Wednesday 15 March 2017

LIBYA STRONGMAN LAUNCHES OFFENSIVE ON OIL TERMINALS: SPOKESMAN & MORE



Libya strongman launches offensive on oil terminals: spokesman

AFP

A general view shows an oil refinery in Libya's northern town of Ras Lanuf on January 11, 2017

A general view shows an oil refinery in Libya's northern town of Ras Lanuf on January 11, 2017 (AFP Photo/Abdullah DOMA)
Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - Troops commanded by Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar launched an assault on Tuesday to seize two of the country's key eastern oil terminals, a spokesman said.
"Ground, sea and air forces launched joint attacks to liberate Ras Lanuf from terrorist groups," Khalifa al-Abidi said after orders were issued early Tuesday for the offensive, which is also targeting the nearby Al-Sidra oil terminal.
Both sites were seized by a rival, Islamist-led force earlier this month.
Libya has experienced years of violence and lawlessness since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival parliaments and governments trading barbs and militias fighting over territory and a share of the country's vast oil wealth.
In September, pro-Haftar forces captured Ras Lanuf, Al-Sidra and two other eastern oil ports in a blow to the authority of the UN-backed unity government in Tripoli.
Haftar backs a rival administration in the country's far east that has refused to cede power to the Government of National Accord (GNA) since it started working last year.
The UN-supported GNA has struggled to assert control since its installation in the capital a year ago.
The GNA has denied having any connection to the takeover of Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra.
Fresh fighting also erupted Tuesday between rival armed groups in Tripoli, authorities there said.
Gunfire and explosions could be heard in two neighbourhoods west of the city centre, witnesses said, and several key thoroughfares were blocked, leaving many trapped in their homes.
It was not immediately clear who was involved in the Tripoli clashes.


Libya Guard Chief Urges International Protection for Oil Ports

Saleh Sarrar
Bloomberg
The head of Libya’s Petroleum Facilities Guard, a force affiliated with the United Nations-backed government, called for a no-fly zone to protect critical oil installations, as fighting threatens to escalate in the holder of Africa’s largest crude reserves.
Idries Bu Khamada said he has asked the Presidency Council, led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, to approach allies about barring aircraft from flying over the Gulf of Sirte, home to Es Sider, Libya’s largest export terminal for oil, and Ras Lanuf, its biggest refinery. “They need international protection,” Bu Khamada said by phone.
The media office of Serraj’s council said eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar had been targeting the oil facilities since Sunday, including through airstrikes. Haftar’s forces were ousted from both Es Sider and Ras Lanuf this month, when the victorious militia handed control of the terminals to the oil guard. Since then, armed men from the east and west have been converging in the area.
Seven PFG members were killed on Monday and a technical workshop in Ras Lanuf was damaged by Haftar’s planes, according to the recently appointed Bu Khamada. If the international community doesn’t intervene, there’s a risk of damage to oil tanks, he said.
“Shelling and bombardment is intensive,” he said by phone late Monday. On Tuesday, Arabiya reported that Haftar’s Libyan National Army had launched an operation to regain control of Ras Lanuf. It wasn’t immediately possible to reach the LNA for comment.
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More than a year after a UN-mediated peace deal meant to unite the nation and end years of conflict and economic ruin that followed the ousting of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya remains deeply divided. Killings, kidnapping and smuggling are common in a country awash with guns.
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East Libyan forces recapture oil ports

By Ayman al-Warfalli
Reuters
By Ayman al-Warfalli
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - East Libyan forces said they had regained control on Tuesday of the major oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider from a rival faction that seized them earlier this month and were pursuing their opponents into the desert.
Ahmed al-Mismari, spokesman for the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), said fighters from the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) were retreating toward the coastal town of Harawa, more than 100 km (60 miles) west of Es Sider and to Jufra, their desert base nearly 300 km to the south.
Air strikes were being carried out against BDB positions in Jufra late on Tuesday, an air force official said.
Footage and photos showed LNA troops posing around the ports, and a resident in Ras Lanuf confirmed that they had entered the town that adjoins the oil port and refinery following clashes and air strikes.
A statement by a media outlet aligned with the BDB said the group's fighters were still stationed in the area.
The fighting for control of the ports in Libya's Oil Crescent, a strip of coast southwest of Benghazi, has raised fears of an escalation of violence in the country and a reversal for the OPEC member state's efforts to revive its oil output.
The LNA and the BDB are on opposite sides in a stop-start conflict between factions based in eastern and western Libya that erupted in 2014, leaving Libya with rival governments.
Negotiations to strike a political deal between the two sides have so far failed, and the renewal of fighting could harden the east-west split.
Akram Buhaliqa, an LNA commander in the nearby city of Ajdabiya, said ground, air and naval forces had been deployed in Tuesday's offensive. The LNA said 10 of its troops had been killed and 18 wounded in the fighting. No casualty figures for the BDB were available.
The LNA took control of the Oil Crescent ports in September, ending a long blockade in the area. It handed the ports to the National Oil Corporation (NOC) in Tripoli, allowing it to more than double Libya's oil production.
The BDB's advance caught the LNA off guard and eastern factions reacted angrily, accusing a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli of supporting their rivals.
Mismari suggested that this time a handover to the NOC in Tripoli was not guaranteed, saying a decision on who would receive the ports would be made later and that the head of an eastern, breakaway NOC, Naji al-Maghrabi, would inspect them.
The statement came as a letter surfaced in which Maghrabi said he could no longer comply with a unification deal agreed last year with NOC Tripoli, partly because of the failure to move the NOC's headquarters to Benghazi.
Eastern factions have tried to sell oil independently of Tripoli in the past, but have been blocked by international sanctions that are still in place.
Since the BDB overran Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, Libya's national oil output has dipped again from about 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 600,000 bpd due to a disruption of operations at the ports.
The ports are two of the largest in Libya, with a combined potential capacity of about 600,000 bpd, but both were badly damaged in previous rounds of fighting and were operating at a fraction of pre-conflict levels.
The LNA retained control of Brega and Zueitina, the two ports closest to Benghazi.
The United Nations said on Tuesday the latest fighting around the Oil Crescent had been marked by human rights violations including unlawful killings and arbitrary detentions.
(Additional reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar in London and Aidan Lewis in Tunis; Editing by Gareth Jones, Toni Reinhold)
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