Faiez Serraj, Libya’s internationally recognized Prime Minister backed down yesterday from sacking Fathi Bashagha, his powerful Misratan Interior Minister. The humiliating climbdown came in the form of an official decree (584) yesterday by Serraj, lifting Bashagha’s ‘‘temporary suspension’’.
Nine years after the start of the Libyan revolution and the overthrow and death of Muammar Gaddafi, his 48-year-old son Saif al-Islam is still the only one member of the family who retains influence and political ambitions, trying to return to power. Despite the escalation of armed conflict between the forces of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord and General Khalifa Haftar, both sides shared a hostile position towards the colonel’s son. While Haftar considered Saif al-Islam “the poor boy on whom some naive people are betting,” Faiz Sarraj is confident that he should be extradited to the International Criminal Court. The latter accuses Gaddafi’s son of committing war crimes against the rebels.
Police in North Macedonia have arrested three men on suspicion of planning attacks in the country and have seized a large number of weapons in raids in five locations in the country’s north.
More than 300 flights arrived in Libya’s east from Syria over six months in breach of an arms embargo, UN report says.
Moscow flew hundreds of military flights into Libya in breach of an arms embargo, as it stepped up its logistical support for a shadowy Russian private military contractor accused of committing war crimes in the North African country, a UN report said.
The Libyan National Army (LNA) under the leadership of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar confirmed locking its control over Libya’s southern areas, and broadcast video footage on Wednesday showing military units patrolling Libya’s southwest
West Africa’s Sahel region has become the latest scene of jihadist in-fighting, after Islamic State group (IS) revealed it is engaged in fierce clashes with al-Qaeda militants in Mali and Burkina Faso.
Russia has stepped up its logistic support for private military contractor Wagner Group in Libya with some 338 military cargo flights from Syria in the nine months to July 31 to aid Wagner fighters backing eastern-based Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
A U.S. report said the presence of thousands of Syrian mercenaries sent by Turkey to Libya to fight on the side of the U.N.-supported government was likely to degrade security and generate backlash from the Libyan public.
The maritime agreement between Turkey and Libya is Ankara’s “red line” in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said Wednesday.
On July 24, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined thousands of worshippers in the streets around the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul for a doubly symbolic moment. Surrounded by a swarm of politicians, soldiers, security forces and imams, the Turkish leader made his way into the giant, former Byzantine cathedral through doors once hammered open by conquering Ottoman soldiers in 1453. Inside, he read out the namaz, or Muslim prayer, formally turning the 1,500-year-old building back into a mosque.