FT:

West fears push by Haftar’s Russian-backed ‘army’ will wreck UN accord

 

 

HEBA SALEH — CAIRO

 

AFP/Getty

 

 

War-weary Libyans should have had reason to hope after Isis was finally pushed out of its stronghold of Sirte and the country doubled its oil production. But a renegade general who appears ever closer to Russia is putting the rare progress at risk as he seeks to expand his territory in the north African state.

 

Tensions have escalated as General Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army, which controls eastern Libya, has pushed southwards, clashing with militias from the western city of Misurata who are loyal to the UN backed government and led the fight against Isis in Sirte. This month, LNA warplanes attacked a southern air base controlled by the Misurata forces.

 

Diplomats and analysts warn the violence threatens to reignite civil war, allow jihadis to regroup and jeopardise the Opec member’s oil production, which this month hit 750,000 barrels a day, up from 300,000 barrels in September. The Misurata militias finally drove Isis out of the coastal city of Sirte in December after a long battle, supported by US air strikes.

 

“The LNA’s push south is very provocative and very dangerous,” says a western diplomat. “There is a mainstream view in Misurata that having defeated Isis at Sirte at huge cost, they will not facilitate a campaign to establish a military dictatorship under Haftar.”

 

Western diplomats deem Gen Haftar to be the chief obstacle to the implementation of a UN-brokered accord that aims to unify the country under the Tripoli-based government and a presidential council headed by Fayez al-Sarraj. But in a further sign of Moscow’s attempt to expand its influence across the Middle East, Gen Haftar was recently invited aboard a Russian aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, from where he held a video conference with Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister.

 

The general, who says he is against Islamists of all hues, also enjoys backing from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which share his hostility to groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

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