Libya’s 5 + 5 joint military commission announced on Wednesday that the road between Sirte and Misrata will be open in two weeks when mercenaries begin to withdraw from the region.
After speaking with the Anadolu Agency (AA) after the eighth meeting of the Commission, one of the members, Al-Fituri Girbil, stated that with the opening of the coastal road, the mercenaries in Sirte and Jufra will leave the area. The Commission is expected to hold a new meeting in the next few days, in particular on road opening.
A statement released after the meeting stated that both sides will also act as prisoners and escalate efforts to address obstacles to the process.
The Joint Military Commission 5 + 5 consists of five senior military officers from the Libyan Government for National Agreement (GNA) and five selected by Putist General Khalifa Haftar.
Foreign mercenaries and weapons have flowed into the country since Haftar began its offensive, with Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) serving as the putschist general’s best suppliers. According to the UN, there are currently 20,000 foreign forces and / or mercenaries left in Libya.
The Russian Wagner group, owned by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, a figure close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is known as one of the main groups sending mercenaries to fight in Libya.
Most foreign forces are concentrated around Sirte at the Jufra air base held by Haftar’s forces 500 kilometers south of Tripoli and further west in Al-Watiya.
In June, the US African Command (AFRICOM) revealed that 2,000 Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group had worked with Haftar forces.
A UN report on Sudan released in January 2020 also said that many Arabs from the war-weary region of Darfur were fighting as “individual mercenaries” along with warring Libyan parties.
As early as July 2020, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pointed to foreign mercenaries as the root of the problems in Libya.
On February 5, Libya’s rival political groups in UN-mediated talks agreed to form a temporary unity government to lead the country to elections in December, when Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh was appointed prime minister and tasked with forming a new government. Last week, the Libyan parliament granted a vote of confidence in Dbeibeh’s new unity government with 132 votes from the 133 lawmakers who attended the session. Following the session, on Tuesday, Dbeibah’s government has officially taken over the leadership of the country from GNA chief Fayez Sarraj through a ceremony. Despite this positive political development, the presence of the foreign mercenaries as well as the constant supply of weapons by the foreign powers is still an obstacle to lasting peace in the country.
Ineffective arms embargo
The arms embargo imposed on Libya since 2011 is “completely ineffective”, UN experts said in a scathing report released on Tuesday, underlining “extensive, obvious” violations by actors including its own member states.
The six experts accused of monitoring the embargo against the war-torn state pointed the finger at a number of international supporters on both sides of the conflict, plus private mercenaries and non-state actors, including the Russian Wagner group and former Blackwater chief Erik Prince.
They used photos, charts and maps to support their allegations in the more than 550-page report, which covers the period from October 2019 to January 2021.
“The arms embargo remains completely ineffective. For those Member States that directly support the parties to the conflict, the violations are widespread, obvious and completely disregard for sanctions,” they wrote.
“Their control of the entire supply chain complicates detection, disruption or prohibition,” the report continued, explaining that both factors “complicate the implementation of the arms embargo.”
Experts have condemned violations of the embargo for several years.
They have identified Russian mercenaries from the private Wagner group, as well as up to 13,000 Syrian fighters and Chadian or Sudanese groups, all acting on one side or the other.
Tuesday’s report strongly reinforces the previous allegations and adds more, such as the one addressed to Prince, founder of the now defunct security company Blackwater and a staunch supporter of former US President Donald Trump.
Prince has denied the accusation he sent or wanted to send a force of foreign mercenaries and weapons to Haftar 2019.
“Despite the ceasefire agreement of 25 October 2020, there have been no signs of a withdrawal from Libya by ChVK Wagner,” they wrote.
Another private Russian company, Rossiskie System Bezopasnosti Group, is cited for its role in renovating fighter jets; while the Turkish military entrepreneur SADAT, which has denied all illegal activities in Libya, is also on the list of people who have been incriminated.
The experts reached an identical conclusion regarding financial sanctions against individuals or entities, citing a “persistent lack of transparency.”
“The implementation of asset freezing and travel ban measures with respect to designated individuals is still ineffective,” they wrote.
They also say that Libyan officials in the east “have continued their efforts to illegally export crude oil and import aviation fuel.”
Refined petroleum products continue to be exported illegally by land, the report says, adding that although activity is low, it has increased compared to previous years, especially in western Libya.
UN experts recommended that the Security Council introduce “flag deregistration; a landing ban and a no-fly ban” on aircraft identified as violating the embargo.
They also asked it to “authorize Member States to inspect ships on the high seas off the coast of Libya … that they have reasonable grounds to believe that they are illegally exporting or attempting to export crude oil or refined petroleum products.”
The report also said that at least three participants in UN-led peace talks in Tunisia in November were offered bribes to vote for a prime ministerial candidate.
Dbeibah was elected last month during the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) talks in Tunis.
“The forum participants who were involved in the incident were categorical when they rejected bribes,” the report said.
A confidential annex seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP) states that two forum members “offered bribes of between $ 150,000 and $ 200,000 to at least three LPDF participants if they undertook to vote for Dbeibah as prime minister.”
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