Tag: Libyan crisis

Libya’s Prime Minister, Fayez Seraj, called for a national reconciliation initiative to repair the divisions in a fragmented country reeling from the turbulence that has followed the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.

Seraj also told Reuters that the battle against Islamic State militants in their former stronghold of Sirte was in its last stages, although bombings and booby traps still posed a challenge.

Gaddafi’s fall in 2011 brought chaos that splintered the North African country into rival armed fiefdoms.

The United Nation-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) has been seeking endorsement for months as it tries to extend its authority beyond its base in Tripoli, in western Libya.

“In the last five years, Libya has been through a very difficult and critical phase that brought many political divisions,” Seraj said in New York, where he was attending an annual UN gathering of world leaders.

“There was disintegration of the social fabric as a result of bloody conflicts.

“So we need a real reconciliation between Libyans inside and Libyans abroad. There will be no exclusion of any political faction,” he said. “Reconciliation will provide political stability, which will give way for economic stability.”

Seraj said he expected to begin the drive before the end of the year but he faces an unenviable task.

Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who has been waging a military campaign against Islamists and other opponents in Benghazi and the east, and his backers in eastern Libya have been in a stand-off with the GNA for months. They have blocked a parliamentary vote to endorse the GNA and challenging the UN -mediated deal to unify Libya.

Haftar has also resisted the GNA’s efforts to integrate his self-styled Libyan National Army into the national armed force.

The United Nations informed the Security Council on Tuesday that rival factions in Libya have agreed “in principle” to hold a new round of peace talks aimed at ending the escalating political crisis early in the new year.

The world body had planned to hold a second round of talks last week to end a confrontation between two rival governments and parliaments, but it said a military escalation was undermining its efforts.

The new talks have been repeatedly delayed due to difficulties getting the parties to agree to meet, Reuters says.

UN Special Envoy Bernadino Leon briefed the 15-nation Security Council via video link.

“He (Leon) said he had agreement ‘in principle’ that talks would start on the 5th,” a diplomat who attended the closed-door meeting said on condition of anonymity. “He also set out three key issues for a roadmap – a national unity government, stabilizing the country through cease-fires of militias and a new constitution.”

Chad’s UN Ambassador, Mahamat Zene Charif, council president this month, confirmed the January 5 date, adding that council members expressed concern about the continued fighting and flow of weapons into Libya.

Charif noted that Leon said the parties had agreed on the roadmap.

A UN official told Reuters that getting the various factions to meet was like “herding heavily armed cats.”

Libya has had two governments and parliaments competing for legitimacy since a group called Libya Dawn seized the capital in August, installing its cabinet and forcing the government of recognized Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni to the east.

A car bomb exploded near the Egyptian embassy in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on Thursday, though there were no immediate reports of casualties, residents and witnesses said.

The blast followed a series of car bombs on Wednesday mainly in towns under the control of the internationally recognised government, based in the eastern city of Tobruk, which is facing a challenge from a rival government set up in Tripoli.

A Reuters witness said the bomb had slightly damaged buildings and some stores, but it was not clear if the embassy had been hit.

There were no immediate details of whether the embassy was the target of the bomb or whether workers were in the building.

Three years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is caught up in growing unrest as rival armed factions compete for power and control of the OPEC country’s oil resources.

One faction has taken over Tripoli, setting up its own government and parliament and forcing the elected parliament and administration of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni to operate out of Tobruk.

Both sides have routinely accused each other of seeking support from neighbouring regional powers, and many embassies and embassy staff have left the capital after armed clashes and the takeover of the city in the summer.

Rivals of Thinni’s government say neighbouring Egypt has lent support to a renegade former Libyan army general, Khalifa Haftar, who is leading a campaign to drive Islamist factions out of the eastern city of Benghazi.

His foes say he has received air support from Egypt, which is worried about the spread of Islamist militants.

… Dozens killed so far

At least 36 people were killed in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi where Libyan Special Forces and Islamist militants clashed on Saturday night and Sunday morning, medical and security sources said.

The government said more than 150 people have died, many of them civilian, in the capital Tripoli and Benghazi in two weeks of fighting as clashes forced United States and foreign diplomats to pull out of the country.

In Tripoli, 23 people, all Egyptian workers, were killed when a rocket hit their home on Saturday during fighting between rival militias battling over the city’s main airport, the Egyptian state news agency reported.

Since the clashes erupted a fortnight ago, 94 people have died in the capital, and more than 400 have been injured as militias exchanged rocket and artillery fire across southern Tripoli, the health ministry said.

Another 55 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Benghazi since the clashes have intensified over the last week between regular forces and Islamist militants who are entrenched in the city.

“Most of the victims we have noticed are civilians as the fighters have their own hospitals on the battlefield,” a Benghazi medical source told Reuters.