Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah suspended a planned visit to eastern Benghazi province after Putis General Khalifa Haftar’s militia prevented a government-protected plane and protocol staff from landing. Sources on the ground said the incident underscores the continued friction between the competing camps.
Sources told the Daily Sabah that by blocking the prime minister’s visit to their stronghold, the Haftar militia clearly showed that the warlord did not support Dbeibah, contrary to what he said after the election.
In March, Dbeibah was appointed to lead the new Government of National Unity (GNU) through a UN-facilitated process aimed at creating peace and stability in Libya by overseeing the reunification of state institutions and an election in December.
In February, Haftar expressed his support for the new transitional authorities and his support for a “peaceful and democratic change of power” in Libya, according to a statement from his office. He had welcomed the appointment of the new government and hailed its leaders as “national figures”.
Dbeibah, along with ministers, was due to depart from Mitiga Airport in the capital Tripoli late on Sunday to visit Benghazi. He was expected to hold a government meeting in the province, visit several institutions and regions, and investigate the condition of places damaged by the country’s civil war, but had to postpone the visit.
Dbeibah’s visit to Benghazi on Monday would have been the first by a Tripoli-based prime minister in several years, a moment meant to encapsulate a rare opportunity to end the conflict.
“We can say that the war is over, but there are still some who want to rekindle it,” Dbeibah said on Friday during a visit to Tajoura, east of the capital, adding that foreign mercenaries continue to pose a threat to Libya’s stability.
The East and West sides formed rival administrations in 2014 and shared another country already plagued by the chaos and violence that followed the 2011 NATO uprising against former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Last week, Dbeibah met displaced people in Tripoli who had fled Benghazi and his reported comments to them upset factions in the east. In addition, Haftar’s militia on Wednesday demanded an apology from Dbeibah for his latest comments about Benghazi.
“Benghazi will return to your homeland and you will return to your families,” Dbeibah had said.
In a statement broadcast by the pro-Haftar Libya Al-Hadath TV channel, the militia – calling itself the “General Commander of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces” – said it had “received hundreds of requests from various segments of society and from all tribes of martyrs” and families and the wounded that the Prime Minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, must make an explicit and clear apology for what happened when he mentioned last week that Benghazi will return to his homeland. “
Haftar continues to operate independently of the legitimate government and continues to lead armed militias, calling himself the “commander of the Libyan army.”
Sources added that Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (Saudi Arabia) and Saudi Arabia were reducing their support for the warlord while increasingly supporting Abdel Raziq al-Naduri, a leading commander of what Haftar calls “Libya’s national army.”
Widespread reports of Haftar’s war crimes, his potential role in the mass graves discovered in Tarhuna, the defeat in Tripoli and al-Naduri as a rival, all point to the warlord’s slow decline, pointed out sources.
In April 2019, Eastern Haftar and his forces – with the support of Egypt, Russia, France and the United Arab Emirates – launched an offensive to try to capture Tripoli. His 14-month campaign collapsed after Turkey intensified its military support for the UN-backed government.
In addition to blocking Dbeibah’s visit to Benghazi, Haftar has also worked with the Wagner group, which plans to send 300 Syrian militias to Benghazi, to prevent him from losing control of the country.
The UN focuses on the repatriation of mercenaries
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council held an informal meeting on Thursday focusing on the repatriation of more than 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries from Libya, a demand from the country’s transitional government as it approaches the December elections after a decade of fighting and upheaval.
The UN estimated in December that there were at least 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries in Libya, including Syrians, Russians, Sudanese and Chadians. But council diplomats said speakers on Thursday said there were more than 20,000, including 13,000 Syrians and 11,000 Sudanese.
The diplomats, who spoke to the Associated Press (AP) on condition of anonymity since the informal meeting closed, said all 15 council nations agreed to bring foreign fighters and mercenaries home were the only way forward. But some council members pointed out that other council members in the room were behind some of these foreign warriors or mercenaries, they said.
The United States and Britain have identified mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-backed private security company that has been implicated by UN experts overseeing sanctions against Libya for fighting on the side of Haftar’s eastern forces, diplomats said. Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in Libya’s battlefield.
The deadline for the alien of foreign mercenaries from Libya during the ceasefire in October passed in January, but calls to speed up the process continue as no movement has been announced or observed on the ground.
Diplomats said Russia responded on Thursday, saying they had voted in favor of the Security Council resolution adopted unanimously on April 16, which approved up to 60 UN monitors to help implement the ceasefire agreement. It called for the full implementation of the arms deal in October last year, “by withdrawing all foreign forces and mercenaries from Libya without delay.”
Thursday’s informal council meeting was called by its three African members – Niger, Tunisia and Kenya – and heard from the new UN envoy, Jan Kubis, about ways to get foreign fighters and mercenaries out of Libya and enforce the decades-long arms embargo against the country, diplomats said. A recently published report by UN experts said the embargo has been “completely ineffective.”
The Council was also briefed by Deputy Secretary-General and Mission Coordinator of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Raisedon Zenenga, who spoke on the process of bringing Libya’s various security and military forces across the country in one place and launching disarmament, demobilization and reintegration processes. diplomat and stressed that this is as important as getting foreign warriors and mercenaries out of the country.
The meeting took place after last week’s killing of Chadian President Idriss Deby by rebels believed to have been armed and trained in Libya, a neighboring nation.
The proliferation of mercenaries could pose a new risk to the region. Forcing the fighters from Libya could have an “impact” on security in the rest of the Sahel, another diplomat said, speaking anonymously to the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“Without good control, without effective support, what happened in Chad could happen again in this country or it could stretch from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa, to Sudan, to South Sudan, to Niger, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, to Mozambique,” he said. a diplomat.
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