The coming days will witness “comprehensive arrangements to bring all illegitimate militant groups under the National Libyan Army’s umbrella in accordance with legal criteria,” says General Khalifa Haftar, head of the national army in Eastern Libya, in a statement made to Suptnik News Agency.
The coming days will witness “comprehensive arrangements to bring all illegitimate militant groups under the National Libyan Army’s umbrella in accordance with legal criteria,” says General Khalifa Haftar, head of the national army in Eastern Libya, in a statement made to Suptnik News Agency.
General Haftar was talking after a meeting held in Tunis on September 8 that brought together Libyan army officers representing different zones of conflict. The meeting was held at the invitation of the US Special Envoy for Libya, Jonathan Winer, in the presence of representatives from Egypt, the UAE, and Italy, in an attempt to create a united front and policy to defeat the various insurgencies across the country.
The attending officers were Brigadier Aoun Farjani, representing General Haftar, leader of the unified Libyan Army in Cyrenaica; Colonel Salem Joha, Brigadier Mohamed Moussa from Misrata, Colonel Mukhtar Nagasa and Lieutenant Colonel Adel Kafali from Zintan. The army officers agreed on the following nine key points to move forward:
– The Libyan army is unified and indivisible;
– The Libyan army should resist regionalism and tribalism;
– The Libyan army stands at the same distance from all Libyan cities;
– Absolute rejection of the use of force that may lead to the division of Libya;
– To limit the number of weapons available to the army. Furthermore, the police and security agencies should act in accordance with missions entrusted to them;
– To build a powerful army, capable of confronting any aggression and protecting Libya’s borders;
– To protect oil fields, oil installations and ports, and vital facilities;
– To fight separatist and terrorist movements and organizations (IS, Ansar al-Sharia, Al-Qaeda, and every organization, entity, party or group with a military wing fighting the state);
– To reorganize and restructure the army in line with its combating missions in different areas of Libya.
Multifaceted war
The nine points represent a feasible solution to protect security and stability in a unified state. Scaling down the armed militias and ending the chaos they have created can only be achieved within the framework of a unified national army. To turn these points into practical arrangements on the ground however they must be adopted by the areas represented by the five generals, especially the western cities of Misrata and Zintan. Cyrenaica will adopt Haftar’s agenda and Fezzan is as usual ready to join the unified state project.
But the Islamists will reject the policy on the pretext that it happened at the invitation of the US special envoy for Libya without noting why the US has shifted its support from the Muslim Brothers to the military. The conflict within Libya is multilateral. While it is an internal political, ideological and regional conflict over power, it is also an international European and American conflict over influence, intertwined with a regional rivalry. Erdoğan’s Turkey and oil-rich Qatar support the Islamists who control western Libya, while Egypt and the UAE support Haftar’s forces that control eastern Libya.
Portbound
A few days after the meeting, a dramatic and substantive development took place. The national army led by Haftar unexpectedly launched ‘Swift Strike Operation’ in which it gained control of the 400-km long oil ports of the so-called ‘oil crescent.’ The operation reportedly occurred without casualties. Militia warlord Ibrahim Jadhran, aka ‘The Oil Pirate,’ is said to have fled along with several of his senior followers. The vast majority of Jadhran’s soldiers however refused to confront the army at the request of the elders of the Maghariba people to which they belong. Oil production has since restarted, with nearly half a million barrels per day flowing out of Libyan ports again.
As a response, a political division occurred in the Presidential Council (PC) of the National Government of Accord. PC Deputy Chairman Moussa Kouni, along with the two representatives of political Islam at the PC, Kamjan and Ammari, issued a strongly worded statement in which they demanded that Minister of Defense Colonel Mahdi Al-Barghathi deploy his military units and fight to regain the oil ports. Libya still has two National Oil Corporations, east and west.
Presidential Council divided
PC Chairman Fayez al-Sarraj however rejected the statement since it did not represent the PC. He issued a soft-worded statement in which he called “all parties to end the provocative actions and hold an urgent meeting at one table to discuss a way out to enhance the chances for implementing the political accord.”
“All Libyans are against any foreign military intervention that threatens their country’s unity and integrity,” read the statement. “I absolutely refuse to lead any Libyan group or fight any other Libyan side for political, ideological or regional motives.”
A strong position later came from Misrata, where influential military leaderships convened in the city and voiced their refusal to support Jadhran or fight a battle for the oil ports. Thus, the strongly worded statement of the six western sponsors of the Skhirat Accord that calls on the military to “withdraw immediately and unconditionally from the oil crescent” is rendered useless. What happened is a strategic change that paves the way for a precious opportunity for a solution using the abovementioned nine points.
