.

Since February 2011, the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970 has embargoed arms exports — including weapons, ammunition, military vehicles and spare parts — to Libya.

Two additional resolutions granted permission for the provision of non-lethal equipment, technical assistance, training and financial support. Haftar has claimed that Russia is seeking to end the arms embargo to his country and could supply him with weapons. Although, these restrictions on weapons exports have not particularly mattered as countries have continued supplying arms to Libya’s armed factions.

During two days beginning on Jan. 8, 2017, Admiral Kuznetsov conducted military exercises in Libyan territorial waters in coordination with the Haftar’s forces. And on two occasions in June and November 2016, Haftar met with senior Russian officials in Moscow and requested help to fight Islamist militants.

The Kremlin never stated whether it would offer military support to Haftar. But on Feb. 1, 2017, a Russian Il-76TD transported 70 wounded Libyan National Army fighters to Russia from Libya’s Benina air base. The transport plane landed in Egypt on its way to Moscow.

The Russian-supplied MiG-23s should moderately enhance the LNA-AF’s capabilities and help it compensate for high combat attrition. The jets most likely do not have precision strike capabilities, but compared to MiG-21s, the mainstay of the LNA’s jet fighter fleet, they have a larger payload and greater range.

While the MiG-21 has an operational radius of 370 kilometers with 1,000-kilogram bombs, the MiG-23ML/MLD has a radius of 700 kilometers when armed with 2,000-kilogram bombs.

The MiG-23MLD is also a superior interceptor compared to the MiG-21.

While the latter has a “Jay Bird” search and track radar with a search range of 20 kilometers, the MiG-23MLD’s Sapfir-23ML J-band multimode radar has a search range of 70 kilometers.

Furthermore, while MiG-21s are only equipped with IR-heat seeking short range missiles such as the AA-2 Atoll, the MiG-23MLDs can come equipped with more advanced IR missiles including the AA-8 Aphid, AA-11 Archer and the semi-active radar homing AA-7 Apex missile with a range of up to 50 kilometers.

This should enhance the LNA-AF’s abilities to enforce a “no-fly zone” or to counter the few jets of the GNA’s Libyan Dawn Air Force — which has only found a single foreign supplier, Greece, willing to help supply parts for its paltry fleet.

The LDAF is at a distinct disadvantage when compared to Haftar’s small but supplied air arm, now made all the more apparent thanks to Russia.

In the past three days, Islamic State fighters in Egypt’s volatile northern Sinai region abducted four men accused of collaborating with the government, three of them during a brazen raid in the middle of a public market, according to breitbart.com .

Two of the men have been found slain while the others remain missing; Egyptian officials say that one of the slain men had his eyes plucked out and was set on fire before being shot to death.

Women are being threatened with punishment if they don’t wear the niqab and farmers are being forced to pay financial tribute to IS under the guise of the “zakat” mandatory Islamic donation to charity.

Brussels bets on a dysfunctional coast guard with few resources to combat people-smuggling in the Med

The EU has pinned its hopes on cooperation with a deeply unstable Libya and a ragtag, resource-poor coast guard as it seeks to show it can control migration in a year of major elections in countries including France, Germany and the Netherlands, like reported by politico.eu.

When the first cadets of an EU-sponsored training course for the Libyan coast guard graduated in Malta earlier this month, no less a figure than Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, was on hand to celebrate.

The new recruits are part of a multi-million euro program the EU hopes will help it stop the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean — and lower the death toll of a dangerous journey that claimed the lives of 5,000 people last year.

But human rights groups are concerned that the EU’s coast guard program and its efforts to beef up Libyan naval resources will inadvertently boost the smugglers and local militias who exploit migrants and refugees desperate to cross into Europe at any cost.

Six years after the uprising that ended Muammar Gaddafi’s four-decade rule, Libya has no functioning national security services. Rather, a myriad of militias exert control across the country. Three governments vie for power in Libya: one in the East and two in the West. Every town has its own local council, its own armed forces and, in the case of the coastal cities, its own coast guard.

“We have no resources,” Reda Issa, who became chief commander of the Libyan coast guard fleet last November, told POLITICO from the port of Misrata. “We need 10 ships exclusively dedicated to rescue missions as well as helicopters and other equipment.”

Much of the fleet was destroyed during the 2011 revolution. Today, three medium-sized ships and three rigid, inflatable rafts patrol the 600-kilometer shoreline between Zuwara and Sirte, according to officials.

The coast guard has so few resources that an offensive to expel the Islamic State from their stronghold in Sirte late last year was forced to rely on private vessels tricked out with anti-aircraft guns mounted on the deck — the naval equivalent of the armored pickup trucks that can be seen ashore.

Germany, Italy, Greece, Belgium and Britain have pledged to provide training and equipment to Libya’s coast guard as part of Operation Sophia, the EU’s joint naval operation launched in the spring of 2015, aimed at combating human and arms trafficking in the central Mediterranean. At a summit in early February, EU leaders approved an additional €200 million for projects to tackle illegal migration into Europe, which included an additional €3.2 million toward the Libyan coast guard training program.

Issa acknowledged that collaboration between coastal towns, which currently find themselves on different sides of a civil conflict, “could be better” but expressed optimism over the EU-backed program that has trained 89 Libyan cadets and officials since its inception in October.

But Operation Sophia has sparked controversy, partly owing to several incidents between the Libyan fleet and NGOs engaged in search-and-rescue missions in the area.

Corruption and infiltration

The country’s coast guard struggles with corruption and infiltration by people smugglers. In a series of incidents last year, the coast guard was accused of beating refugees.

Sea-Watch, a German NGO, asked the EU to reconsider its project to train the coast guard after Libyan sailors reportedly attacked refugees with clubs last October, killing at least four.

Libyan authorities have rejected the allegations and accused NGOs in the area of “violating Libyan territorial waters.”

“We understand the humanitarian goal of these organizations but we ask them to abide by international law. If they want to contact us, all the lines are open,” Ayub Qassem, spokesman for the Libyan Navy in Tripoli, told POLITICO.

Other groups have reported similar incidents. In August 2016, an unidentified speedboat reportedly fired at the Bourbon Argos, a rescue boat chartered by Doctors Without Borders, according to the organization’s communication adviser Alessandro Siclari.

“After some meetings with the Libyan authorities we arrived at the conclusion that the incident was triggered by an initial problem in establishing correct communication lines between the two boats,” Siclari said.

In December, a man who claimed to be a former security force member in the region of Zawiya said the local coast guard charged migrants a fee for every inflatable raft that crossed its territorial waters. He requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. Rafts that had not paid the coast guard’s fees were intercepted by boats carrying local militias and taken back ashore, where the migrants were detained and not released until they paid a ransom, he said.

While such claims are difficult to corroborate independently, the U.N. Support Mission in Libya‘s most recent findings support witness accounts that local officials routinely extort and mistreat refugees, and have participated in human trafficking.

Part of the problem is the lack of a command structure in the Libyan coast guard that goes back years.

“It has always been like that. They have these units which operate mostly on their own,” said Antti Hartikainen, the director general of Finland’s National Board of Customs, who headed an EU mission in 2013 to help the Libyan authorities improve and develop border security.

According to Hartikainen, it is nearly impossible to identify and reprimand crew members on the boats as they don’t wear uniforms or name tags, making it easier for corrupt crew to act with anonymity and impunity.

“The economic situation has deteriorated dramatically over the last years. The government is not able to guarantee [their] salaries so the chances that members of the Libyan coast guard could be linked to mafias are greater,” said Hartikainen.

Operation Sophia’s public reports don’t outline how the EU training program coordinates with a Libyan fleet that lacks a central command. Neither does it address any measures taken to avoid infiltration by individuals linked to the smuggling business.

Despite repeated requests, officials from Operation Sophia declined to comment on the Libyan coast guard’s alleged breach of human rights, the obstacle posed by the lack of a central command in the Libyan Navy and corruption cases within its ranks.

However, a leaked internal Operation Sophia report seen by POLITICO notes that “migrant smuggling and human trafficking networks are well ingrained into local patterns of life, employing facilitators while paying off authorities and other militias.”

Algerian troops on Tuesday killed nine Islamist militants in an operation in a mountainous region east of the capital that was once the stronghold of al Qaeda, the Defence Ministry said according to reuters.com.

Troops recovered Kalashnikovs, rifles and ammunition in the raid, the ministry said in a statement on APS state news agency.

The operation in Azeffoun, in the Tizi Ouzou region, 60 miles (100 km) east of Algiers, came a day after a militant bomber was shot trying to detonate his explosive belt in a police station in the northeastern city of Constantine.

Militant attacks and bombings have become less common in Algeria since the end of the North African country’s 1990s war against armed Islamists in which more than 200,000 people died.

But al Qaeda’s North Africa branch, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and small brigades of Islamic State-allied militants are still active, mostly in remote mountains and the desert south near the country’s frontiers.

The mountains around Tizi Ouzou were a stronghold for commanders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and previous Islamist militant groups during the 1990s.

Turning to psychological warfare, Hezbollah recently erected a giant sign on the Israel-Lebanon border with images of “Hezbollah heroes” alongside the threatening inscription: “This account is not settled.”

The sign included a photo of Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in a car bombing in Damascus nearly a decade ago, Hebrew news site nrg said. The Shi’ite group and foreign media said Israel was responsible for the bombing, like reported by breitbart.com.

The sign also featured a map showing Jewish towns and settlements north of the Galilee that Hezbollah has threatened to infiltrate from southern Lebanon. The terror group has pledged to seize parts of the Galilee in a future war.

“We can see the sign very clearly … it’s hard to miss it,” nrg quoted a resident of the northern border kibbutz of Malkia as saying.

Last week, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said the military was “operating under the radar to prevent Hezbollah from getting stronger.” His remarks came in the wake of reports of an air strike on a weapons shipment bound for the Shiite group in Syria, reports that Hezbollah later denied.

Eizenkot added that neither Hezbollah nor Gaza-based terror Hamas are interested in a fresh round of conflict in the near future.

According to the military chief, the Lebanon-based terror group is demoralized and facing a budgetary crisis due to its involvement in Syria. Fighting on behalf of Bashar Assad has significantly weakened the Iran-backed group, he said.

Eizenkot said that recent threats made by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, including a vow to strike Israel’s vital infrastructure sites such as the Dimona nuclear plant and the Haifa ammonia factory in a future war, were nothing more than a deterrence tactic to maintain the status quo.

On Feb. 20 Russian state company Rosneft signed an agreement on cooperation with Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC). This happened only a few days after Britain’s Secretary of State for Defense Michael Fallon warned Russia against interference in the affairs of Libya. The oil deal in the context of the events of the past year may mean a gradual increase of Russian involvement in Libya, like reported by rbth.com.

Hoping for the return of contracts

In 2008, then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a number of major contracts with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. These contracts covered oil and gas production, construction, railways and weapons. The total value of the agreements was estimated to be about $10 billion.

The signing of the contracts became a breakthrough event in the relations between Moscow and Tripoli, whose cooperation was minimized after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The implementation of these promising agreements was prevented by the Arab Spring and the subsequent war in Libya. Russia lost contracts worth billions of dollars.

A slight hope for the return of Russian big businesses to Libya appeared in April 2015, when the head of the Council of Deputies, also known as the Tobruk government, Abdullah al-Thani came to Moscow. Al-Thani reminded Russia about its committed investments in Libya and proposed a return to the implementation of the earlier projects.

However, in January 2016 the United Nations declared that henceforth the legitimate authority in the country was the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, not the Tobruk government. This decision significantly reduced the role of government of Abdullah al-Thani, which was supported by the head of the Libyan National Army General Khalifa Haftar.

Moscow and General Haftar

Khalifa Haftar is a political heavyweight in the Libyan scene and is believed to enjoy real power in large parts of the country. The Western press often refers to him as ‘Libya’s most potent warlord.’

Moscow formally recognized the government of national unity in Tripoli as the legitimate authority in Libya, but has partnered with General Haftar and the government in Tobruk as well.

The first real evidence of interaction of Moscow and head of the Libyan National Army was the request by Haftar to print 4 billion Libyan Dinar. The order was executed by the Russia’s state-owned Goznak enterprise, and in May 2016, a Russian ship delivered a batch of printed notes to Libya.

In June and November 2016, Khalifa Haftar visited Moscow, where he talked about the possibility of arms supplies. In response, Moscow reiterated that it would not violate the international embargo on arms supplies to Libya without the permission of the UN.

Finally, in January 2017, the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, en route from Syria, halted in Tobruk. Khalifa Haftar visited the ship and had a video conference call with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.

Why Russia needs Libya

Officially, Russian involvement with Libya’s NOC was mostly confined to rhetoric.

However, there are assumptions that injured colleagues of Khalifa Haftarа have been sent for treatment to Moscow and a small number of Russian military instructors are already operating in Libya.

As noted by American analysts, it is unlikely that Moscow would seriously be interested in the supply of arms or a central role in rebuilding the country after the war.

From an economic point of view, Libya has great potential in the oil and gas industry. At the same time, accordingto Gazeta.ru the energy sector in the country today offers the possibility of quick returns but this comes with high risks associated with political instability.

Libya could help Russia significantly expand its capabilities in the Mediterranean. A big buzz was caused by the assumption that during the video conference on board the Admiral Kuznetsov, General Haftar agreed to Moscow’s informal request for the creation of two military bases in Tobruk and Benghazi.

International support

Today Libya is a failed state on whose territory there are two rival governments, radical Islamists and many small independent groups. In this regard, the prospects for increasing the involvement of Russia in the affairs of the North African country is assessed by different actors in different ways.

Thus, Egypt and the UAE actively support Khalifa Haftar, considering him the only force in Libya who can fight the Islamists in the future to stop the division of the country. These states are now bypassing UN sanctions, supplying arms to the Libyan National Army. They welcome any help to Haftar from the rest of the world.

According to some reports, Italy is positive about the idea of Moscow’s participation in resolving the crisis in Libya. Rome might hope that Russia can thus help solve its key problem – tens of thousands of illegal migrants arriving in Italy via Libyan territory.

The rest of the Western world is wary about the increase of Russia’s influence in Libya. The EU is trying to convince Moscow to stop supporting the Libyan General, claiming that Haftar should be only part of the solution to the crisis in the country. However, some media have warned that Moscow’s participation may lead to a new Pro-Russian dictator coming to power in Libya.

Armed members of Asbat-al-Ansar group deployed this evening in Teira and Sofsaf streets inside the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain-el-Hilwe, National News Agency correspondent reported.

Asbat al-Ansar is an umbrella organization located in the Tawaree neighborhood of Lebanon.

The group is comprised Fatah al-Islam, Jund al-Sham and the Abdullah Azzaz battalions, led by the same Emir who currently leads al-Qaeda in the Levant.

Fatah al-Islam, Jund al-Sham, some wings of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades seek a military and organizational unity to establish a second, Lebanese branch of Jabhat al-Nusra.

Israeli aircraft carried out a series of strikes in Gaza on Monday, wounding at least four people, witnesses said, after a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory hit an empty area in southern Israel.

The Israeli military said its planes attacked five positions belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, in response to the rocket strike.

Witnesses said the four wounded were bystanders, like reported by forward.com.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket attack. Israel said that it holds Hamas accountable for what happens in the territory.

The group has observed a de-facto ceasefire with Israel since a 2014 war but small armed cells of jihadist Salafis have continued to occasionally launch rockets at Israel. When those attacks occur, Hamas usually orders its fighters to vacate potential targets for Israeli retaliation.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel had “no desire or intention to initiate any military move in the Gaza Strip” but that it would not tolerate even a “drizzle” of rocket fire.

“We will not get into a ping-pong situation of fire and counter-fire. I suggest Hamas take responsibility, impose order and calm down,” Lieberman said in public remarks to legislators of his Yisrael Beitenu party in Jerusalem.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel would be responsible for any escalation if it continued to target “resistance positions.”