khalifa haftars bid for power
Answers
When General Khalifa Haftar, the 76-year-old strongman who controls eastern Libya, ordered his troops to seize Tripoli last week, it did not seem to bother him that António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, was in the city preparing for a peace conference.
The timing, with its implied contempt for UN efforts to heal Libya’s division, is in keeping with the general’s character. He opted for military action, Libya-watchers say, because the reconciliation process would not anoint him supreme ruler of the oil-exporting country.
“He has a personal ambition for dominance,” says Frederic Wehrey, analyst and author of The Burning Shores: Inside the Battle for the New Libya. “He also says that Libya is not ready for democracy.”....Libya has been in turmoil since the Nato-backed revolution of 2011 overthrew the dictator Muammer Gaddafi. The country is split between a UN-backed government in Tripoli and rival authorities in the east, while scores of militias control local areas.
Even the Tripoli government relies for protection on allied armed groups who prey on the city’s economy, battle on its streets and brutalise stranded migrants trying to reach Europe. In the east, Gen Haftar commands a self-styled Libyan National Army, which includes remnants of Gaddafi’s military supplemented with local militia brigades — “a hodgepodge”, says a former western diplomat.
This year, the general has expanded from his eastern base, allying with tribes and militias in the south and securing control of a swath of territory, including oilfields and export facilities. His ambition to seize Tripoli has, for now, scuttled the UN’s conference and, as fighting rages on the outskirts of the city, he shrugs off international calls for talks.
“Negotiation and a political process are not part of his agenda,” says the diplomat, who has first-hand experience of the military leader who he describes as “stiff, formal, full of his own dignity”.
Gen Haftar’s career reads like a cold-war thriller. He participated in Gaddafi’s coup against the monarchy in 1969 and rose to a high rank in the army. In 1987 he led an invasion force into neighbouring Chad, but was captured and imprisoned with his troops. Gaddafi would not negotiate to free them so, betrayed and humiliated, the general accepted an offer from the CIA to turn on his master.
“The CIA wanted to form a rebel army on Chadian soil to carry out an incursion into Libya,” says Jalel Harchaoui, Libya analyst at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague. “They told Haftar: you can rot and die in prison or work for us.”
Gen Haftar formed that army from the Libyan captives, using torture and coercion against those who refused. He had already garnered a reputation for brutality, according to Mr Harchaoui, who says he was known for executing deserters. But the army never fought and, during a coup in Chad, the CIA evacuated Gen Haftar and his men, sending them first to Iraq and then in 1991 to the US, where he spent 20 years.
He returned to Libya in 2011, during the revolt against Gaddafi, but failed to find a role at first. His rise on the national scene came in 2014, after he formed his LNA and launched Operation Dignity against militias in Tripoli. The clashes over several weeks helped entrench the break-up of the country.
Modelling himself on Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Egyptian president who, as defence minister, ousted an elected Islamist government in 2013, the general cast himself as Libya’s saviour from Islamists of all stripes. That bought support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, determined to block Islamists from regional politics. UN inspectors say both countries supplied him with weapons in breach of an arms embargo.
I HOPE IT HELPS U....
PLZZZ MARK IT AS BRAINLIST....
PLZZZZ FOLLOW ME...♥️♥️♥️♥️