Libyan Civil War

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Friday called for elections to be held in Libya as soon as possible after the country found itself with two competing prime ministers, which raises the specter of renewed violence. The Secretary-General reminded "all institutions of the primary objective of holding national elections as soon as possible", in a statement saying that he "notes" the name of the Libyan Parliament on a new Prime Minister. The UN chief's statement did not name either Libya's interim prime…

A new body was recovered from a mass grave in the city of Tarhuna, south of the capital Tripoli, Libya Observer reported on Thursday. In March, the Libyan government said it had a list of 3,650 missing people in various Libyan cities, including 350 in Tarhuna, which was a stronghold of Putist general Khalifa Haftar before being defeated and forced to leave the city in June 2020. According to official Libyan sources, Haftar's forces and affiliated militias committed war crimes and genocide during the…

The illegal East-based forces loyal to Putist general Khalifa Haftar have released 17 prisoners from Libya's western region, the Libyan army said on Saturday. "Seventeen prisoners held by Haftar's militias were released," military spokesman Abdel-Hadi Darah told Anadolu Agency (AA). He said the prisoners had been handed over to the Libyan army at the al-Khamsin gate, west of the city of Sirte. "The detainees arrived in Misrata, northwest of Libya, and will be offered medical check-ups before handing…

The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) has warned rival parties in Libya to refrain from any military mobilization that could hinder the North African country's path to elections in December. In a written statement shared on Twitter on Thursday, UNSMIL called on all parties to “refrain from mobilizing or deploying security elements and troops that could be perceived as escalating and could undermine the implementation of the ceasefire agreement on 23 October 2020.. ” It further called on all parties…

The Libyan army rejected the demand of the 5 + 5 Joint Military Committee on Tuesday that agreements signed by the former legitimate government be frozen, including one signed with Turkey. The commander of the Western Military Zone's joint operations room, Major General Osama Juwaili stated on social media that "agreements with Turkey were requested by the legitimate GNA (Government of National Accord) to ward off the offensive on Tripoli, while Russia and other countries have troops in place in Libya.…

Registration for the upcoming December elections in Libya was closed, the country's election commission said on Tuesday when doubts grew as to whether Libya would be able to move towards normalization despite a month-long pause in the fighting. Commission chief Imad al-Sayeh told reporters in Tripoli that some 2.83 million people in the North African country had registered to vote and urged citizens abroad to register as of Wednesday. Libya, home to some 7 million people, has taken preliminary steps…

Delegates from war-torn Libya on Wednesday launched a new round of UN-led talks via video conferencing in order to reach a compromise ahead of planned elections in December. The meeting comes six weeks after unsuccessful negotiations in Switzerland between the 75 participants from all sides gathered for Libya's political dialogue forum. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya was forced to admit that the session failed after four days due to a lack of consensus among the delegates. On Wednesday,…

Another nine bodies were found in a new mass grave on Wednesday in Libya's Tarhuna province, which was liberated from forces loyal to Putist general Khalifa Haftar. The General Authority for Research and Identification of Missed Persons said in a statement that the mass grave was discovered in an agricultural area in Tarhuna. Tarhuna, a strategic city about 65 kilometers (41 miles) southeast of the Libyan capital Tripoli, was under the control of the al-Kaniyat militia, which gained a reputation for…

A tablet provided by a mercenary for the Russian Wagner group in Libya provides evidence of the mercenaries' involvement in mining and booby trapping of civilian areas and other possible war crimes, BBC News reported on Wednesday. The investigation, mostly conducted through evidence from the tablet's contents, has revealed the extent of operations by the shadowy Russian mercenary group in Libya's civil war, which include links to war crimes and the Russian military. As the BBC reported, they also managed to gain rare…

In a celebration marking the 81st anniversary of the establishment of the Libyan army, with an unmistakable reference to an unsuccessful attack from April 2019 on the capital Tripoli by the Putis general Khalifa Haftar's militia, Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah said on Tuesday that national armies are to protect their capitals, not storm them. "Capitals are precious pearls, and armies were founded to protect them, not to storm them, terrorize their people and destroy their property,…