Libyan General’s Promotion Could Hinder United Nations Peace Talks
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Version 0 of 1. MISURATA, Libya — The speaker of Libya’s internationally recognized Parliament named Gen. Khalifa Hifter on Monday to the recently created position of commander in chief of the army, potentially hindering United Nations-sponsored talks to end the country’s internal strife. General Hifter has had many roles: He was an ally of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi when he came to power; later became an opponent; returned to join the uprising against him in 2011; and last year announced an abortive military takeover of Libya’s transitional government. Since the spring of 2014, General Hifter has been leading a military campaign with the stated goal of ridding Libya of Islamists, whether they are the extremists based in and around Benghazi or the more moderate politicians who played a major role in the first transitional Parliament. A narrow majority of Libya’s internationally recognized Parliament has been seated since last summer in Tobruk, an eastern Libyan town under Mr. Hifter’s control, where it has aligned itself with his efforts. His appointment on Monday for the first time gives him formal legitimacy as the top military commander under that government. The appointment should ostensibly make General Hifter accountable to Parliament. But he and certain regional militias allied with him are fighting a rival militia coalition that includes both hard-line and more moderate Islamists, and that coalition, known as Libya Dawn, considers the general an aspiring autocrat and its greatest enemy. Libya Dawn controls the capital, Tripoli. It claims its own provisional Parliament and prime minister, and it includes the city of Misurata on the central coast. The United States, Britain and other allies have been hoping to help broker an agreement between the two factions. They have threatened to use sanctions to isolate those on either side who oppose a reconciliation, including trying to marginalize the Islamist extremists in the Dawn faction and General Hifter, who christened his military campaign Operation Dignity. His appointment as commander in chief may make it harder to separate him from the Tobruk-based Parliament and the rest of the faction. Many in eastern Libya have embraced General Hifter as their best hope to tame extremist militias that have dominated the eastern city of Benghazi and to restore order to Libya. But seemingly everyone in the Libya Dawn coalition, meanwhile, rejects any government that includes him. “He just wants to be on top of the throne,” said Fathi Bashaagha, a local leader in Misurata who has participated in, and argued for, the unity talks. “If any unity government appoints Hifter, he will eat the unity government.” |