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Mystery Airstrikes Target Libyan Islamist Militias
[IsraelTimes] Unidentified warplanes conducted four ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , leaving one dead and five maimed, a front man for Libya's Islamist-allied militias and a militia commander said. A series of mysterious ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... backing the Islamist militias and Egypt, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and the UAE supporting their opponents. The specter of regional intervention has cast a pall over the increasingly fractured country, which was plunged into turmoil following the 2011 NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... -backed uprising that toppled longtime dictator Muammar Qadaffy ...Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years until he was ejected from the gene pool by his indignant citizens... but gave rise to a patchwork of heavily armed and increasingly unruly militias. Mohammed al-Gharyani, front man for the Libya Dawn ...aka Fajr Libya, the Islamist operation launched to counter that of General Khalifa Haftar (Operation Dignity). It is made up of the Libya Shield militia (Misrata and Moslem Brotherhood), Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room (Moslem Brotherhood), and Tripoli Brigade (close to Abdul Hakim Belhaj, head of Al-Watan party). Financing and moral support come from Turkey and Qatar... alliance, said the A militia commander, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , said the strikes targeted Libya Dawn ammunition warehouses and weapons depots, and were aimed at weakening its hold on the capital. An umbrella group for the capital's Islamist militias called the Operation Room for Tripoli Revolutionaries said the raid was carried out by Emirati warplanes and described it as "a failure." Libya currently has two rival parliaments and governments. One is recently elected but based in Tobruk, where it moved after Islamist militias took control of both Tripoli and Libya's second-largest city, Benghazi. The previous Islamist-led parliament remains in Tripoli and is backed by the militias. Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni on Sunday accused Qatar of interfering in Libya's affairs by sending shipments of weapons to Islamist-allied militias in Tripoli. He told Dubai-based Sky News Arabia that his government received reports of three planes loaded with weapons landing in Matiga air base, under the Islamist control. He threatened to cut off relations with the tiny Gulf country, which until recently was hosting members of Egypt's now-banned Moslem Brüderbund group and is widely seen as backing it and other Islamists across the region. Qatar rejected al-Thinni's accusations, with Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Rumaihi telling the state news agency that the allegations were "misleading and baseless." The Qatari statement noted that al-Thinni had said nothing about the reported Egyptian-UAE The Islamist takeover of the capital followed weeks of fighting that forced nearly a quarter million Libyans to flee their homes. In the final days of the battle for Tripoli in August, a set of mystery US officials have said that the August Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have all backed the anti-Islamist campaign of former army general Khalifa Hifter in the eastern city of Benghazi. But Hifter appears to have lost control of the city and is fighting on the outskirts. Egypt, which shares a long border with Libya, views the rise of Islamist militias there with open concern and hostility, fearing they could be a source of fighters and weapons flowing across the border. Egypt's current government came to power following the military overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, and it has waged a massive crackdown on his Moslem Brüderbund group and other Islamist supporters. With the United States building an international coalition to confront the radical Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, Egypt has been pressing for an expansion of the coalition's focus to battle Libya's militias as well. Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri told an international security conference in Gay Paree on Monday that the two conflicts were linked. Referring to the Islamic State group by its Arabic acronym "Daesh," Shukri said: "The international community should pay attention to other matters such as the proliferation of Daesh partners and similar groups carrying the same thoughts and dark goals, such as those in a country like Libya." Posted by: trailing wife 2014-09-17 |
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