The one-day of talks in Ghademis on Wednesday, which UNSMIL presided over, represented a third round of talks, this time in Libya.
Still, the fact remains that this round and the two preceding rounds of one-sided talks in Geneva in January, sponsored by United Nations Special Envoy Bernadino Leon achieved nothing. Indeed, Tripoli’s the Dawn coalition and other Libyan actors refused to attend, despite a false claim by UNSMIL that all disputing parties would participate.
More worrying is the lack of transparency regarding UN actions and their secret meetings, this time not in Turkey but also in Switzerland.
It is being reported that Leon held a ‘secret’ meeting during the Geneva talks with a Libyan ‘bad guy’ list of Muslim Brotherhood and former Al Qaeda-type characters who had assembled in Montreux, including Abdulhakim Belhadj, Khalid Sharif, Abdul Basset Abuheliqa, Abdulrahman Swehli and the prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamad Sawan.
This goof by Leon could cost all Libyans their future. The ripple effects of the West’s miscalculated actions are moving beyond Libya to as far as Ukraine and Russia. That the vortex that is Libya is spreading to the Ukrainian crisis is telling of what the future holds.
Misurata politician Abdul Rahman Swehli went to Ukraine to get arms from the Kiev government. His talks occurred almost simultaneously with Tobruk’s House of Representatives’ ‘roving ambassador’ Mohamed Abdulaziz’s visit to Moscow.
Already, Russia is assisting the Tobruk government and specifically General Khalifa Haftar with indirect support from Egypt with Russian weapons. With the General National Congress attempting to buy military equipment from Ukraine, the separatist battle lines drawn in Eastern Ukraine now expands to the Libyan theatre.
Imagine a scenario where Ukrainian arms going to the GNC end up in the control of Daesh (IS).
The ripple effects of the West’s miscalculated actions are moving beyond Libya
The Libyan drama is also moving politically into clashing trajectories.
Aref Ali Nayed, the Libyan Ambassador to the UAE, and Mahmud Jibril, founder of the National Forces Alliance and former president of the National Transitional Council, are both making moves, one assumes, towards a presidential or prime minister’s post in any future reconciliation government.
Both Nayed and Jibril were in Davos during the UN shenanigans in Geneva. Importantly, Nayed is working with the Washington DC-based Sanitas International, a strategic communications firm. He is actively documenting, along with others, Daesh (IS) activity in Libya to build up the case for a possible foreign intervention to wipe out Daesh (IS).
However, it is highly likely that Nayed will be strongly reprimanded by his government in Tobruk for his unauthorised utterances given his position is that of only ambassador to UAE.
As far as Haftar is concerned, though speculation exists that he is at odds with politicians in Tobruk and that he has political ambition, both probably being true, it is safe to say that his place in the military chain of command still means his boss is Prime Minister Abdullah al Thinni. One can only speculate if and how long that will last.
The former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Abdulhakim Belhadj, is also angling for a top position in Libya’s future. He is said to be paying millions of dollars to a PR firm, attaining a top slot in a number of European media interviews.
Ironically, Belhadj targeting Europe with his vision for a new Libya in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings does not play well with those in the West who consider him as a former terrorist.
The Islamic State mercantilist attempts to seize oil fields and territory in Libya is based on the Levantine model. In January alone, IS launched the Corinthia hotel attack that also killed an American and a Frenchman and, previous to that, they abducted 21 Coptic Egyptians in the coastal city of Sirte and have beheaded journalists near the eastern Libyan city of Derna.
Then, IS captured temporarily the Al-Mabruk oil field.
Are they collaborating with elements from the Dawn coalition?
That IS in Libya is galvanising Islamists tied to Libya Dawn can be seen in the actions of the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room in the wake of the fiery execution of Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh by Daesh (IS).
LROR posted online support for IS by justifying retaliation for “US war crimes” in Iraq. That the Tripoli-based militia is supportive of anti-Western, pro-IS norms signals the clear evolution of violent extremism in Libya. Clearly, Libyan and Western interests are being targeted in the hope that ‘the Crusaders’ will be drawn into Libya for a bloody, epic fight.
A joint statement by the governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK as well as the United States, calling for the end of attacks against Libyan oil fields, was issued a few days ago in what appears to be the first formal recognition of the rise of the Islamic State in Libya.
Thus, the Islamic State is also upping its game in Libya. That big sucking sound you hear is a sinkhole where the geopolitical tectonic plates are pulling in the international community and regional players into Libya in future.
BBC Arabic reported recently that the Tobruk government is likely to announce a general amnesty. That might destabilise the Dawn coalition. Let’s hope so because the sooner the important town of Misurata switches sides, the better off Libya will be.
Richard Galustian is a security analyst.