On July 11, the Prime Minister-designate of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), Fayez Serraj, moved from the Bu Sitta naval base into the official ministry building in Tripoli. After 103 days at the secured naval facility, the move by members of the Presidency Council into the formal government headquarters in Tripoli was more than a symbolic gesture. It reflected the painfully slow progress in bringing some measure of security to Libya, after five years of war and civil strife, following the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi in late 2011.
Four recent developments highlight the uneven path towards greater stability in Libya.
First, the war against the Islamic State (ISIL) has resumed following the end of the Ramadan holiday, with GNA-backed militia forces from Misurata resuming shelling in the center of the vital city of Sirte, where a small number of ISIL forces remain holed up. While precise estimates are impossible, it appears that a large number of the 5,000 Islamic State fighters who originally seized control over Sirte have been either killed or have fled south, where they are regrouping, with the assistance of the other major regional ISIL affiliate, Boko Haram. If and when ISIL is totally driven out of Sirte, they are expected to follow the same pattern recently seen in Iraq: launch dramatic urban terrorist attacks to demonstrate that they are still powerful and to revive recruitment.
The Western governments that are backing the GNA and are attempting to forge a unified military force loyal to Prime Minister-designate Sarraj are worried that a clear victory in Sirte by the Misurata militias could lead them to place demands on the PC/GNA that result in a deepening of the factional warfare among rival tribal-based militias and the still-intransigent House of Representatives, based in Tobruk.
Second, a merger was announced July 3 between the two rival branches of the Libyan National Oil Company, headquartered in Tripoli and Tobruk. Four days after the merger was announced, Ibrahim Jadhran, the commander of the Petroleum Facilities Guards announced that oil exports would begin at two vital ports under his control at As Sidra and Ras Lanuf. Jadhran has allied his militia in recent months with the Misurata forces in a pincer attack against the ISIL forces in Sirte. The announced merger is merely a first step. Damage to the oil port facilities will have to be repaired (first Libyan Dawn and later ISIL carried out assaults on the two ports, and months of work will be required to fully restore services); and the Tobruk faction has made the final implementation of the merger conditional on the opening of a National Oil Company headquarters in Benghazi in the east of the country.
General Khalifa Haftar, the head of the National Libyan Army, affiliated with the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, has maintained hands off policy towards the oil facilities near Tobruk, allowing limited oil exports from those facilities, despite the conflicts with rival militia factions that have been uninterrupted since the ouster of Qaddafi.
As of January 2016, oil exports from Libya were capped at 300,000 barrels per day. That figure can rapidly double, if the merger deal goes through and the down-stream oil fields and pipelines can be secured from attack by ISIL and other militias. Prior to Qaddafi’s ouster, oil exports were in the range of 1.5 million barrels per day.
Third, in late June, Gen. Haftar arrived in Moscow for a series of high-level meetings with government officials. He met with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and with the Secretary of the Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev. The Patrushev meeting was considered to be the most significant, given that the Secretary is extremely close to President Vladimir Putin.
Late in 2015, as part of a reorganization of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mikhail Bogdanov, the senior diplomat for Middle East affairs, was put in charge of the Libya file, in a clear sign that Putin has upgraded Russia’s role in Libya, as a gateway into North Africa. Russia has formally endorsed the United Nations reconciliation plan, which created the GNA, but has also maintained recognition of the House of Representatives, based in Tobruk, which won the last elections. Tobruk and Gen. Khalifa have maintained a hard-line stance against all of the jihadist factions in Libya, and this policy is in accord with Russia’s own position. The fact that Russian President Putin has forged a close relationship with Egyptian President El-Sisi has added to the alignment.
While Gen. Haftar may have been in Moscow seeking military assistance, the Russian orientation is to avoid publicly taking sides in the internal Libyan conflict, and to work with the other countries backing the UN efforts to build up the PC/GNA as an eventual credible government over all of Libya. The Obama Administration has looked generally favorably on the increasing Russian role. The US itself has been providing both overt and covert support to the militias fighting against the Islamic State in the Sirte area, while at the same time providing material support to Gen. Haftar’s forces in the east of Libya, as they battle jihadists in the Benghazi and Derna areas.
Fourth, on July 6, Karim Khan, the attorney for the son of deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, Saif Al-Islam, announced that his client had been granted amnesty on April 12 by Prime Minister-designate Sarraj “in accordance with [Libyan] law.” Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi was released from prison in Zintan, where he was actually held under house arrest/protective custody, after being sentenced to death by the Tripoli government, then-controlled by the Libyan Dawn coalition. Zintan tribes have been aligned with former Qaddafi loyalists from the Beni Walid and Warshefani tribes in the fight against Libyan Dawn, since the start of the civil strife in late 2011.
In February 2011, Saif Al-Islam, who spent much of his time outside of Libya in Britain and elsewhere, cultivating relations with leading Western political figures, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, delivered a prescient speech: “There will be civil war in Libya… we will kill one another in the streets and all of Libya will be destroyed. We will need 40 years to reach an agreement on how to run the country, because today, everyone will want to be president, or emir, and everybody will want to run the country.”
On July 18, US Secretary of State John Kerry will be meeting with officials from Saudi Arabia, and other countries with a vital stake in the future of Libya, to discuss possible broader international involvement in the gradual move to stability.
mebriefing.com