TRIPOLI: The United Nations Libya mission said late on Thursday it was concerned about reports of forces mobilizing in Tripoli and threats of force to resolve a crisis over control of the central bank.
The mission’s deputy head, Stephanie Koury, told the UN Security Council on Monday that the political and military situations in Libya had deteriorated rapidly over the previous two months, including a series of mobilizations by armed factions.
“The display of military power and armed confrontations in densely populated neighborhoods is unacceptable and threatens the lives and security of civilians,” the mission said in its Thursday statement.
The latest round of tensions emerged after efforts by political factions to oust the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) head Sadiq Al-Kabir, with rival armed factions mobilizing on each side. Libya, a major oil producer on the Mediterranean, has had little stability since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising. The country split in 2014 between warring eastern and western factions, eventually drawing in Russian and Turkish backing.
Major fighting paused with a ceasefire in 2020 but efforts to end the political crisis have failed, leaving major factions in place, occasionally joining in armed clashes, and competing for control over Libya’s substantial economic resources.
The country’s political leaders are drawn from bodies elected a decade or more ago, or installed during periodic international peacemaking efforts to oversee repeated failed transitions. Diplomacy aimed at national elections to replace all Libya’s political bodies has stalled.
Eastern Libya, where the parliament sits, is controlled by commander Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA).
Tripoli and the northwest, where the internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) and most major state institutions are based, is home to rival armed factions that have repeatedly fought. In late July and early August rival groups in northwest Libya mobilized against each other, while the LNA moved a force into southwest Libya, prompting fears of east-west fighting.
Meanwhile there is stalemate in the High State Council, one of the internationally recognized legislative bodies, after a contested vote over its leadership. The eastern-based House of Representatives parliament has also renewed calls to unseat the GNU and Presidency Council.
Tensions over control of the central bank were increased after Presidency Council head Mohammed Al-Menfi issued a decision to replace Kabir and the board, a move rejected by the parliament.
Libya armed mobilization causes concern, UN says
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Libya armed mobilization causes concern, UN says
- Major fighting paused with a ceasefire in 2020 but efforts to end the political crisis have failed
Iranian president pledges deeper ties with Moscow, state media says
- The United States views Moscow’s growing relationships with Pyongyang and Tehran with concern and says both are supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in the conflict in Ukraine
MOSCOW: Iran’s president committed his country to deeper ties with Russia to counter Western sanctions on Tuesday, state media reported, amid US worries that Tehran is supplying Moscow missiles to hit Ukraine.
Russia’s top security official Sergei Shoigu arrived in the Iranian capital days after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang. More than two and a half years into its conflict with Ukraine, Moscow has been seeking to develop ties with the two nations, both hostile to the United States.
“My government will seriously follow ongoing cooperation and measures to upgrade the level of relations between the two countries,” the state IRNA news agency quoted Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian as telling Shoigu, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council.
“Relations between Tehran and Moscow will develop in a permanent, continuous and lasting way. Deepening and strengthening relations and cooperation between Iran and Russia will reduce the impact of sanctions.”
The United States views Moscow’s growing relationships with Pyongyang and Tehran with concern and says both are supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in the conflict in Ukraine.
Iran has denied sending ballistic missiles to Russia. Moscow has said only that Iran is Russia’s partner in all possible areas.
Shoigu’s trips are taking place at a crucial moment in the war, as Kyiv presses the United States and its allies to let it use Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike targets such as airfields deep inside Russian territory.
President Vladimir Putin said last week that Western countries would be fighting Russia directly if they gave the green light, and that Moscow would respond.
The Nour news agency, affiliated to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Shoigu met his Iranian opposite number, Ali Akbar Ahmadian. There was no immediate information on the outcome of the meeting.
Russia has repeatedly said it is close to signing a major agreement with Iran to seal a strategic partnership between the two countries.
Shoigu was Russian defense minister until May, when he was appointed secretary of the Security Council that brings together President Vladimir Putin’s military and intelligence chiefs and other senior officials.
Apart from meeting North Korea’s Kim last week, he also held talks in St. Petersburg with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Israel has a long history of pulling off complex attacks like the exploding pagers
- Israel rarely takes responsibility for such attacks, and its military declined to comment Tuesday
JERUSALEM: Hezbollah and the Lebanese government were quick to blame Israel for the nearly simultaneous detonation of hundreds of pagers used by the militant group’s members in an attack Tuesday that killed at least nine people and wounded nearly 3,000 others, according to officials.
Many of those hit were members of militant group Hezbollah, but it wasn’t immediately clear if others also carried the pagers. Among those killed were the son of a prominent Hezbollah politician and an 8-year-old girl, according to Lebanon’s health minister.
The attack came amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among those injured by the pager explosions.
Israel rarely takes responsibility for such attacks, and its military declined to comment Tuesday. However, the country has a long history of carrying out sophisticated remote operations, ranging from intricate cyberattacks to remote-controlled machine guns targeting leaders in drive-by shootings, suicide drone attacks, and the detonation of explosions in secretive underground Iranian nuclear facilities.
Here is a look at previous operations that have been attributed to Israel:
July 2024
Two major militant leaders in Beirut and Tehran were killed in deadly strikes within hours of each other. Hamas said Israel was behind the assassination of its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran’s capital. Although Israel didn’t acknowledge playing a role in that attack, it did claim responsibility for a deadly strike hours earlier on Fouad Shukur, a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
July 2024
Israel targeted Hamas’ shadowy military commander, Mohammed Deif, in a massive strike in the crowded southern Gaza Strip. The strike killed at least 90 people, including children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said in August that Deif was killed in the attack, though Hamas previously claimed he survived.
April 2024
Two Iranian generals were killed in what Iran said was an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria. The deaths led Iran to launch an unprecedented attack on Israel that involved about 300 missiles and drones, most of which were intercepted.
January 2024
An Israeli drone strike in Beirut killed Saleh Arouri, a top Hamas official in exile, as Israeli troops fight the militant group in Gaza.
December 2023
Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, was killed in a drone attack outside of Damascus. Iran blamed Israel.
2021
An underground nuclear facility in central Iran was hit with explosions and a devastating cyberattack that caused rolling blackouts. Iran accused Israel of carrying out the attack as well as several others against Iranian nuclear facilities using explosive drones in the ensuing years.
2020
In one of the most prominent assassinations targeting Iran’s nuclear program, a top Iranian military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran. Iran blamed Israel.
2019
An Israeli airstrike hit the home of Bahaa Abu el-Atta, a senior Islamic Jihad commander in the Gaza Strip, killing him and his wife.
2012
Ahmad Jabari, head of Hamas’ armed wing, was killed when an airstrike targets his car. His death sparked an eight-day war between Hamas and Israel.
2010
The Stuxnet computer virus, discovered in 2010, disrupted and destroyed Iranian nuclear centrifuges. It was widely believed to be a joint US-Israeli creation.
2010
Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, a top Hamas operative, was killed in a Dubai hotel room in an operation attributed to the Mossad spy agency but never acknowledged by Israel. Many of the 26 supposed assassins were caught on camera disguised as tourists.
2008
Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military chief, was killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded in Damascus. Mughniyeh was accused of engineering suicide bombings during Lebanon’s civil war and of planning the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a US Navy diver was killed. Hezbollah blamed his killing on Israel. His son Jihad Mughniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike in 2015.
2004
Hamas’ spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin, was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike while being pushed in his wheelchair. Yassin, who was paralyzed in a childhood accident, was among the founders of Hamas in 1987. His successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, was killed in an Israeli airstrike less than a month later.
2002
Hamas’s second-highest military leader, Salah Shehadeh, was killed by a one-ton bomb dropped on an apartment building in Gaza City.
1997
Mossad agents tried to kill the head of Hamas at the time, Khaled Mashaal, in Amman, Jordan. Two agents entered Jordan using fake Canadian passports and poison Mashaal by placing a device near his ear. They were captured shortly afterward and Jordan’s king threatened to void a still-fresh peace accord if Mashaal died. Israel ultimately dispatched an antidote, and the Israeli agents were returned home. Mashaal remains a senior figure in Hamas.
1996
Yahya Ayyash, nicknamed the “engineer” for his mastery in building bombs for Hamas, was killed by answering a rigged phone in Gaza. His assassination triggered a series of deadly bus bombings in Israel.
1995
Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shikaki was shot in the head in Malta in an assassination widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.
1988
Palestine Liberation Organization military chief Khalil Al-Wazir was killed in Tunisia. Better known as Abu Jihad, he had been PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s deputy. In 2012, military censors allowed an Israeli paper to reveal details of the Israeli raid for the first time.
1973
Israeli commandos shot a number of PLO leaders in their apartments in Beirut, in a nighttime raid led by Ehud Barak, who later became Israel’s top army commander and prime minister. The operation was part of a string of Israeli assassinations of Palestinian leaders that were carried out in retaliation for the killings of 11 Israeli coaches and athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
WHO chief says Israel tanks fired on Gaza aid convoy
- The “incident and the conduct of Israeli forces on the ground put the lives of our staff in danger,” he lamented
GENEVA: The World Health Organization chief on Tuesday said that Israeli tanks at the weekend had fired on an aid convoy that had been cleared to travel back from war-ravaged northern Gaza.
“Last Saturday, on the way back from a mission to the northern Gaza and after a WHO-led convoy got clearance and crossed the coast road checkpoint, the convoy encountered two Israeli tanks,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter.
“Shots were fired from the tanks near the convoy. Luckily nobody was hurt,” he said. “This is unacceptable.”
The incident came just a week after the United Nations said that a convoy carrying workers for a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza had been held at gunpoint at an Israeli military checkpoint.
During that encounter, in the context of a massive vaccination campaign after the first case of polio in 25 years was registered in the Palestinian territory, shots were fired and convoy vehicles were rammed by a bulldozer, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said last week.
The “incident and the conduct of Israeli forces on the ground put the lives of our staff in danger,” he lamented.
“It is critical that Israeli forces take measures to protect humanitarian staff and assets to facilitate their work.”
In his post, Tedros hailed the teams in Saturday’s convoy who “despite the security risk” had managed to reach Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, to deliver supplies for the emergency room.
“Supplies were also delivered to support the Palestine Red Crescent Society facilities in the north, including for the treatment of noncommunicable diseases,” he said.
“The teams also facilitated the rotation of emergency medical teams.”
The United Nations health agency chief hailed the “unwavering humanitarian workers in Gaza,” who “amid extreme danger and life-threatening conditions... continue to deliver critical aid.”
They are “serving as the last hope for the survival for two million people in desperate need,” he said in his post.
“The minimum they deserve for their service is safety. The deconfliction mechanism needs to be adhered to. Ceasefire!“
The October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,252 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
Egypt affirms keenness on Lebanon’s security, preventing violation of its sovereignty, statement says
- Hezbollah calls it biggest security breach in war with Israel
- Iranian ambassador to Lebanon reportedly injured
CAIRO: Egypt affirmed its keenness on Lebanon’s security and stability and preventing the violation of its sovereignty from ‘any outside party’, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, shortly after deadly pager blasts in Lebanon that killed at least eight people.
Algeria’s president is being sworn in for a second term after lopsided election
- The figures showed Tebboune leading Cherif who had run with the Movement of Society for Peace by around 75 percentage points
ALGIERS, Algeria: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was sworn in on Tuesday for a second term after being elected in a landslide vote marred by apathy and questions around the vote count.
The ceremony to inaugurate Tebboune’s second five-year term took place at the People’s Palace, in Club-des-Pins, a seaside resort on the west coast of the capital, Algiers. Tebboune’s two challengers, Islamist Abdellali Hassan Cherif and Socialist Youcef Aouchiche attended the ceremony that came three days after Algeria’s constitutional court certified Tebboune’s landslide victory in the Sept. 7 elections.
The court announced on Saturday after a recounting of the vote that Tebboune and his two opponents had called into question.
The figures showed Tebboune leading Cherif who had run with the Movement of Society for Peace by around 75 percentage points. Cherif won nearly 950,000 votes, or roughly 9.6 percent. Aouchiche’s Socialist Forces Front won more than 580,000 votes, about 6.1 percent.
With 7.7 million votes, the incumbent won 84.3 percent of the vote, surpassing his 2019 win by millions of votes and a double-digit margin.
Cherif and Aouchiche were criticized for participating in an election that government critics denounced as a way for Algeria’s political elite to make a show of democracy amid broader political repression.
Throughout the campaign, each of the three candidates emphasized participation, calling on voters and youth to participate and defy calls to boycott the ballot.
The nationwide turnout was 46.1 percent, surpassing the 2019 presidential election when 39.9 percent of the electorate participated, according to the court’s figures.
