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mcooka

17 years after war - Yugoslavia again protesting NATO - Workers World - 0 views

www.workers.org/...goslavia-again-protesting-nato

war nato workers world

shared by mcooka on 24 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Home » Global » 17 years after war — Yugoslavia again protesting NATO 17 years after war — Yugoslavia again protesting NATO By Heather Cottin posted on March 22, 2016 Share On March 24, 1999, the U.S. led its European NATO allies in a 78-day bombing campaign targeting
  • Serbia in order to destroy Yugoslavia, the last socialist country holding out in Europe. NATO planes bombed hospitals, factories, schools, trains, television stations, bridges and homes, killing thousands of Yugoslavs.
  • n 2000, the same NATO forces destabilized what remained of Yugoslavia — the republics of Serbia and Montenegr
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • ugoslavia was an independent and relatively prosperous country. With no Soviet Union after 1991, Yugoslavia was vulnerable to the powerful imperialist countries in Western Europe and the United States, which provoked and exacerbated disputes among the various Yugoslav peoples
  • NATO’s pattern for the destruction of Libya and Syria — and also of Iraq and Afghanistan, with variations
  • cialism in Yugoslavia produced artists and intellectuals, free health care, zero unemployment, free education, excellent public transportation and advanced industrial and agricultural developmen
  • After the destruction of Milosevic and his party, neoliberal forces in Serbia and the other republics privatized the health care system, sold off the mines, and closed automobile, petroleum and other industries. Now Bosnia has an unemployment rate of 43 percent, Croatia’s is 19 percent, and tiny Kosovo’s is 45 percent. Kosovo hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Balkans, Camp Bondsteel, which protects Kosovo’s criminal government and oversees NATO control in the Balkans.
  • n the U.S. in 1999-2001, the International Action Center and Workers World Party played a leading role among those who stood firm against expanding NATO’s mayhem and slaughter in Yugoslavia.
  • mcooka on 24 Mar 16
     
    This is an article about Yugoslavia which doesn't want the interference of NATO in their lives any more. NATO and Yugoslavia gets into details about foreign policy 
atownen

Poland, courting NATO, plans to boost Middle East military involvement | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...and-nato-mideast-idUSKCN0VI1XX

poland nato middle east

shared by atownen on 10 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • atownen on 10 Feb 16
     
    Something I was suggesting yesterday during class; the idea of involving NATO w/Middle Eastern affairs would be much more efficient than the stand-alone efforts we have been taking. Poland is taking this step, but in response to Russia's support for armed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Poland hopes NATO will agree at the Warsaw summit in July to send more troops to former communist eastern Europe.
micklethwait

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News - 0 views

www.cnn.com

media cnn politics ISIS

shared by micklethwait on 05 Sep 14 - Cached
  • NEW Missing 4-year-old boy found Soldier beaten to death ... by peers   Asteroid to pass 'very close' to Earth
  • NEW NATO to create 'spearhead' force Can NATO get back to its roots? ISIS vs. Muslims: The media war What does ISIS want?   NEW Ebola
allieggg

Arab states offer to help attack Isis, diplomats say | World news | theguardian.com - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...udi-arabia-help-us-attack-isis

arab states ISIS middle east war

shared by allieggg on 15 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Several Arab states, believed to include the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, have offered to help attack Islamic State (Isis) targets in Syria and Iraq,
  • US officials declined to say which countries had offered help, but one appeared to be the UAE, whose aircraft recently bombed Islamist militia targets in Libya from bases in Egypt.
  • Saudi Arabia felt so threatened by Isis that it was prepared to act in a frontline role. "There is a very real possibility that we could have the Saudi air force bombing targets inside Syria. That is a remarkable development, and something the US would be very pleased to see."
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • direct threat to Saudi Arabia. "They actually see themselves as the real target.
  • France has indicated that it will back US air strikes against Isis after its president,
  • expressed support for the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi,
  • But Turkey, which borders on both Iraq and Syria, has quietly made clear that it would not take part or allow its bases to be used for combat operations – a disappointment coming from Nato's only Muslim membe
  • Syrian ministers have repeated calls for Damascus to join the coalition, though the US and Britain – backed by their Gulf allies – have insisted president Bashar al-Assad cannot take part because he has "lost all legitimacy" in the course of a war that has cost 200,000 lives
  • Details of how the anti-Isis campaign will be waged are still sketchy, though the US reportedly discussed basing and overflight rights at talks in Jeddah last week with the Saudis and the other Gulf states as well as Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. All expressed support for a "coordinated military campaign".
  • allieggg on 15 Sep 14
     
    Arab states have began to jump on board offering support to the coalition against ISIS. UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon have recently voiced their support. Turkey, the only Arab member of NATO has voiced their lack of support in the coalition thus far. Saudi, the home to major religious cities, feels like a direct threat to ISIS and have made it clear that they will be playing a major role in the war against the Islamic State. UAE allegedly initiated bombings from Egyptian bases on Libya due to islamic militia takeovers of major cities and institutions. Arab states along with France, Germany, and Britain have agreed to form a "coordinated military campaign." Bringing in Assad from Syria is somewhat crucial, but the coalition is hesitant due to the loss of the Assad Regime's legitimacy over the past years of civil strife. Official plans of attack are still sketchy, but are definitely in the works. The coalition of states have made it clear that in order to tackle this ISIS threat, they must band together to dynamically exterminate the Islamic State from all angles.
fcastro2

Syria keen on Russian expansion in Middle East - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...se-intervention-expansion.html

syria russia politics

shared by fcastro2 on 09 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Syria has called on its Russian ally to expand in the Middle East, by expanding its small pier in the city of Tartus and turning it into a base
  • This has coincided with Saudi Arabia leading a coalition against Ansar Allah in Yemen, with a cover by the United States
  • meeting with a group of Russian journalists March 27, and in response to a question on Damascus’ desire to see a wider Russian activity in the Middle East, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he certainly welcomes “any expansion of Russian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, precisely on the Syrian shores and ports.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Assad said: “The Russian presence in different parts of the world, including the Eastern Mediterranean and the Syrian port of Tartus, is very necessary, in order to create a sort of balance, which the world has lost after the dissolution of the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago.
  • Syrian president welcomed the Russian presence in his country and the region. “For us, the stronger this presence is in our region, the better it is for stability [in the region], because Russia is assuming an important role in world stability,”
  • Syrian nod is only a repetition of a former call made under the rule of late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who saw that the presence of a Russian military representation in Syria in the Mediterranean region contributes to the promotion of the idea of “the balance of terror” against Israel and the United States
  • The talk was, however, halted, until the last two years, when an actual need to promote Russian presence in the Mediterranean emerged in light of the reignition of the Cold War.
  • deployment of missile systems on the Mediterranean coast, as a sort of “symbolic deterrence.” The rumors were repeated as the NATO missile defense project was announced, which was supposed to be deployed in different countries, including Turkey and other countries bordering Russia
  • e US invasion of Iraq, as the US desire to change the face of the Middle East seemed free of any rational considerations. Assad made several visits to Moscow, and although this has not been publicly mentioned, Syrian diplomats and officials stressed to As-Safir that Syria expressed its desire to expand the Russian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly through Tartus, so that it turns into a military presence with limited standards
  • , Russia and Syria signed the biggest deal of its kind to explore oil in the Syrian waters, which covers a 2,190 square-kilometer surface area, and to achieve economic ambitions, namely extracting 2.5 billion barrels of oil and 8.5 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves, the oil and gas magazine said back then
  • is understandable, without neglecting the importance of other political and military issue
  • “any decision to modernize the infrastructure of the Russian Material-Technical Support Point in Tartus can only be made after a political decision is taken in this regard, in coordination with the Syrian side.” He explained that any modernization should “take into account the political and military situation in the Mediterranean region,” and therefore “it will include the promotion of all sorts of protection in the facility, including surface-to-air missiles and anti-riots weapons, and will be in coordination with the Syrian side.”
  • fcastro2 on 09 Apr 15
     
    Syria is determined to keep Russia in the loop when it comes to its presence in the Middle East. As the United States increases its presence so to those Russia and Syria claims that they encourage Russian presence solely to "keep the balance" in the Middle East. 
allieggg

What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones? - ... - 0 views

firstlook.org/...nted-save-libyans-bombs-drones

humanitarian libya civil war politics US Intervention NATO revolution

shared by allieggg on 23 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • “Libya is a reminder that sometimes it is possible to use military tools to advance humanitarian causes.”
  • intervention was a matter of upholding “universal values,” which itself advanced America’s strategic goals. In justifying the war to Americans (more than a week after it started), President Obama decreed: “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.”
  • But “turning a blind eye” to the ongoing – and now far worse – atrocities in Libya is exactly what the U.S., its war allies, and most of the humanitarian war advocates are now doing.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • “this was a rare military intervention for humanitarian reasons, and it has succeeded” and that “on rare occasions military force can advance human rights. Libya has so far been a model of such an intervention.”
  • But the most compelling reason to oppose such wars is that – even if it all could work perfectly in an ideal world and as tempting as it is to believe – humanitarianism is not what motivates the U.S. or most other governments to deploy its military in other nations.
  • As the country spun into chaos, violence, militia rule and anarchy as a direct result of the NATO intervention, they exhibited no interest whatsoever in doing anything to arrest or reverse that collapse. What happened to their deeply felt humanitarianism? Where did it go?
  • What’s most notable here isn’t how everything in Libya has gone so terribly and tragically wrong. That was painfully predictable: anyone paying even casual attention now knows that killing the Bad Dictator of the Moment (usually one the U.S. spent years supporting) achieves nothing good for the people of that country unless it’s backed by years of sustained support for rebuilding its civil institutions.
  • If there were any authenticity to the claimed humanitarianism, wouldn’t there be movements to spend large amounts of money not just to bomb Libya but also to stabilize and rebuild it? Wouldn’t there be just as much horror over the plight of Libyans now: when the needed solution is large-scale economic aid and assistance programs rather than drone deployments, blowing up buildings, and playful, sociopathic chuckling over how we came, conquered, and made The Villain die?
  • The way most war advocates instantly forgot Libya existed once that fun part was over is the strongest argument imaginable about what really motivates these actions. In the victory parade he threw for himself, Kristof said the question of “humanitarian intervention” will “arise again” and “the next time it does, let’s remember a lesson of Libya.”
  • allieggg on 23 Nov 14
     
    This article basically lays out the faults in US intervention in Libya during the fall of Gaddafi and condemns the US officials for their lack of hindsight in their agenda. The US claimed that they could not "turn a blind eye" to atrocities and human right violations in other countries and to intervene in Libya was a matter of upholding "universal values." After the successful ousting of Gaddafi, the US hypocritically turned their back on the country as a whole, leaving them to pick up the pieces and re-build themselves in the midst of socio-political and economic chaos. The US claims that military intervention is sometimes necessary to address human right violations, but in the case of Libya more violations have occurred as a result of a fallen regime rather than because of its reign. The author basically says that the US should have predicted that short-term intervention strategies achieves nothing without years of sustained support for rebuilding the civil institutions. 
fcastro2

Are China and Russia Moving toward a Formal Alliance? | The Diplomat - 0 views

thediplomat.com/...oving-toward-a-formal-alliance

china russia alliance politics

shared by fcastro2 on 04 Feb 15 - No Cached
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 04 Feb 15
       
      Why is this relationship forming now? Ukraine Crisis, they want a multipolar world, China/Japan dispute, & Russia and the NATO expansions. 
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 04 Feb 15
       
      Advocates for China-Russian alliance. Shared strategic interests and possible length of this alliance, U.S. and its Allies threat to Russia leaves in no choice but to side with China, but may lead to another cold war.
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 04 Feb 15
       
      Opponents of China-Russian Alliance. China could be dragged to war by Russia, Russian's unwillingness to be a junior to China, Russia wants good relations with ALL Asian countries. They believe this alliance is unrealistic and a strategic partnership is more reasonable. 
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  • In the joint statement issued by China and Russia, the main message is that China-Russia relations have reached a new stage of comprehensive strategic partnership and this will help increase both countries’ international status and influence, thus contributing to a more just international order
  • China secures a long-term (30 years) provision of natural gas from Russia and Russia can reduce its dependence on the European markets as well as strengthen Russia’s position against Western sanctions
  • Russia is now moving closer to China’s side with regard to the territorial disputes between China and Japan
  • China and Russia last week vetoed a draft UN resolution to send Syria to the International Criminal Court for war crimes. China and Russia had vetoed three previous UNSC resolutions condemning Syria
  • China and Russia signed a huge natural gas deal that is worth about $400 billion.
  • China and Russia will deepen cooperation under the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building in Asia (CICA), a new security framework in Asia-Pacific that conveniently excludes the U.S. and Japan.
  • , the main trigger is the recent Ukraine crisis that has seriously damaged Russia-West relations
  • mutual strategic needs as both China and Russia want to create a multipolar world that is not dominated by the U.S., particularly as China faces threats from the US-led alliance in Asia
  • China’s chance of winning maritime disputes with Japan partly depends on maintaining a good relationship with Russia
  • the NATO expansion is a serious threat to Russia’s national security and as such Russia has to fight back
  • new China-Russia alliance is now emerging and this will eventually lead to a multi-polar world order.
  • problems in China-Russia relations such as historical mistrust, the lack of a common threat, and conflicting interests in Central Asia
  • he most important factor determining whether China and Russia should form an alliance is whether the two countries have shared strategic interests and how long such shared strategic interests can last
  • China nor Russia could become a member of the Western bloc led by the U.S. because other allies of the U.S. would feel threatened by China and Russia
  • thus Russia has no better alternative to siding with China
  • , China’s number two position in the world means that China will not be supported by the U.S. with regard to most international affairs issues
  • Yan also refutes the argument that a China-Russia alliance against the U.S. would lead to another cold war.
  • ould be potentially high costs of such an alliance due to common problems such as fears of abandonment and entrapment
  • U.S. militarily threatens both China and Russia at the same time
  • Russia is unwilling to be China’s junior partner in the relationship
  • Russia wants to maintain good relations with all Asian states and thus will not side with China when it comes to territorial disputes between China and Japan
  • China-Russia alliance is unrealistic and a strategic partnership is more flexible and better for China.
  • seems that in the near future a formal alliance between China and Russia will not happen due to a variety of reasons.
  • China could be dragged into an unnecessary war by Russia
  • , a formal alliance will not occur
mwrightc

Nato commander: Isis 'spreading like cancer' among refugees | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...isis-nato-commander-terrorists

violence ISIS refugees cancer

shared by mwrightc on 02 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • mwrightc on 02 Mar 16
     
    US general Philip Breedlove is worried that the Syrian Refugees who are being dispersed throughout Europe and to the United States are causing the terror group of ISIS to "spread like cancer". He blames the Russian bombing in the name of Assad for causing this because civilians are forced to leave their land and are further pushed toward no other choice but joining ISIS.
fcastro2

UN, Russia take lead in Syria diplomacy - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...n-russia-syrian-diplomacy.html

shared by fcastro2 on 28 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Egypt on Feb. 9-10 signals a “new phase” in Russian diplomacy in the Middle East.
  • Despite deteriorating ties with the United States and NATO countries over Ukraine, Maxim Suchkov writes, "Russia is anything but isolated, while Europe is no longer the promised land for the state that seeks recognition of its global influence."
  • Egypt and Russia have “shared positions on a number of regional issues; closely aligned interests (particularly on fighting international terrorism); a successful track record of bilateral cooperation on various fronts; and a strong personal bond of trust between respective leaders.”
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Egypt’s leadership has grown frustrated with US admonitions and criticisms of its governance record, and from Cairo’s perspective, bewildering discussions of conditions on US military aid
  • Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is hardly ready to ditch his country’s long-standing ties to the United States, the prospect of Russian arms and assistance could prove a useful complement to what some in Cairo consider more uncertain US support, especially as Egypt faces an ongoing terrorist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.
  • Naumkin adds th
  • Russia also considers Egypt an ally in its efforts to broker a political settlement in Syria
  • as a result of the Russian president’s visit to Cairo, the parties might agree to pool their forces in the context of a Syrian settlement.
  • It might be understandable for some analysts to dismiss the Moscow conference, given the diplomatic false starts over four years in a conflict that has left more than 150,000 dead, 7.6 million displaced, 3.2 million refugees, 12.2 million in need of humanitarian assistance and at least 680,000 injured, according to the United Nations.
  • Syrian opposition figures were not allowed to participate in the Jan. 26-29 Moscow conference as representatives of opposition parties, such as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (SOC), the leading umbrella group based in Turkey
  • The absence of the SOC and other representatives of the external opposition no doubt limited the potential impact of the conference,
  • Participants agreed to an 11-point list of “Moscow Principles” and a four-point “Appeal to the International Community” affirming the need to fight terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State (IS), rejecting outside interference and calling for increased humanitarian aid, while agreeing to meet again in a month’s time.
  • acknowledged the possibility for other organizations to play a role in future talks
  • Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vigorously supported the law, claiming its passage is essential in defending democracy
  •  “Success tempted the AKP, prompting it to revert back to its Islamism and initiate a much more ambitious narrative of building a new regional order, and even a new global order. Meanwhile, Erdogan turned into an unquestionable leader who is not limited by facts and creates his own facts, as envisioned by his Islamist ideology and extraordinary intuition. In the eyes of his hard-core supporters, he is not a mere political leader who formulates pragmatic policies. He is a total leader who redefines everything.”
fcastro2

Turkey says training of Syrian rebels to begin on March 1 - 0 views

www.todayszaman.com/o-begin-on-march-1_373816.html

turkey training ISIS syria politics US

shared by fcastro2 on 01 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • A program to train and equip moderate syrian rebels will get under way on March 1, the Turkish Foreign Ministry
  • Tanju Bilgiç, came after Turkey and the us recently announced the signing of a long-anticipated deal to train and equip the rebels.
  • some 2,000 Syrian rebels will be trained and equipped in Turkey within a year as part of the program
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • The agreement comes at a time when fighting has escalated between rebels and the Syrian regime in and around Aleppo and talks of a cease-fire in the northern province are taking place.
  • Turkey was one of the three countries that publicly said it was ready to open its territory for the training of the Syrian rebels.
  • US had earlier said it was considering initially dispatching at least 400 troops to train the rebels outside of Syria
  • We have been saying for a long time that the international community has the responsibility to support the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which is recognized by 114 countries and the groups related to the coalition,” said Çavuşoğlu, adding that the training agreement is an important step taken within this framework.
  • “England is also carrying out similar training [programs] in Libya. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have also announced that they will be hosting a train-and-equip program,”
  • The deal between Ankara and Washington is a positive development between the two long-standing allies, despite strains over Middle Eastern policy. Turkey wants President Bashar al-Assad's departure to be the focus in Syria, while Washington's priority remains battling ISIL insurgents.
  • The NATO ally has also has been facing backlash for its reluctance to join the US-led coalition efforts to eliminate ISIL, feeding speculation that this reluctance stems from some Turkish officials being ideologically close to the terrorist group.
  • Turkish authorities have strongly condemned the terrorist acts of ISIL militants and say these actions have nothing to do with Islam.
  • fcastro2 on 01 Mar 15
     
    Turkey has announced that, along with the US, they will be training some 2,000 Syrian rebels. Tensions have been rising between Syria and Turkey ever since Turkey went into Syria to retrieve a historical figure and relocate him but they are hoping this move will calm the tensions between the two states. 
rlindse3

The history of cyber attacks - a timeline - 0 views

www.nato.int/...index.htm

shared by rlindse3 on 23 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • rlindse3 on 23 Feb 15
     
    This article gives a full timeline of the development of cybersecurity and warfare since 1998. It provides a scope of how important cyber warfare has become as a global weapon.
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...factional-chaos-it-should-come

shared by wmulnea on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • 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
  • Benghazi is again a battlefield.
  • The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
  • Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
  • the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
  • 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
  • In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
  • 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.
  • Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
  • The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
  • tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
  • The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
  • He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
  • which might have given militiamen jobs
  • Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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
  • Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
  • Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
  • 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
  • Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
  • So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
  • 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.
  • Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
  • General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
  • the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
  • Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
  • Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
  • 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.
  • Yusuf Dawar
  • 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
  • And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
  • 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.
  • Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
  • oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
  • The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
  • The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
  • Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
  • Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
  • Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
  • In Fashloum
  • residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
  • “No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
  • Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
  • Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
  • On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
  • The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
  • the Western powers
  • have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
  • Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
  • Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
  • Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
  • 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
  • The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
  • 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
  • Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
  • The old divisions still matter
  • 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
  • Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
  • 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
  • opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
  • 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.
  • In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
blantonjack

How serious is the ISIL threat in Libya? - 1 views

www.aljazeera.com/...eat-libya-160222081244640.html

ISIS Libya war Al Qaeda

shared by blantonjack on 24 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • blantonjack on 24 Feb 16
     
    The recent US air strike on a building in the western Libyan city of Sabrata, which killed more than 40 suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters, highlights the growing expansion and danger of the group in Libya. Both ISIL and Gaddafi loyalists share the belief that the new political leaders in Libya are "agents of the West" brought to power by NATO. Sirte has become the first stronghold that ISIL totally controls outside of Iraq and Syria, and it is reportedly home to the group's strongest presence within Libya. For the Western powers to combat this, means many military airstrikes as well as working with Libyan forces to provide intelligence of the whereabouts of the ISIL powers
ralph0

From the Levant to Libya, This Is How You Beat ISIS - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...this-is-how-you-beat-isis.html

libya isis gaddafi NATO usa fight

shared by ralph0 on 07 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 07 Mar 16
     
    What a waste of space. All this article says is that, "we must fight ISIS in a way that divides them." It is however my first read that has been about ISIS in Libya, since I was originally more focused on Syria. I would like to see how that turns out, especially since the US is to responsible for this in my opinion. I want to see if the US will wash its hands of this conflict after killing Gaddafi, or if there will be real attempts to stop ISIS in Libya.
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