The nine-month assault on the UN-backed Libyan government has moved closer to a bloody climax, with the Tripoli government reeling from the loss of control of key coastal territory to rebel forces, and a lack of international condemnation of a drone strike that massacred 30 of its military cadets.
Russia and the United Arab Emirates were continuing to pour arms into Libya in support of the Libyan National Army rebel forces, led by Gen Khalifa Haftar.
The main European countries involved in Libya – France, Germany, Italy and the UK – will meet in Brussels to discuss the crisis in an emergency session but have so far been incapable of an effective intervention to bring the warring sides together. Italy especially is determined Libya does not slip off Europe’s agenda due to the attention devoted to the Iran crisis.
Fears that the UN-backed Government of National Accord, led by prime minister Fayez al-Serraj, might be overrun militarily has led to a controversial Turkish promise to save the government from collapse by sending Turkish troops. The dispatch of the troops, endorsed by the Turkish parliament, is not to fight but to ensure a ceasefire, Ankara claims.
Haftar is primarily backed by the UAE, which regards the GNA government as under the control of Islamist militia.
On Monday, the important coastal city of Sirte fell to the LNA in less than three hours, prompting suggestions that the neighboring town of Misrata, critical to the Tripoli government’s survival, will fall next. Sirte had been held by GNA forces since 2016 and a counter-offensive is promised. Ironically, given the UAE’s opposition to Islamist forces, Sirte fell at such speed partly because the Salafist Madkhali 604th brigade switched sides to back the LNA. The LNA forces moved west from Sirte towards Misrata after its victory on Monday.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is due to meet with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Ankara on Wednesday, and although the two leaders are backing different sides in the civil war, it is possible they could reach an accommodation. If this happens, Europe faces the prospect of being carved out of any settlement, as they are currently in Syria by Turkey, Iran and Russia.
The UN Envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salamé, conferred with UN Security Council diplomats in New York behind closed doors on Monday and later, in a passionate briefing to reporters, attacked the “prima donnas” on both sides of the civil war for refusing to reach a political agreement.
Without naming the UAE, he said: “dozens of cadets have been killed in the military academy unarmed, entirely unarmed, by a drone attack that is probably done by a country supporting the LNA”. Chilling videos of the attack, showing the soldiers falling underneath the drone strike, have emerged on the internet.
The UAE has made no comment on the allegations, and Salamé himself stressed that more than one country was supporting the LNA.
