Investigation: UAE militias get Libya in a severe crisis of instability

On the eighth anniversary of the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and his regime in Libya in 2011, the reality of the country clearly shows that it is on the edge of a crisis of instability caused by several external interventions led by the armed militias of the UAE.

The reality of Libya shows the lack of serious indicators that suggest that the Libyans will reach the stage of the state, despite the rotation of seven UN envoys to mediate between the conflicting parties to reach a solution.

The reasons behind the absence of the solution are difficult to distribute fairly between the inside and outside: the weakness of the state’s culture, the absence of the parties and the tribal structure which is predominant in this country, the Gaddafi responsibility for the political desertification and the proliferation of weapons in hundreds of militias and separatist tendencies in the east and south, especially those of the UAE.

In addition, Libya has been dealt with as a sphere of influence, a mere wall to repel the refugees coming from Africa to Europe, an oil well and not as a country or a state.

Qadhafi’s bloody regime was replaced by chaos, war, sedition, corruption and division, if not officially, by the external intervention, especially by the UAE.

The Libyans succeeded to implement the first parliamentary elections in 2012, and the appointment of an interim government, but that political success was threatened by the deteriorating security conditions on the background of the proliferation of weapons and the beginning of the formation of armed groups on the basis of the militia.

The General National Congress, the parliament, was unable to integrate the armed groups into the security services and the army. This helped to break armed conflicts on more than one occasion and for months between the different militias, in conjunction with the appearance of separatist prejudices that appeared in the demands of the federalist autonomy of the independence of eastern Libya, and the establishment of the political office of the province of Barqa in September 2013 and an attempt to sell oil through the port of Sidra in his favor, before the international parties can block the oil tanker “Morning Glory” and return to Libyan ports.

Libya’s most prominent political and military stalemate may have been the launch of a military operation known as Operation Karama in Benghazi in April 2014.

The crisis of Hafar is not only in its appearance, but also coincides with the announcement of the results of the second parliamentary elections held in August of the same year. The supporters of Haftar succeeded to gather of parliament members in the city of Tobruk in the east, making the parliament a political arm earned Haftar political and legitimate support and granted the marshal rank. This happened with regional support from the Emirates and Egypt regionally, and internationally from France and Russia.

Libya has since entered into a major political split with two governments and two parliamentarians because of the refusal of political and armed elements in Tripoli to recognize the Parliament of Haftar. They returned the National Congress, the first elected parliament after the revolution, to the forefront, especially after the Supreme Court ruled that the parliament was not constitutionally in Tobruk despite the opponents of Haftar control on Tripoli and most areas of the Libyan west.

However, Haftar was able to expand his control outside Benghazi, starting with the Crescent Petroleum area, then Derna, and finally to the south of Libya, which made him an important figure in any settlement.

At the same time, the UN mission has shifted from providing support to the role of mediator between the conflicting parties and culminated in signing a political agreement in the Moroccan city of Skhirat by the end of 2015, resulted the Government of National Accord and the High Council of State alongside the parliament in Tobruk, which stalled months for the approval of the constitutionalization of the political agreement and adoption of a basic law.

This state of division and disagreement has exacerbated the security vacuum, the accumulation of arms and the emergence of local armed militias with multiple loyalties and objectives, fighting each other for regional, tribal and possibly personal reasons. The smuggling of arms and human trafficking was the activity of most of them, but the most dangerous of them are international organizations, especially the Al-Qaeda and Isis organizations.

While Isis is in more than one region, its power has increased and announced the establishment of its capital in Sirte for more than a year Government of National Accord was able to expel them with international assistance. Southern tribes have entered into the Hafar conflict by investing historical differences between them.

Different ideologies were also involved in the wars when the Salafi militias joined the Hafar forces to fight those who opposed them in certain beliefs and called them Kharijites. Fighters of extremist organizations such as the base in some areas of the south belong to this group.

The closest scenario to the logic is the stalemate of the situation and the continuation of the crisis in its current political and military form, with the United Nations continuing efforts to reach solutions waiting for an international consensus on a unified vision of the solution.

The UAE has intervened in Libya militarily since 2011 and supported the “counterterrorism operation” under the name of the “Karama” operation launched by retired general Khalifa Haftar in May 2014, which constituted an important turning point in the UAE’s position on Libyan politics.

The UAE Air Force participated for the first time in the fierce battles between the parties to the Libyan conflict, in order to control the capital Tripoli, knowing that the aircraft launched from Egyptian soil. Abu Dhabi has targeted the Islamic alliance “Dawn of Libya.”

Few months after the operation, UEA lunched air raid, by special forces, most of its members are Emiratis, targeted an “Islamic” camp in Darna. The attack was condemned by the USA and European countries.