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| Africa North |
| Western mountain military operations under Chief of Staff, not Hafter or Zintan |
| 2014-10-27 |
| [Libya Herald] Libyan Army operations in the Jebel Nafusa (Western Mountains) region are being carried out under the Chief of Staff, not retired general Khalifa Haftar ... served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... , who is leading Operation Dignity in the east of the country, or the Zintanis, according to a military commander. "Our orders come directly from the Chief of Staff, not from General Haftar," Commander of Military Operations in western Libya Colonel Idris Madi told the Libya Herald. "The enemy is the same but there is a difference between the front line in the east and the front line in the west." In the western region, operations started under the direct orders of the Chief of Staff, whereas in the east, operations started before orders were given and before the new Chief of Staff had been appointed, he said. Operation Dignity, an offensive against the presence of Islamist-affiliated militias in Benghazi, was started by General Haftar and breakaway members of the official military forces based in the east in May. It was inspired out of frustration at a series of individual liquidations of members of the military, police and activists in both Benghazi and Derna which has left hundreds dead, without a single successful investigation or prosecution. Operation Dignity was finally brought under the official Libyan Army earlier this month. By contrast, western military operations began in July when 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... movement launched an attack on Tripoli ...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... International Airport. Units withdrew from Tripoli to the Jebel Nafusa and surrounding area to regroup and reorganise themselves, Madi said, with operations restarting in early September. He said another difference lay in the motivation behind the fighting. "Here in the western region, the fighting is based on political reasons, whereas in the east the problem is more about beliefs and ideologies," Madi explained. |
| Posted by:Fred |