Libya's Crisis: A Shattered Airport, Two Parliaments, Many Factions
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
U.S. officials say Egypt and the United Arab Emirates launched airstrikes on Libya over the weekend. They're said to have attacked locations held by Libyan Islamist factions. Libya has been in chaos since the U.S. backed ouster of dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. There is a very weak central government. The country is mainly run by a patch work of militias. Now with the alleged bombing by Egypt and the U.A.E., it looks like regional powers are taking sides. NPR's Leila Fadel reports from Cairo.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Libya is divided into two broad camps - an Islamists backed umbrella group call Libya Dawn and its opponents, led by a renegade general in the East named Khalifa Hifter. And that overarching battle parallels the power struggle being fought around the Middle East. Anti-Islamist governments like Egypt and the United Arab Emirates support the self-declared anti-Islamist forces led by Hifter. They see Hifter as fighting Islamists connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, which they're clamping down on at home. Claudia Gazzini is the Libya researcher at the International Crisis Group. We contacted her in Rome.
CLAUDIA GAZZINI: We see in the battle that is being fought out in Libya between these two broad coalitions, a battle that is already being fought out regionally.
FADEL: But outsiders choosing sides, Gazzini says, might just make things worse.
GAZZINI: There's the risk that regional actors step in their support for one side or the other. And this could complicate a solution to Libya's problems at the moment. Reversely, you know, an imploded Libya - a Libya where war drags on will have security implications for its neighbors.
FADEL: The newly appointed U.N. envoy to Libya has warned against foreign intervention. And U.S. officials quoted in the New York Times called the airstrikes supposedly carried out by the U.A.E. and Egypt not constructive. Egypt has denied involvement, and the U.A.E. has not publicly commented. Although, an Emirati state newspaper printed a statement that said claims of Emiratis being behind the strikes is a diversion from Libya's thirst for stability and its fight against Islamists.
On a visit to Cairo, Libya's newly appointed Chief of Staff, Col. Abdel Razzak Nadhuri, a Hifter ally, said in a press conference that Egypt had promised to support the Libyan army in its fight.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ABDEL RAZZAK NADHURI: (Speaking foreign language).
FADEL: He says Egypt's president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, made that promise, adding that Libya's fight is a fight against extremists and only when the fight is done can Libya's true revolutionaries find a solution.
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SAMEH SHOUKRY: (Speaking Arabic).
FADEL: Egypt's Foreign Minister said his country supports, quote, "legitimate bodies in Libya." But that's the big question. What are the legitimate bodies in Libya? Right now there are two parliaments, a newly elected body which convened in the eastern city of Tobruk, a stronghold for Hifter's anti-Islamist forces. That's the one Egypt is backing.
And then there's the old Parliament which reconvened in Tripoli Monday, a city now controlled by Libya Dawn, and elected a new prime minister. Libya Dawn, the Islamist backed umbrella group, calls the new parliament and its allies counterrevolutionaries trying to hijack Libya and work against democracy. While Hifter's forces and the new Parliament, call Libya Dawn terrorists and extremists.
Again, Claudia Gazzini of the International Crisis Group.
GAZZINI: At the moment, we're seeing the violence localized to Tripoli and the surrounding area and to the far East. So violence has not spilled over in the rest of Libya.
FADEL: She says that while a solution must come from within Libya, the international community can try and stem the violence by ending supplies of new weapons to the country because the weapons don't end up in the hands of a government, but in the hands of rival militias. For now, fractured militias are joining one side or the other in this polarized fight that may lead to civil war, a prospect that alarms neighboring countries who worry that then the violence will spill over. Leila Fadel, NPR News, Cairo.
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