In early April, Libya’s Khalifa Hafter attacked the capital city of
Tripoli. While he was known to have designs on taking more power, it was
not generally believed that he had the military assets in his
self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA). So where did they come from?
Unsurprisingly, it looks like a UN’s ban on arms imports to Libya was
once again not particularly effective. Flight data showed a pair of
specific cargo planes making trips to LNA-held military bases in early April in an attempt to be very covert.
The planes are owned by Reem Travel,
a UAE-Kazakh company, and those planes had made a series of trips
between Israel, Jordan, and Egypt before they ended up in Hafter
territory, dropping off a large number of crates.
It’s not clear what was in the crates, but the planes in question turned
off their transponders as soon as they entered Libyan airspace,
apparently to try to avoid UN oversight of the sanctions. Satellite
images showed two planes at LNA bases,.
Hafter’s forces don’t seem to have been conscious of this being covert
either, issuing a video showing one of the cargo planes on the ground at
their Tamanhant base, near Benghazi, with a large number of 64kg crates
being removed via forklift.
Egypt and the UAE are both openly backing Hafter to take over Libya.
Saudi Arabia is also endorsing Hafter, and reportedly paid Hafter for
the Tripoli attack. Though Hafter has a known history of working with
the CIA, the Trump Administration initially was not advocating the
Tripoli attack, though a call from the Saudis quickly changed Trump’s
mind, and he’s now praising Hafter.
If you cannot beat him, oraise him. US project of installing UN “internationally recognized” government has failed so miserably and embarassingly, so the alpearance of being chummy with the man US tried to sideline — is a must.
Before you point finger to Saudi-Trump influence, remember it all started by Heftar’s meeting on Russian ship. And Egypt-Russia military ties. Once the general conquered our former allies in Benghazi, and move on swiftly to consolidate allies throughout Libya — he found more friends. Kep in mind Saudi-Russian military relations, and UAE just does someone’s bidding. Before Khashogi, it was US, after Khashogi and MbS consolidating rule — it is back to taking orders from Saudis.
The “Seven Sisters” of oil do not care whether the government of Libya is democratic or dictatorial. It must be predictable/reliable. That is why they support Hafter. Qaddafi had to go not because he was dictatorial but because he was too fickle. Although our government is involved in the promotion of Haftar we will eventually learn that the French governments are his strongest supporters. The French oil companies have long wanted to get in on the Libyan oil riches. Under Qaddafi they were shunned by Libya.
Who will enforce the UN ban on weapons imports? Not the ones violating the ban, nor their allies. Let us remember this the next time someone screams for war over the violation of UN resolutions.