Court had agreed to return Hashem Abedi, younger brother of the bomber, to UK
Plans by Libya to extradite the brother of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber to Britain have been put on hold while Tripoli remains under attack, the country’s interior minister has said.
Fathi Bashagha said a Libyan court had agreed to return 21-year-old Hashem Abedi – the younger brother of the bomber Salman Abedi – because he was a British citizen.
Continue reading...The warlord Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, has never disguised his ambitions. Once one of Muammar Gaddafi’s generals, he returned from exile in the US when the dictator fell in 2011, attempted to launch a coup three years later, repeatedly declared his intention to take Tripoli and has said that his country may not be ready for democracy.
So the professions of shock from his backers when he mounted his assault on the western capital, held by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord, cannot be treated with great seriousness. The only real surprise about his advance was its timing. By moving while the UN secretary-general was in the country, to discuss arrangements for a UN-organised conference intended to lead to elections, he destroyed muted hopes of a political solution and underscored his already evident contempt for the process. As the prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, complained, the response of many supposed allies was silence.
Continue reading...At least two people reportedly killed in shooting at Qasr bin Ghashir facility near Tripoli
Young refugees held in a detention centre in Libya have described being shot at indiscriminately by militias advancing on Tripoli, in an attack that reportedly left at least two people dead and up to 20 injured.
Phone footage smuggled out of the camp and passed to the Guardian highlights the deepening humanitarian crisis in the centres set up to prevent refugees and migrants from making the sea crossing from the north African coast to Europe.
Continue reading...President has backed Khalifa Haftar, seen by UK and UN as aggressor in Libya conflict
European officials are hoping Donald Trump’s surprise expression of support for the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar can be reversed amid division in Washington over US policy on the north African country.
A clarification of US policy is considered necessary in order to build an international consensus condemning the attack on Tripoli that has claimed nearly 300 lives and injured more than 1,000, including migrants trapped in detention centres, since it began this month.
Continue reading...It is unclear whether aircraft or drones carried out the strike, which follows US statement in support of Haftar
Several airstrikes, including the first alleged use of armed drones in the conflict, shook Tripoli overnight in an escalation of the United Arab Emirate-backed assault on the Libyan capital led by Khalifa Haftar. The allegations about the use of drones were made by the Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli, and supported by eyewitnesses.
A Reuters reporter and several Tripoli residents said they saw an aircraft circling for more than 10 minutes over the capital late on Saturday, and that it made a humming sound before opening fire on several areas. Drone strikes make a noticeably different noise from missile strikes.
Continue reading...UN says arrest and detention of Moncef Kartas violates diplomatic immunity
A UN-appointed expert on breaches of the Libyan arms embargo has been arrested and kept in a Tunisian jail for nearly a month.
Moncef Kartas, a Tunisian-German dual national, was arrested on 26 March. He is one of six UN experts appointed to investigate breaches of the UN-imposed embargo on arms to Libya first introduced in 2011. The UN says his detention is a violation of his diplomatic immunity.
Continue reading...Libya’s government denounces attacks as barbaric and says evidence will be passed to ICC
Nearly 180 people have died as a result of General Khalifa Haftar’s assault on Tripoli, with at least four civilians killed in aerial bombardment on the Libyan capital overnight.
More than 800 have been wounded since the warlord who controls the east of the country began his attempt to seize the city from the UN-recognised government of national accord nearly a fortnight ago.
Continue reading...Fayez al-Sarraj says Khalifa Haftar’s attack on Tripoli ‘will spread its cancer through Mediterranean’
Hundreds of thousands of refugees could flee the fighting caused by Khalifa Haftar’s attempt to seize the Libyan capital, Tripoli, the prime minister of the country’s UN-recognised government has warned.
The warnings by Fayez al-Sarraj – who also claimed Haftar had betrayed the people of Libya – echo those given privately to the Italian government by its intelligence services, and are clearly designed to alert EU states to the possible consequences for European migration of a prolonged civil war in the country.
Continue reading...Long the target of reported abuses, refugees in Libya now claim they are being recruited by militias – a potential war crime
On the roofs of the highest buildings in Tajoura, a military complex and migrant detention centre in southern Tripoli, snipers are taking position.
“Tonight nobody will sleep because of fear,” said a refugee locked up there. “We can hear the sound of guns and explosion of bombs very close to the detention centre.”
Continue reading...Warlord also understood to have private support of Saudi Arabia and the UAE
Khalifa Haftar, the Libyan warlord bombarding Tripoli in an attempt to oust the country’s UN-recognised government, has won unequivocal support from the Egyptian leader, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, his closest political ally.
“The president affirmed Egypt’s support in efforts to fight terrorism and extremist militias to achieve security and stability for Libyan citizens throughout the country,” Sisi’s office said on Sunday.
Continue reading...France blocked draft EU resolution condemning warlord and calling for his retreat from Libyan capital
European divisions over how to respond to General Khalifa Haftar’s violent assault on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, have been exposed after France blocked a draft EU resolution that would have condemned him and called for him to retreat.
France, a supporter of the warlord over the past two years, blocked the draft despite new UN figures showing 56 reported dead, hundreds injured and more than 6,000 displaced by the fighting.
Continue reading...There will be deep unease in Foreign Office over role of Saudi Arabia and UAE
Blame for the renewed Libyan crisis has been laid at the doors of some of Britain’s closest allies in the Gulf, highlighting again how the UK’s commercial interests so often trump its political priorities in the Middle East.
In exchanges in the UK parliament, the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, traced the crisis to Nato’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, an intervention described even by the government minister Mark Field as “calamitous”. She also accused France of supporting Khalifa Haftar’s attack on Tripoli, an accusation that the Élysée Palace strenuously denies. Other MPs blamed Russian meddling.
Continue reading...Passengers reported to have been seen leaving terminal after strike by pro-Haftar forces
A warplane has attacked the only functioning airport in Tripoli as fighting between forces loyal to the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar and rival militias escalated and EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to try to de-escalate the violence.
Mitiga airport, in an eastern suburb of the capital, was closed after it was hit in an airstrike by pro-Haftar forces. Passengers could be seen leaving the terminal, a Reuters correspondent at the airport said. Fighting was also under way at Tripoli’s international airport, 15 miles from the city centre, which has not been functioning since fighting destroyed much of it in 2014.
Continue reading...Violence at edge of capital contrasts with tense calm in city centre as Libyans fear bloodbath
Residents of Tripoli have spoken of their fear and confusion as clashes between UN-backed government forces and troops loyal to the Benghazi strongman Khalifa Haftar continue in its southern suburbs.
“We are sandwiched between the forces, people are wondering what to do, we are frightened,” said one woman, who asked to remain anonymous, living with her family in the southern suburbs.
Continue reading...Khalifa Haftar is leading an advance on the capital, with far-ranging consequences
Libya is on the brink of an all-out civil war that will upend years of diplomatic efforts to reconcile two rival armed political factions. An advance led by Khalifa Haftar, the warlord from the east of the country, has diplomats scrambling and the UN appealing in vain for a truce. The French government, the European power closest to Haftar, insists it had no prior warning of his assault, which is now less than 20km from the capital, Tripoli. The outcome could shape not just the politics of Libya, but also the security of the Mediterranean, and the relevance of democracy across the Middle East and north Africa.
Continue reading...Fighting rages between UN-backed Tripoli government and self-styled Libyan National Army
The battle for Tripoli escalated on Sunday as a military assault on the city by the eastern Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar led to 21 deaths and nearly 90 injuries, and international calls for calm were ignored.
As the fighting neared the capital, the UN issued a plea for a temporary ceasefire to allow the wounded to be evacuated. Hours earlier, the US announced it was withdrawing some of its troops from the country, citing deteriorating “security conditions on the ground”. India also withdrew a group of its peacekeepers, saying the situation in Libya had suddenly worsened.
Continue reading...Critics say policy of appeasement towards strongman has left country at risk of military rule
After more than half a century in and around Libyan politics, and at the age of 75, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar stands poised at the gates of Tripoli, as close to imposing a form of military rule across the country than at any time in his mercurial and often violent career.
It may yet be that his grandly titled Libyan National Army – a misnomer for a band of ideologically incoherent militias – will discover that it has overstretched itself, and his advance will be repelled. In a similar, less planned a ttempt by Haftar to seize power in 2014, he only partially succeeded, by taking control of Benghazi, the main town in the east of the country.
Continue reading...Action escalates fight between western government-allied militias and Libyan National Army
Fears were mounting of renewed civil war in Libya after militias allied to the government in Tripoli captured scores of troops from a powerful rival force, and the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned he was ending a visit to the country “with a heavy heart and deeply concerned”.
Guterres suggested a key meeting with eastern commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, had not resulted in assurances from the strongman leader to avoid an escalation of tensions.
Continue reading...Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar says forces’ move will ‘shake the lands under the feet of the unjust bunch’
The strongman who controls two thirds of Libya has ordered his forces to march to Tripoli, the capital of the UN-backed government, raising fears of a major showdown with rival militias.
Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who commands the “Libya National Army” (LNA) based in the east, described his forces’ move as a “victorious march” to “shake the lands under the feet of the unjust bunch”.
Continue reading...The scenes of jubilation on the streets of Algeria on Tuesday night had vivid, almost uncanny echoes of events in the region eight years ago. A wave of protest in a youthful country has ousted an ageing, authoritarian leader who clung to power for years, at the head of a regime perpetuating a clientelist and unequal economy. The ailing 82-year-old president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, finally succumbed after weeks of protests, sparked by the announcement of his candidacy for a fifth term despite reports that he struggled even to speak.
The country’s oil wealth is drying up, reducing the government’s ability to temper popular discontent via state spending; over a quarter of its youth are unemployed; corruption is endemic. But it was the regime’s sheer contempt for its citizens in nominating a man who has barely been seen in public since a 2013 stroke, and the sense of national humiliation, which brought hundreds of thousands on to the streets. Those behind him hope that his departure will allow them to continue as before. Their opponents, now emboldened by victory, demand real change.
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