http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/28/miltiamen-blockade-foreign-ministry-want-foreign-minister-abdulaziz-replaced-and-closure-of-libyan-embassies-in-moscow-belgrade/
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/28/attack-on-french-embassy-is-terrorism-we-wont-have-our-arms-twisted-zeidan/
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/28/zeidan-refutes-chads-accusation-of-libya-training-armed-opposition-forces/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/28/libya-mali-islamist-violence-tripoli
Miltiamen blockade Foreign Ministry; demand Foreign Minister be replaced, Moscow embassy closed
Standoff outside the Foreign Ministry
Tripoli, 28 April 2103:
Militiamen from Misrtata, Suq Al-Juma and Tajoura surrounded the ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tripoli’s Shara Al-Shatt this morning, preventing staff from entering the buildings. They also blocked roads around the buildings with “technicals” – vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft guns.
They said they were doing so in support of the Political Isolation Law which, if approved by Congress, would ban thousands of Qaddafi-era from holding office.
Claiming that staff at Foreign Ministry had continued to work for the Qaddafi regime until 19 August 2011 and that a number of current ambassadors were former regime figures, they demanded a new Minister of Foreign Affairs be appointed to replace Mohamed Abdelaziz and the closure of Libyan embassies in Russia, Serbia and a number of other countries which they say had not supported the revolution.
In a statement listing their demands, they claimed that Abdelaziz had not implemented the GNC’s decision removing all existing Libyan ambassadors abroad appointed by the former Jibril and Kib administrations, that he was giving excuses for not doing so, and that he had extended the terms of office of several of them.
They also alleged that after Ali Al-Aujali had decided at the end of December not to take up the Prime Minister’s offer of the foreign ministry post, Ali Zeidan had arbitrarily appointed International Cooperation Minister Abdelaziz without Congressional approval.
They demanded that the two ministries be formally united and a new minister appointed, that the government comply with the Congress’ demands about removing all ambassadors appointed or confirmed in post by former interim governments and that the present one should annul any appointments by Abdulaziz that had not been endorsed by the Integrity Commission.
Libya should close a number of its embassies in Africa, Europe and Latin America, the statement read, or at least serve them from elsewhere.
Russia and Serbia were the only places where the Thuwar said embassies should be shut. They also said that they should close in all countries that had not backed the revolution until most of the country had been liberated.
When contacted, the Prime Minister’s office said that it had had “hundreds of telephone calls” about the Foreign Ministry siege but had no further information. The Foreign Minister was himself at the Prime Ministry, it said.
There was some confusion among the militiamen outside the Foreign Ministry this morning.
Some told the Libya Herald that they would be heading on to the Congress building and to the Interior Ministry, again in support of the Isolation Law, but did not know when or where they would be going first.
At the beginning of last month, militiamen forced their way into a meeting of Congress and tried to force members into passing the law.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/28/attack-on-french-embassy-is-terrorism-we-wont-have-our-arms-twisted-zeidan/
Attack on French embassy is terrorism. We won’t have our arms twisted – Zeidan
By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 28 April 2013:
At today’s much delayed evening press conference, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan described the attack on the French embassy as an act of “terror”.
Zeidan, appearing with the Deputy Head of the GNC, Salah Makhzum, went on say that the attack on the French embassy through a car bomb last week “was an attack on all Libya”.
We won’t have our arms twisted
“They want to stop the formation of the Libyan state”, he said, and insisted that “we won’t be stopped on our road empowered with the legitimacy of the GNC. We won’t have our arms twisted” he added sending a message to the militias that were surrounding the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today as much as to the terrorists that attacked the French embassy.
Zeidan went on to express his determination to push forward through “democracy, the ballot box, respecting citizen’s rights and human rights based on an Islamic foundation”.
Diplomats and embassies “could go home”
He warned that embassies and diplomats “could go home. There are some who want to frighten foreigners and embassies”, he stressed.
“I call on all citizens to stand in solidarity with the GNC and government. There could have been tens of deaths of Libyan families living next to the embassy”, he pointed out.
French forces prevented “massacre of Benghazi”
He reminded all that foreign embassies were in Libya “by invitation from Libya”. He reminded Libyans of 19th April 2011 “when French forces came at the right time to prevent a massacre of Benghazi”.
Zeidan insisted that Libya wants good relations with its European neighbours. “We want friendship with our European neighbours for health, study and shopping”.
Barricade of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by armed militias
Regarding this morning’s barricade of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by armed militias, Zeidan admitted and warned that “if this was to continue it would not be good. It is not good for companies, not good for embassies, not good for visas and for those who are ill and need visas”.
The budget is ready to be activated to Ministries this week
Zeidan, as is usually the case when there is a crisis, appealed to the general public. “I ask the people to stand by us”, he pleaded. “The budget is ready to be activated to Ministries this week to restart the projects, the rebuilding and to rebuild all that was destroyed during the war”.
The news of the budget will be welcomed by both Libyans and foreign companies and diplomats alike.
Deaths caused by clashes in the Ajilat region
Referring to the deaths caused by clashes in the Ajilat region, about 90 km west of Tripoli, Zeidan, as usual for his government, sent two mixed messages.
He first preambled about his government’s desire not to spill further Libyan blood by firing at demonstrators – even if they were armed militias. Then he proceeded to warn them of the full force of the government.
He said that he was determined to deal with the Ajilat incident. He insisted that his government will “deal with those who think they want to commit criminal acts; they should know they will have to deal with official forces”.
“A day may come when we might have to take action”, he warned, not for the first time and in a non specific and unthreatening way.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/28/zeidan-refutes-chads-accusation-of-libya-training-armed-opposition-forces/
Zeidan refutes Chad’s accusation of Libya training armed opposition forces
By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 28 April 2013:
Prime Minister Ali Zeidan responded robustly to the accusation by Chad’s President Idriss Deby that his government was training armed members of the opposition in Libya to carry out a coup d’état in Chad.
Speaking at this evening’s press conference, Zeidan said that “I talked with the Charge d’affairs of Chad and I called and talked to the President of Chad today and told him we have no interest in interfering in our neighbours’ affairs”.
“This was a practice of the old regime”, Zeidan insisted, referring to Qaddafi’s practice of interference in the affairs of many African states.
“If there are groups within Libya that are outside the law, we will deal with them. We are not a land for exporting revolutions to other states. We are prepared to hand them back to Chad – if they exist”, Zeidan added.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/28/libya-mali-islamist-violence-tripoli
Libya faces growing Islamist threat
Exclusive: Diplomats warn that militants squeezed out of Mali by western intervention are hitting targets in Tripoli
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Libyan security personnel gather outside the French embassy in Tripoli following a car bomb blast last week. Photograph: Xinhua/Landov/Barcroft Media
Diplomats are warning of growing Islamist violence against western targets in Libya as blowback from the war in Mali, following last week'sattack on the French embassy in Tripoli.
The bomb blast that wrecked much of the embassy is seen as a reprisal by Libyan militants for the decision by Paris the day before to extend its military mission against fellow jihadists in Mali.
The Guardian has learned that jihadist groups ejected from their Timbuktu stronghold have moved north, crossing the Sahara through Algeria and Niger to Libya, fuelling a growing Islamist insurgency.
"There are established links between groups in both Mali and Libya – we know there are established routes," said a western diplomat in Tripoli. "There is an anxiety among the political class here that Mali is blowing back on them."
That anxiety escalated last week after militants detonated a car bomb outside the French embassy, wounding two French guards and a Libyan student, the first such attack on a western target in the Libyan capital since the end of the 2011 Arab spring revolution.
"The armed groups we are fighting are fleeing to Libya," said Colonel Keba Sangare, commander of Mali's army garrison in Timbuktu. "We have captured Libyans in this region, as well as Algerians, Nigerians, French and other European dual-nationals."
France sent troops to Mali in January after an uprising in the north started by the ethnic Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA), named for the independent state it hopes to create.
The impetus for this uprising came from ethnic Tuareg soldiers who had fought alongside Muammar Gaddafi and fled south when his regime fell. They were later augmented by jihadists from Libya and across northAfrica, who triggered international condemnation for their destruction of ancient Sufi Muslim shrines in Timbuktu. The fear across the Maghreb is that the French operation that has pushed them out of the northern cities has inadvertently compounded problems elsewhere in north Africa as jihadist units disperse.
"If you squeeze a balloon in one part, it bulges out in another," said Bill Lawrence, of International Crisis Group, a political consultancy. "There's no question that the French actions in Mali had the effect of squeezing that balloon towards Algeria and Libya."
Timbuktu residents say there are links between Tuareg militants there and in southern Libya. "There were many Tuaregs in Mali who left during the drought of 1973 – some of them became senior figures in the Libyan army under Gaddafi," said Mahaman Touré, 53. "I personally know a local Tuareg who became a general under Gaddafi and was here with the jihadists. Now they have all gone back to Libya."
Diplomats say jihadists cross the Sahara to join cadres in Libya's eastern coastal cities of Benghazi and Derna. Police stations in both cities have been hit by bombings in the past few days, part of an insurgency that threatens to undermine the country's fragile new democracy. Chad's president, Idriss Déby, claimed at the weekend that Benghazi was now home to training camps for Chadian rebel fighters.
"From the perspective of an Islamist, it makes sense," said Dr Berny Sèbe, an expert on the Sahara region from Birmingham University. "If you are in northern Mali, the best thing that you can do is to make your way across Niger and then into southern Libya, where there is no state control."
Eastern Libya has long been a base for Islamists, who launched an unsuccessful uprising against Gaddafi in the 1990s. Their units reappeared in the uprising two years ago, and while many have integrated with government forces, others are campaigning for a state ruled by clerics rather than secular politicians. Benghazi has become a virtual no-go area for foreigners following attacks on the British, Italian and Tunisian consulates, the fire-bombing of an Egyptian Coptic church and the killing of US ambassador Chris Stevens in September when militants overran the American consulate. The bombing in Tripoli indicates that terrorism has now spread to the capital.
"Libya suffers this Mali blowback in two ways," said a diplomat in Tripoli. "First there are the fighters arriving here, second there are units carrying out attacks in support of their brothers [in Mali]."
The result is not only being felt in Libya. In January, units from al-Qaida in the Maghreb, an Algerian-based al-Qaida offshoot, struck the In Amenas gas plant, killing 38 hostages, in what they said was retaliation for the France's Mali offensive.
Ordinary Libyans are suffering. Watching French police investigators sifting through the mangled wreckage outside the abandoned embassy, neighbour Emad Tillisy, a Tripoli businessman, shook his head. "This is so bad for Libya," he said. "It is the worst message we can send out to the world. We need to have foreigners coming here for business, to build our country, but after this [bombing] they say 'no thanks, have a nice day'."
Libya's efforts to tackle the militants are restricted by the distrust felt by much of the population for government security units, many of them drawn from former Gaddafi-era formations. Twin rocket attacks on oil and gas pipelines earlier this month south of Benghazi have meanwhile sent a shudder through Libya's oil industry, almost its only export earner.
Libya has already piled resources into cutting the jihadist flow of men and weapons over its southern border, declaring its entire desert region a "free fire zone" for patrolling jets. In the south-west, work has now finished on a 108-mile trench cut through the desert to deter smugglers crossing into Libya.
But experts say the Libyans face a herculean task. "To ensure that these borders are completely sealed off is impossible – we are talking about desert areas with mountains and very narrow valleys," said Sèbe.
Libya's prime minister, Ali Zaidan, has vowed to launch a clear-out of militias in Benghazi, but many wonder if he has enough reliable units for the job.
In December Washington provided drones and an Orion electronic warfare aircraft to support government units arresting jihadist suspects in Benghazi. It is now delivering border surveillance equipment to Libya and setting up a base for drones in Niger, from where it can monitor both Mali and Libya.
This policy has its critics, who say experience in Afghanistan and Iraq shows military action works only when coupled with a political process that ensures the grievances of all sections of the population are met, denying militants popular support. "A drone-only approach to intelligence gathering can backfire," said Lawrence. "There's always bad guys who may blow up buildings – the question is what sea are they swimming in? The priority should be the support of a legitimate government that reflects the aspirations of all elements of Libyan society."
The rise of Islamism in north Africa has spawned a galaxy of competing jihadist organisations, with alliances as fluid as the borders they cross. The units that staged the northern Mali uprising were drawn from both Libyan Tuareg fighters and jihadists, despite the fact that they fought on opposite sides in Libya's civil war. "For me, they are all the same – the Islamists and the MNLA," said Ahamadou Tahir, who was attacked by militants while delivering medical supplies 60 miles north of Timbuktu. "They all have guns and they all want to cause us harm."
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