[MIDDLE-EAST-ONLINE] Forces loyal to Marshal 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...
on Monday retook a district in Libya's Benghazi from jihadists after fighting that killed nine soldiers in two days, a military source said.
| Marshal Haftar sure has a lot of campaign ribbons. I'm waiting for him to start wearing sprockets... |
"Our forces now completely surround the Qanfuda area" nearby, the same source said.
The source said 52 troops had died in fighting since January 1 in and around Benghazi.
Haftar has managed to retake a large part of the eastern coastal city from jihadists since Benghazi came under their control in 2014. But jihadists still control the central districts of al-Saberi and Souq al-Hout.
These jihadist groups include the Revolutionary Shura Council of Benghazi, an alliance of Islamist militias that includes the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia
...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet...
Benghazi was the cradle of the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moamer Qadaffy.