{"id":199829,"date":"2019-12-27T08:08:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T08:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=199829"},"modified":"2019-12-30T09:00:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T09:00:24","slug":"mercenaries-flock-to-libya-raising-fears-of-prolonged-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=199829","title":{"rendered":"Mercenaries flock to Libya raising fears of prolonged war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction \u2013 Dec 26, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Two men walk past graffiti painted on a wall in Tripoli that pays homage to the so-called “Manchester Fighters”, in reference to a group of Libyans, many of them resident in the UK, who were aided by the British security services to join the rebels fighting against late Libyan leader Gaddafi. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

What follows is nothing less than a whitewash. Indeed, it no exaggeration to say that it is revisionist history masquerading as journalism.<\/h5>\n
Crucially it omits any mention of the fact that the UK, the US and France, played key roles in toppling President Gaddafi. This involved<\/a><\/span> launching more than 110 Tomahawk missiles at regime targets while French warplanes struck pro-Gaddafi forces.<\/h5>\n
Under such sustained bombardment it was only a matter of time before Gaddafi\u2019s forces buckled and the Western-backed rebels prevailed. Thereafter chaos ensued and in the years that followed Libyans had good reason to lament Gaddafi’s overthrow.<\/h5>\n
As we commented in \u2018War weary Libyans miss life under Gaddafi<\/span><\/a>\u2019:<\/h5>\n
Life under Gaddafi may not have been perfect but it was certainly a better than it is now. For under Gaddafi, Libya could boast one of the best healthcare services in the Middle East and Africa and to cap it all medical treatment was free as was electricity.<\/h5>\n
Before Gaddafi came to power only 25% of Libyans were literate. By the 21st century that figure had grown to 87% literacy with all education also free<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
On top of that Libya had its own national bank, which provided Libyans with loans at zero per cent interest. Indeed that may have been the prime reason for Gaddafi’s overthrow. Because even while the rebels were struggling to oust the Libyan autocrat plans were in motion to establish a new Central Bank of Libya<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
Indeed, before the Western backed Libyan rebels murdered Gaddafi moves were underway to set up a Rothschild styled Central Bank of Libya<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
The following Guardian report makes no mention of any of this. Not once does it refer to the pivotal roles played by the UK, US and French forces in toppling Gaddafi. Nor did this happen so long ago that we might have forgotten. That’s where the Guardian comes in with what is essentially revisionist history.<\/h5>\n
Indeed, I would suggest that the Guardian doesn’t refer to the West’s role in Gaddafi’s overthrow because it wants to erase it from the collective memeory.<\/h5>\n
Gaddafi was ousted less than a decade ago and the West is directly responsible for the chaos that followed. However, you wouldn\u2019t think so from reading the following. For while it refers to \u201cRussian and Sudanese mercenaries\u201d nowhere does it mention how the West was instrumental in creating the current chaos in Libya. Ed.<\/h5>\n

Mercenaries flock to Libya raising fears of prolonged war<\/h2>\n

Jason Burke and Zeinab Mohammed \u2013 The Guardian Dec 24, 2019<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Libyan National Army fighters leaving Benghazi to reinforce troops advancing to Tripoli last April. Photograph: Esam Al-Fetori. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

A new wave of mercenaries from Sudan<\/a> is fighting in Libya, deepening concerns that the conflict in the north African state has descended into an intractable international war that could destabilise much of the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leaders of two different groups of Sudanese fighters active in Libya<\/a> have told the Guardian that they had received hundreds of new recruits in recent months. Both groups were fighting with the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by General Khalifa Haftar against the internationally recognised government in Tripoli.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of young men [are coming] \u2026 we even do not have the capacity to accommodate these big numbers,\u201d said one commander who is based in the south of Libya.<\/span><\/p>\n

The commanders said that there are at least 3,000 Sudanese mercenaries now fighting in Libya, significantly more than most previous estimates.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this month the UN said the interference of fighters from Sudan in Libya was a direct threat to the security of the war-torn country. A UN panel of experts said in a 376-page report to the security council that the presence of the Sudanese has become more marked in 2019 and may lead to further instability<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Libya has been in turmoil since a civil war in 2011 <\/strong><\/span><\/a>toppled Muammar Gaddafi, who was later killed. In the chaos that followed, the country was divided, with a weak UN-supported administration in Tripoli overseeing the country\u2019s west and a rival government in the east aligned with Hafter\u2019s LNA, each supported by an array of militias and foreign governments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hafter launched a surprise military offensive in April aimed at capturing Tripoli<\/strong><\/span><\/a> but the offensive stalled, leaving both sides dug in and shelling one another along the city\u2019s southern reaches with increasingly sophisticated weapons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this month Hafter, 76, said that his forces were preparing for a \u201cdecisive battle\u201d<\/strong> <\/a><\/span>to take full control of the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the LNA and the eastern government enjoy the support of France, Russia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and other key Arab countries, the Tripoli-based government is backed by Italy, Turkey and Qatar.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates routinely and sometimes blatantly supplied weapons, with little effort to disguise the source\u201d in violation of a UN arms embargo, the recent report said. But \u201cneither side has the military capability to effectively decide the outcome to their advantage\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The LNA have also been reinforced by Russian mercenaries in recent months.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the biggest Sudanese groups based in Libya once fought in Darfur, the restive western region of Sudan, in a series of insurgencies against militia and troops sent by the repressive regime in Khartoum.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Sudanese mercenary commanders said the new wave of recruits included many who had fought against the rule of Omar al-Bashir, who was deposed in April when Sudan\u2019s military withdrew their support<\/strong><\/span><\/a> after months of popular protests.<\/span><\/p>\n

One said that many had been recruited in Darfur in recent months while others had travelled from there to Libya to enlist.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the commanders interviewed said they hoped to return to Sudan to fight against the current transitional government, installed after al-Bashir\u2019s fall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know that we are mercenaries and we are not fighting with honour and dignity \u2026. but this is temporary, we will go back home after we are done with our mission here,\u201d one said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another commander said that fighting as mercenaries in Libya was the only way to obtain resources necessary to fight the Sudanese state in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said he had not expected al-Bashir to be ousted but, though the veteran dictator\u2019s fall had \u201cchanged the political equation\u201d, the new transitional government in Khartoum was not different from the previous regime.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t believe that Omar Al-Bashir is gone. We are now in Libya \u2026 but there are other battles awaiting for us in Sudan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another high-ranking Sudanese mercenary based near Tripoli told the Guardian that they had \u201cno timetable\u201d for leaving Libya but that any stay was temporary.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are there just to have a secure base and to get weapons and other military logistics to go back to Sudan,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jalel Harchaoui, an expert in Libya at the <\/strong><\/span><\/a>Clingendael<\/a> Institution in the Hague<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, said that the new influx of recruits could be a significant destabilising factor in the long term.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe younger people are coming in to earn money. It could be one year, two years or more but eventually the conflict will cool off. At some point they will start to return home [to Sudan],\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are also claims that a large contingent of Sudanese fighters from the feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were deployed to Libya on the request of Hafter.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most recent UN report said that a thousand Sudanese troops from the RSF, which has been accused of major atrocities earlier this year and in Darfur, were deployed to Libya on 25 July 2019 by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, a warlord turned senior official also known as Hemedt<\/strong><\/span>i<\/a>. The Sudanese mercenaries are also involved in smuggling and other activities.<\/span><\/p>\n

One commander said he helped smuggle migrants hoping to travel to Europe across the frontier between Sudan and Libya, and the hostile desert.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know when the militants have nothing to do, they have to work, so they sometimes smuggle people,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tim Eaton, a Libya expert at Chatham House, London, said mercenaries were known to extort money from smugglers and from migrants.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis usually means raising \u2018taxes\u2019 by either facilitating or impeding them,\u201d Eaton said.<\/span><\/p>\n

One Sudanese commander said that the his troops played a crucial role in \u201cliberating\u201d the oilfields seized by Hafter\u2019s forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

The claim is corroborated by previous reports from the UN panel of experts which said Sudanese mercenaries helped the LNA secure the country\u2019s strategic \u201coil crescent\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWithout our help, they would not be able to liberate it, we contributed to 50% of the military work there,\u201d he told the Guardian.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the Guardian is rewriting history with what amounts to a whitewash of the Western role in Libya <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,42,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199829"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199875,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199829\/revisions\/199875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}