It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
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Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views
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the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
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Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
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In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
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Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
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he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
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The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
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Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
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tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
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The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
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He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
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Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
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the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
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In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
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In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
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The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
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Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
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Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
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Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
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Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
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So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
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The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
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General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
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the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
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Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
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Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
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threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
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The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
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And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
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ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
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On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
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have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
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Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
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If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
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Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
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the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
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July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
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In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
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Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
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opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
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Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
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In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
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Syria crisis: Russia and China step up warning over strike - BBC News - 0 views
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Russia and China have stepped up their warnings against military intervention in Syria, with Moscow saying any such action would have "catastrophic consequences" for the region
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UN chemical weapons inspectors are due to start a second day of investigations in the suburbs of Damascus
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Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich has called on the international community to show "prudence" over the crisis and observe international law.
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Attempts to bypass the Security Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa
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US said it was postponing a meeting on Syria with Russian diplomats, citing "ongoing consultations" about alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria
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The two sides had been due to meet in The Hague on Wednesday to discuss setting up an international conference on finding a political solution to the crisis
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Western powers were rushing to conclusions about who may have used chemical weapons in Syria before UN inspectors had completed their investigation
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Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said three hospitals it supported in the Damascus area had treated about 3,600 patients with "neurotoxic symptoms", of whom 355 had died
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Earlier in the day, the UN convoy came under fire from unidentified snipers and was forced to turn back before resuming its journey
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In the most forceful US reaction yet, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday described the recent attacks in the Damascus area as a "moral obscenity
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What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of moralit
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President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable peopl
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Analysts believe the most likely US action would be sea-launched cruise missiles targeting Syrian military installations.
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some Western countries that military action against the Syrian government could be taken without a UN mandate
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Mr Lavrov said the use of force without Security Council backing would be "a crude violation of international law
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an international military response to the suspected use of chemical weapons would be possible without the backing of the UN
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The UN Security Council is divided, with Russia and China opposing military intervention and the UK and France warning that the UN could be bypassed if there was "great humanitarian need".
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if the West does not intervene to support freedom and democracy in Egypt and Syria, the Middle East will face catastrophe
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After Western powers suspected that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against the Syrian people, tensions grew against them and Russia, China, and Syria. The Eastern Powers believe that Western powers are overstepping their bounds for their need of power but the Western powers think that they need to interfere to help the people.
In West Bank, Israel revives punitive home demolitions in effort to deter Hamas - The W... - 0 views
Afternoon Map: East and West through the Ages - 0 views
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Syria allies: Why Russia, Iran and China are standing by the regime - CNN.com - 1 views
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It believes humanitarian concerns are often used an excuse for pursuing America's own political and economic interests.
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Putin's existential fear for his own survival and the survival of the repressive system that he and al-Assad represent
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not only driven by the need to preserve its naval presence in the Mediterranean, secure its energy contracts, or counter the West on 'regime change
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The West handles the Islamic world the way a monkey handles a grenade," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted
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Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. It has the power to veto Security Council resolutions against the Syrian regime and has done so repeatedly over the past two years
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Islamic Republic has provided technical help such as intelligence, communications and advice on crowd control and weapons as protests in Syria morphed into resistance
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The last thing Iran wants now is a Sunni-dominated Syria -- especially as the rebels' main supporters are Iran's Persian Gulf rivals: Qatar and Saudi Arabi
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Iran counted on Syria as its only Arab ally during its eight-year war with Iraq. Iraq was Sunni-dominate
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Many believe Iran is Washington's greatest threat in the region, especially with its nuclear potential
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Rather than siding with either Assad or the opposition and standing aside to 'wait and see,' Beijing is actively betting on both
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China said it is firmly opposed to the use of chemical weapons and supports the U.N.'s chemical weapons inspectors.
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China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. And like Russia, China has repeatedly blocked sanctions attempts against the Syrian regime
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Syria's allies, Russia, Iran, and China, all stand by them despite western powers opposing the Syrian government. There are different reasons to why these powers seem to stay with Syria such as Russia's ideologies, Iran's strategy, or China's trading. Either way, these government will stand by them until there is nothing left to lose.
Reeling from Gaza losses, Palestinians in the West Bank organise boycott | Middle East Eye - 0 views
Interactive Documentary "Points of View" Showcases Citizen Video in Gaza and the West B... - 0 views
blog.witness.org/...s-citizen-video-gaza-west-bank
interactive documentary gaza witness video citizen west bank
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Syria's Assad says West wants to weaken Russia | Reuters - 0 views
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has accused the West of trying to weaken Russia by turning Ukraine into a puppet state, a tactic he said had also been used against his own country.
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keep coming back to the fact that there is a connection between the Syrian crisis and what is happening in Ukraine
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"Firstly because both countries are important for Russia, and secondly because the goal in both cases is to weaken Russia
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The United States and the European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its role in the crisis in Ukraine.
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Russia, a long-standing ally of Assad, denies sending troops and weapons to support separatists fighting government forces in east Ukraine
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Assad will not attend, the president said those taking part should not lose sight of the main goal, clearly meaning restoring peace
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Many Syrian opposition figures shunned the January talks, saying they would appear only at meetings that led to Assad's removal from power.
Towards a Post-Apartheid Palestine: Atlas of the Israeli Settlements in the West Bank a... - 0 views
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Israeli Soldiers Accidentally Kill Army Officer While Trying to Stop Attack - The New Y... - 0 views
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Here is another perspective issued today from the New York Times; stating an Israeli soldier accidentally shot an army officer on the West Bank while they were aiming at a "Palestinian assailant trying to attack the officer." This author quotes the strife on the border as a "scene of numerous Palestinian attacks against Israelis."
What the West means by "stability" in the Middle East | Informed Comment - 0 views
Soda Stream in the occupied West Bank fired 60 Palestinian employees in an act of colle... - 0 views
eng.wac-maan.org.il/?p=1034#more-1034
soda stream west bank fired palestinian employees act collective punishment
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This film will battle a global epidemic prevalent in Egypt: sexual harassment | Egyptia... - 0 views
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perfect time to create a documentary that will analyze the causes, provide alternatives to traditional thought and document women fighting back in creative ways,” explained 22-year-old Colette Ghu
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“Because we’re both frequently in the street alone, we both experience high levels of stares daily, as well as verbal harassment,
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the United States, Latin America, Europe, South Asia- we’ve experienced various levels of sexual harassment.
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three Egyptians to reveal the extent of sexual harassment in Egypt and to get a better understanding of the issue,
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Egyptian women have reached their boiling point in recent years, and inspired by the revolution, they have become a lot more outspoken
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here remains a common misbelief in the West that Egyptian, as well as all Arab women, are oppressed.
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“When people blame victims of sexual harassment, they often argue that if only the girl was a ‘people’s girl’ then she wouldn’t get harassed. The name is also an ode to all the girls and women of Egypt.”
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Davutoglu: Failure to support democracy led to ISIL Anadolu Agency - 0 views
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The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is caused by the world's failure to support democracy in the Middle East,
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" ISIL now exists because we did not properly support the democratic transition processes in 2012, not becauseISIL is so strong or the Syrian and Iraqi people are aligned to ISIL-like radical acts."
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"We welcomed the Arab Spring when it first began to flourish as we thought the EU and the U.S. would support and finance the Middle East just as they did for the wind of democracy in the Balkans,"
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Davutoglu said countries like Poland and Romania now enjoy democracy due to finance from the EU but, he added, "no state came up to finance democracy in the Middle East."
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"Islamic communities that have a deep-rooted culture of politics have the capacity, like any other nation and religion, to both keep democracy alive and improve it,” he added. “Neither Islam nor the world of Islam can be correlated with entities like ISIL."
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Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke at the World Economic Forum about the world's lack of assistance in the transition to democracy in the Middle East and how that ultimately facilitated the birth of ISIL. He explains how a number of EU states were able to maneuver into the democratic realm with the assistance and guidance of the EU, illuminating the idea that the Middle East should be no different. Davutoglu condemns the west for abandoning Middle Eastern states in their dire time of need. While countries around the world supported the Arab Spring, they did nothing to support or finance it to success. He says it would be wrong to correlate the birth of ISIL with Islam, explaining how Islamic communities are perfectly capable of embracing democratic systems. However, assistance in its implementation is vital.
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To end Syria civil war, West must guarantee minorities' safety with peacekeeping force ... - 0 views
www.csmonitor.com/...safety-with-peacekeeping-force
civil war Syria religion minorities middle east revolution
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The facts - and a few myths - about Saudi Arabia and human rights - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...-saudi-arabia-and-human-rights
Saudi politics west misconceptions facts myths human rights Saudi Arabia
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Egypt's Sissi Urges West to Support Libya - 0 views
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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi called on the United States and Europe Thursday to help the Libyan army in its fight against Islamist militants now to save the country from requiring intervention on the scale of Iraq and Syria.
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"When we deal with terrorism only in Iraq and Syria, Libya will begin to be an attractive region affecting the stability of ... Libya and its neighbors. We will need the same measures happening in Iraq and Syria to be taken in Libya," Sissi said in an interview with France 24.
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"The international community -- Europe and the Americans -- must help the Libyan national army regain its position and combat terrorism in Libya to restore security and stability," he said.
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"If we intervened directly, I would not hesitate to announce that. But all we have done so far is to help the Libyan national army, the Libyan parliament, and the Libyan government," he said.
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Egypt is training anti-Islamist Libyan forces on its soil and sharing intelligence in a bid to stamp out militancy next door.
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"There are no Egyptian armed forces in Libya," Sissi said. "We protect our borders from inside our borders."
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Sissi calls for internationals support on fighting Islamic power in Libya.
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The Voice of America reported President Sissi's call to the US and Europe to aid the Libyan army in their fight against ISIS, saving the country from requiring intervention on the scale of Iraq and Syria. Egypt has been training anti-Islamist forced on its own soil and sending them out to fight in Libya, but they have yet to intervene directly. He calls on the international community to help prevent further Islamic insurgency for the sake of stability throughout the region as a whole.
US urges Israel to reverse appropriation of land for West Bank settlement | World news ... - 0 views
www.theguardian.com/...appropriation-land-settlements
israel appropriation land settlement West Bank
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