Libya news of note ..... Militias still calling the shots.....
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/06/13/34848/
Qatar Airways suspends Benghazi flights
By Maha Ellawati and Aimen Eljali.
Qatar Airways suspends flights to Benghazi
Benghazi/Tripoli.
Qatar Airways has suspended flights between Benghazi and Doha following an incident yesterday at Benghazi’s Benina Airport when protestors prevented non-Libyan passengers arriving from Doha from going through passport control. Said to be mostly Bangladeshis, they were forced to fly back to Qatar. Libyan passengers heading to Doha were also reported prevented from flying.
According to a member of Benghazi Local Council who did not want to be named, the protestors were members of the Ezzedine Al-Waqwaq brigade. He said they accused Qatar of interfering in Libya’s internal affairs and threatened to shoot at Qatar Airways aircraft if they flew in again. The Libya Herald has also been told that the pilot of the plane was personally told not to fly in again.
Al-Waqwaq is prominent federalist linked to Cyrenaica Military Council. He lives near the airport.
Speaking on TV, another councillor, Garah Al-Khafifa, called for rapid intervention from the army and police to ensure the airport’s safety.
The head of the airport, Jamal Al Aqali, has said that the protestors were unarmed. He was also quoted in some of the local media as saying that his administration did not know who the protestors were but that the suspension would continue until security in the airport was assured.
Qatar Airways has confirmed to the Libya Herald that the service is suspended but says it is “for commercial reasons”. A source at the airlines said that all passengers had been informed of the situation and that alternative flights had been found.
The local councillor said that the council was looking for a solution to the problem.
Qatar Airways has been operating four flights a week between Benghazi and Doha. It launched the service in November 2011. At the beginning of this month it announced that was increasing capacity on its Tripoli-Doha route by making it non-stop, dropping the stopover in Alexandria.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/06/14/benghazi-slaughter-hrw-condemns-official-inaction/
Benghazi slaughter: HRW condemns official inaction
By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 14 June 2013:
It should not have taken the deaths of 32 people in Benghazi for the government and the General National Congress to have finally decided to act against illegal militias, said Human Rights Watch today.
“Whether or not the government’s investigation can determine who fired the first shot, what matters here is the authorities’ complete failure to provide basic protection to its own people,” said Eric Goldstein, HRW’s MENA deputy director. “That failure drove scores of citizens to take matters into their own hands.”
HRW also warned that the Prosecutor-General’s investigation ordered by the GNC, should hold accountable all those responsible for violence and killings. Moreover the enquiry needed to find out why government forces did not intervene in the raging battle until dozens of people had already been killed.
According to HRW, eye witnesses it had interviewed gave conflicting reports of how the incident began and developed.
One said members of the Benghazi-based Bargathi tribe had gone to the Libya Shield 1 Brigade base in the Kweifieh area, to demand its closure, and to file a grievance against one militia member, who they accused of abusing residents.
HRW reported: “Witnesses said the delegation met with the commander of the brigade, Wissam Bin Hamid. After the Bargathi delegation left the camp, demonstrators threw stones at the militia, which fired warning shots to disperse the crowd.”
Other people at the scene told HRW that only a small number of the protestors was armed whereas the members of the brigade had a considerable number of weapons.
Khalil Areiq, a field commander of the Libya Shield 1 Brigade, insisted to HRW that he saw one person throw two homemade explosives, known locally as ‘Gelatina’, toward the base, and that this provoked a response. He acknowledged the militia then used heavy weapons, including antiaircraft weapons, against the demonstrators, but claimed the protesters also used machine guns. Another member of the brigade claimed that he had seen members of the Libyan special forces in the crowd of demonstrators.
Said Goldstein: “The government needs to end the impunity for militia abuses that prompted this demonstration in the first place. Its incoherent policy toward militias endangers any prospects for the rule of law.”
He added: “Libya’s government should make it unequivocally clear it can and is willing to prevent tragedies such as the one in Benghazi. It shouldn’t take the death of 32 citizens for the authorities to wake up and act.”
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/06/14/bomb-at-libya-hurra-tv-station-in-benghazi/
Bomb at Libya Hurra TV station in Benghazi
By Ayman Amzein.
Benghazi, 14 June, 2013:
A bomb exploded outside the Libya Hurra (Free Libya) internet TV station in Benghazi early this morning. No one was injured in the attack which occurred around 1 am in the city’s Hadayeq district, but there was some damage to buildings and at least one car parked in the street.
Reports indicate that the device was home-made, possibly a gelatina.
The reason for the attack is as yet unknown. Nor it is clear whether there is any link to the deadly protests against the Libya Shield forces on Saturday which left 31 dead.
The station was founded by Mohamed Nabbous at the start of the revolution but he was shot dead by A Qaddafi sniper a month later.
It is now closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood which is strongly opposed to the federalists.
Qatar " regime change "
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/14/regime_change_qatar
Regime Change in Qatar
Knee-deep in Syria's civil war and surrounded by family quarrels, Qatar's emir is looking to hand over the country to his 33-year-old son.
BY SIMON HENDERSON | JUNE 14, 2013
Which country is most actively throwing its weight around in Syria and Egypt? It's not the United States (population: 316 million) or Iran, Saudi Arabia, or even Russia. Rather, it's the small Persian Gulf state of Qatar (population: 2 million). In Syria, Qatar is showering money and arms on anti-Assad militia groups and is competing with Saudi Arabia as the opposition's primary patron. It is also the largest funder by far of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy's government, providing $5 billion-plus in loans -- without the conditions for reforms that the International Monetary Fund would have demanded.
More...
Why is Qatar so involved in Egypt and Syria? Good question. Part of the answer is certainly because, in the absence of the United States, Qatar perceives a vacuum -- and therefore a new opportunity to raise its international profile.
Qatari foreign policy has been based on the whims -- or more politely, the vision -- of Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, who is currently serving as prime minister and foreign minister. The two leaders' personalized control has produced a decisiveness lacking in their larger allies. On a visit to Doha, the Qatari capital, in March 2011, at the time of the international intervention in Libya, a Qatari friend laughed as he showed me a cartoon in London's the Independent, depicting a fighter jet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and then French President Nicolas Sarkozy fighting over the controls, while U.S. President Barack Obama dozed in the back seat ("leading from behind"). Riding the aircraft's nose was the Qatari emir, holding up his finger to see which way the wind was blowing. The caption of the cartoon, which you would never get away with in the United States, was "FU-2 Infighter Jet."
But now, the team that has overseen Qatar's growth into a regional powerhouse is changing. Arab and Western diplomats reported this week that Emir Hamad, 61, is soon going to replace the prime minister with his son, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Tamim, and would then abdicate power himself in favor of Tamim. The news prompted an almost audible "OMG" across major world capitals, and among Qatar's neighbors -- a novice leader at a time of tension and great flux, after all, seems enormously risky.
Why now? One thought is that Emir Hamad's health has taken a turn for the worse. He is said to have only one functioning kidney -- though it is not known whether it is his own or a transplant he received in 1997. If one compares a 2009 photograph of him with Obama in New York City with one taken in the Oval Office this April, it is clear he has lost a prodigious amount of weight. A Qatari friend denies there is a health issue, claiming instead that this is a well-planned transition for which Tamim has been groomed for several years.
Transitions in Qatar rarely go smoothly. Emir Hamad himself seized power from his father in 1995 while the latter was at a sanatorium in Switzerland. Indeed, it is hard to identify a trouble-free change in power in the last 100 years. Over those years, there have been roughly eight transitions -- the exact number depends on your definition of "transition" -- but all are based on the theme of forced abdication. The result is a history of family antagonisms within the Al Thani clan, which numbers at least several thousand.
Qatar is not a democracy -- the Thanis are the country's only real political constituency. But clan unity has been strained since Emir Hamad's deposition of his father, whose own elevation in 1972 upset parts of the family because he was seen as outmaneuvering a rival. Family members are said to bear grudges and have long memories. Tamim will be forced to navigate this snake pit while many veteran political hands closely watch how the young emir performs.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article178893.html
Emir of Qatar forced by Washington to surrender throne
According to the Lebanese daily As-Safir, the announcement by the Emir of Qatar that he is passing the reigns to his son Tamim was not prompted by the illness of the prince, but by U.S. pressure.
The United States seemingly "discovered" the micro-monarchy’s secret machinations involving jihadists in Syria, as well as a number of illegal financial transactions. Washington allegedly forced the monarch to resign, together with his prime minister, and imposed the choice of his son Tamim to succeed him.
The handover of power will take place in early August and will profoundly change the regional order: Qatar has been the financier of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the war against Syria.
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