TRIPOLI: Libya’s unity government has bitterly criticised France for its stand in the offensive on Tripoli by the forces of Khalifa Haftar, accusing Paris at least tacitly of backing the military strongman.
Last week, unity government interior minister Fathi Bach Agha charged that France was supporting “the criminal Haftar”, and announced the GNA was cutting security ties with Paris. His comments triggered surprise, and a swift denial from the French embassy that the allegations were “unfounded”.
But while France’s role remains ambiguous, analysts say Paris sees Haftar and his self-style Libyan National Army as a potential stabilising force in a country rocked by years of conflict.
Haftar’s forces in early April launched their assault on Tripoli, seat of the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord, pledging to clear the capital of “mercenaries and terrorists”.
“Since 2016 the GNA has made no headway in addressing the problems it was meant to solve first, i.e. breaking the vice grip of the militias over Tripoli, containing extremism, and stopping the free-fall of the Libyan economy,” former US diplomat Ethan Chorin said.
Haftar, on the other hand, “has proven he can create order from chaos — but at a high cost, in terms of human rights and freedom of expression,” he said. Haftar is seen by his allies, who also include Russia and Libya’s eastern neighbour Egypt, as a bulwark against militants who gained a foothold after the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed Muammar Gaddafi.
A Gaddafi-era military commander who spent two decades in exile in the United States, he returned to Libya in March 2011 and later brought together a coalition of armed factions to battle the militants.
France, hit by a string of IS group attacks, backed Haftar’s forces as they battled IS and other militants in Libya.
Jalel Harchoui, a Libya specialist at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague, said France backed Haftar’s efforts with “military advisers on Libyan soil, who provide assistance with training, surveillance and targeting of strikes.”
France was forced to admit that it has provided military assistance to Haftar after three French troops were killed in Libya during an intelligence-gathering mission in 2016.
Eventually, it was a coalition of armed groups under GNA command that ousted IS from its bastion, Gaddafi’s hometown Sirte, on the coast between Tripoli and Haftar’s eastern stronghold. But Haftar’s own successes against militant groups earned him admirers in Paris, where officials worried about the regional impact of Gaddafi’s fall. — AFP
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