Libya unity govt seizes strategic cities from Haftar
Libya unity govt seizes strategic...
TRIPOLI: Forces backing Libya’s unity government captured two coastal cities west of Tripoli on Monday in a new blow to military commander Khalifa Haftar a year after he launched an offensive on the capital. They also routed his forces from three smaller cities, sparking rocket attacks on Tripoli that wounded at least one person and damaged homes in a residential area. “Our forces took control of Sorman and Sabratha and are
pursuing(Haftar’s forces),” said a statement by Mohammed Gnunu, spokesman for the forces of the United Nations-recognized Government of National Accord.
He later reported that three smaller cities further south controlled by Haftar’s forces - Al-Ajaylat, Regdaline and Al-Jmeil - had been captured by GNA fighters. An AFP video journalist saw pro-GNA forces in pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns celebrating in central Sabratha, around halfway between Tripoli and the Tunisian border. Control of war-torn Libya is largely divided between pro-GNA forces and those of eastern-based Haftar, who launched an offensive to try to capture Tripoli in April last year.
On their Facebook page, GNA forces published images of Grad rocket launchers, 10 tanks and armoured vehicles they said they had captured in Sabratha and Sorman, which had been controlled by Salafist militias allied with Haftar. Mohammad Al-Gammoudi, a GNA commander on the ground, said Sorman and Sabratha had been seized after “six hours of fighting with air cover”.
Libya has suffered almost a decade of conflict since longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled and killed in a 2011 uprising backed by several Western powers. The UN says hundreds have been killed and over 200,000 displaced since Haftar launched his battle for Tripoli, which quickly ground to a bloody stalemate. Haftar’s forces did not immediately comment after Gnunu’s announcement.
But shortly afterwards, dozens of rockets rained down on Tripoli, with the GNA blaming Haftar’s forces. The rockets mostly hit the outskirts of Mitiga International Airport in the east of the capital and the nearby Soug al-Jomaa residential neighborhood, civil defense spokesman Oussama Ali said. Haftar’s forces have repeatedly accused the GNA of using the airport for military purposes. GNA accused Haftar’s forces of taking revenge against Tripoli’s civilian population following their losses on Monday. “The criminal militia and mercenaries have taken out their anger on residential neighbourhoods of Tripoli to avenge their defeat, firing dozens of rockets and missiles on the capital indiscriminately,” spokesman Mohamad Gnounou said.
The two sides had agreed to a January ceasefire brokered by GNA backer Turkey and Haftar supporter Russia, but it has been repeatedly violated. The seizure of Sorman and Sabratha was the GNA’s most significant victory since June last year, when its forces retook the town of Gharyan, the main supply base for Haftar’s forces southwest of the capital.
Jalal Harchaoui, a Libya analyst at The Haguebased Clingendael Institute, said Monday’s setback meant Haftar had lost the entire coast west of Tripoli. According to Harchaoui, GNA forces have in recent week been more “aggressive... on multiple fronts, often successfully”. “High-precision artillery on the ground, Turkish drones and better coordination” were proving a “formidable” combination against Haftar’s Emirati-backed forces, he said.
GNA chief Fayez Al-Sarraj confirmed the capture of Sabratha and Sorman on Monday, and said loyalist forces had also repelled an attack by Haftar’s troops the previous day on Abu Grein, 250 km southeast of Tripoli. Several UN-backed attempts to reach a ceasefire have failed, and the UN has slammed repeated violations of a 2011 weapons embargo. Last month, the UN’s Libya envoy Ghassan Salame quit his post citing health reasons.
On March 17, the world body and nine countries called on Libya’s warring parties to cease hostilities to allow health authorities to fight against the new coronavirus. The GNA and Haftar’s forces welcomed calls for a humanitarian pause, but the GNA said it reserved “the right to respond to daily assaults targeting civilians and public facilities”. On Saturday the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the country said armed groups had cut off water supplies to more than two million residents of Tripoli and its surroundings, denouncing an “abhorrent” act of collective punishment. — Agencies
ISTANBUL: Turkey is pushing its credentials as a major humanitarian power in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic by sending medical equipment to Italy and Spain, detection kits for Palestinians and even medicines to Armenia. Turkey is hard hit itself by the virus outbreak which has killed nearly 1,300 people but it is still finding the resources to help other countries in need.
In recent weeks, Turkey has supplied masks, hazmat suits and hydroalcoholic gel to Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, all among the worst hit in Europe. Turkey’s humanitarian aid reflex is not new, Jana Jabbour, a Turkish diplomacy expert at Sciences Po university in Paris, pointed out. “President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has always wanted to position Turkey has a ‘humanitarian power’,” quick to rescue those in need, whether they are oppressed Muslim minorities or countries hit by natural disasters, Jabbour told AFP. But unlike Ankara’s usual interventions, Turkey is now also supporting developed countries - which are more used to helping than being helped.
Turn the tables
It is also an opportunity to turn the tables for Erdogan, who professes nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire, infamously described as “the sick man of Europe” by Western powers before its collapse at the end of World War I. “It is a question of showing that Turkey is a strong power which has the means to offer aid to European states, now themselves ‘sick’, both in the literal and figurative senses,” Jabbour said.
To cultivate this idea, each delivery to Europe is carefully staged, from the plane’s take-off broadcast live on television to the beneficiaries’ warm thanks spread across the newspapers. Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin was quick to point out that “Turkey is the first country in NATO to send help to Spain and Italy”, who are also members of the US-led military alliance.
Ties with the West and Europe in particularly have been strained for several years. The latest spat with the European Union came earlier this year when Erdogan said migrants, fleeing conflict in Syria and across the Middle East, would not be prevented from leaving Turkey for Europe, causing huge numbers to gather on the Turkish-Greek border. Erdogan insists repeatedly that Europe has not done enough to support EU membership candidate Turkey, which hosts around 3.6 million Syrian refugees.
Relations deteriorated badly as the migrant crisis grew in 2015 and got worse still in 2016 when the EU criticized Erdogan’s crackdown after a failed coup. Erdogan in turn lambasted Brussels for failing to show solidarity with a fellow democraticallyelected leader. “Turkey’s candidacy for the European Union is good for Turkey, but it’s also good for Europe. In fact, this pandemic has proved us right,” Kalin said. According to Kalin, nearly 100 countries have asked for help from Turkey while Erdogan said on Monday supplies had reached 34 states.
‘Strategic angle’
Beyond the PR operation, “there is a strategic angle in terms of the countries that Turkey has picked to send pandemic-related assistance,” said Soner Cagaptay, of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy. When the government last week sent equipment to five Balkan countries, a region once under Ottoman rule, Turkey sought to reinforce its image as a “generous uncle,” he told AFP.
Another example is Ankara’s decision to send medical equipment to Libya where a civil war between the Turkey-backed government in Tripoli and dissident forces supported by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have wreaked havoc with the health system. “Turkey is making sure that the Tripoli government doesn’t collapse under the burden of the pandemic. It’s part of the wider clash between Turkey and the UAE-Egypt axis,” Cagaptay added.
The crisis created by COVID-19 has also offered Turkey an opportunity to extend an olive branch to countries with which it has had frosty relations for many years. Kalin on Sunday said Erdogan had thus approved the sale of drugs to Armenia. Despite tensions between the two countries, Turkey agreed to sell medical supplies to Israel, Kalin said, adding that material would also be sent to the Palestinians, for free.
Meanwhile, the Turkish parliament yesterday approved a law that allows for the release tens of thousands of prisoners as a safety measure against the coronavirus outbreak. “The draft has become law after being accepted,” the official Twitter account for the parliament’s general assembly said.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have criticized the law because detainees charged under controversial anti-terrorism laws are not included. The rights groups also have condemned the exclusion of other inmates including journalists, politicians and lawyers in pre-trial detention. This includes people jailed while awaiting a date for their trial to begin, those waiting for a formal indictment or suspects currently being tried.
Among them are businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala and Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas. Turkey launched a crackdown after a failed coup in 2016 and Demirtas is one of tens of thousands behind bars because of alleged links to outlawed Kurdish militants, or the movement led by US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen. The government accuses Gulen of ordering the attempted putsch but he strongly denies the allegation.
The law affects several types of prisoners, including pregnant women and older people with medical conditions. But it excludes murderers, sexual offenders and narcotics criminals. — AFP