A major escalation of the Libyan war has commenced. On Monday 1st July, Libyan National Army (LNA) Commander Mohamed Manfour announced the beginning of a new aerial bombardment campaign after "traditional means" to "liberate Tripoli" had been exhausted. Rumours...
“The West” is much divided over what should happen in Libya. This is particularly true for France and Italy, who each have vast oil and gas economic interests and are increasingly at odds with one another. While admittedly the US and UK have an eye on their potential...
“Resounding flop” was the verdict of Italy’s former prime minister Matteo Renzi on this week’s Libya peace conference held in Palermo. He’s not wrong. The conference hosted by Italy’s new government achieved the remarkable feat of making Libya’s tensions worse, not...
Politics attracts psychopaths like honey attracts bears. Questions of morality are irrelevant for today’s politicians, along with questions of principle, honor and integrity -- things frequently written about by the great thinkers of the 20th Century, particularly...
Sometime late next year, possibly as early as September, news crews will gather in Afghanistan for a unique event: To interview an American serviceman or woman who was not born when the war they are fighting began. He or she will not remember 9/11, and will have grown...
Winston Churchill said all there is to say about political summits with his quote: “Jaw jaw is better than war war.” That is the thing to bear in mind when examining the rights and wrongs of the The Trump-Putin summit: Two leaders of two of the world’s most powerful...
To underscore the dire situation in Libya and the extent to which extremists will go, on Wednesday at around noon two huge explosions occurred at the HNEC, the Higher National Election Commission's HQ, in Tripoli, killing over 15 people and wounding many more. The...
The British government has never been more unpopular amongst the British people. It’s being crushed by problems entirely of its own making and undone by its own neglect and incompetence over a disastrously handled Brexit, crippling austerity measures, a general public...
Two weeks ago Interpol issued a Red Notice for the Libyan National Army "Saiqa" Special Forces Major, Mahmoud Werfalli. According to the notice, Werfalli is "wanted by the Judicial Authorities of the International Criminal Court."As to the Werfalla case, the Libya...
The approaching seventh anniversary of the "Libyan revolution," (where the celebratory date was last week arbitrarily moved to the 18th of February -- a bit like moving the 4th of July to the 8th) under what a majority of Libyans feel is an illegitimate, solely UN...
Continuing from my OpEd of the 11th January entitled "Libya Update: Power Struggles Continue - Will the UN Get its Way?", dramatic further evidence of my assessment came in the form of reports of intense fighting that started over the weekend and dramatically...
On Wednesday a former distinguished US State Department official who has now switched jobs to work for the UN, Jeffery Feltman, as Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, arrived in Tripoli. His visit came as the UN’s efforts to implement the Libyan Political...
In poker, smart players know that the best thing to do with a weak hand is dump it. Not so the United Nations. Libya is doubling down on backing the failing Government of National Accord (GNA), hoping that by reopening its UN base in the capital, the previously...
If there was a prize for the world’s most ineffective institution, the International Criminal Court would win hands down.Consider this: The court has been in operation for fifteen years, has spent over a billion Euros, and has convicted just four war criminals. Yes,...
More than six years after the US-led "liberation" of Libya, that North African country remains an open wound symbolizing the abject failure of US and European interventionist foreign policy.The obsession of the US neocons, whether Democrat or Republican, for "regime...
Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army, has stated that former Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi's son, Saif Islam, "is free and in a safe place." Haftar further said he welcomed the idea of the younger Gaddafi playing some sort of political role...
The struggle for power from the ruins of Libya is likely to get even uglier, and what is becoming decidedly more noticeable is the role of other interfering states who are betting on one side or another in the game for the prize that is Libya.The latest international...
Saif Gaddafi at a press conference last week.The International Criminal Court has demanded that Libya hand over former leader Muamar Gaddafi's son Saif after his release by an armed militia last week, but it is the Court, not Saif, which should be on trial.One word...
Politically dramatic news emerged on Saturday 10th June when it was announced that Saif Al-Islam, was freed from Zintan and had arrived in eastern Libya, to Al-Bayda. This is a very significant turn of events on the ground politically in so many different ways. One of...
On the 3rd of June, Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) gained its most significant strategic military victory in the southern part of the country which now means that almost two thirds of Libya is under Haftar's LNA control. This may prove to be a game...
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