Libya Security Highlights (November 21 – 27, 2022)

NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUES

• Greek authorities say a dilapidated fishing boat crammed with migrants that was towed to port after losing steering in rough seas south of Crete was carrying a total of 483 people who had sailed from Libya. The coast guard said Thursday that those on board were Syrians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Palestinians and Sudanese and included 336 men, 10 women, 128 boys and nine girls. They were all were transferred Wednesday afternoon to a ferry docked in southern Crete for temporary housing.

• People traffickers are packing fishing boats with up to 600 Egyptians in hidden coves near Tobruk in Libya, pointing them towards Italy and playing havoc with Rome’s crackdown on migration, The Times reported. The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, was elected in September on the back of a pledge to end the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean from north Africa. She has waged war on charity rescue ships that pluck them from dinghies after they depart from beaches near Tripoli in western Libya.
• The Italian website ItamilRadar, which specializes in tracking military air traffic, confirmed that a British Royal Air Force Airbus A400M “Atlas” (reg. ZM402 – flight number RRR4523) made a flight from the UK to Libya. The aircraft left RAF Brize Norton at 11:48 CET and is landed in Misrata, Libya, at 15:30 CET. “The Atlas left Misrata around 18:00 CET and now is in flight to Brize Norton.” it said. “We’ve already tracked similar flights in the past. The nature of these missions remains unknown,” ItamilRadar explained.
• The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 235 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya in the period of 13 -19 November 2022. So far in 2022, 20,842 migrants were intercepted and returned to Libya, 508 died, and 863 went missing on the central Mediterranean route, IOM said in a statement. In 2021, 32,425 migrants were intercepted and returned back to Libya, according to IOM.

• Cross-border cooperation conference between Libya and the Sahel countries to combat organized crime and human trafficking will be held in Tunisia on November 22-23. The European Union’s Special Envoy to the Sahel, Emanuela Del Re, said the conference aims to support regional security and stability by strengthening cross-border cooperation in combating border crimes, terrorism and organized crime, and will be held with the participation of delegations from Sahel countries, the European Union and other organizations.
• The Ministry of Justice of the Government of National Unity said that rejects attempts to reopen the case of 1988 Lockerbie bombing. In a statement released via its Facebook page, the ministry said that the case, of which Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001, “has been completely closed from a political and legal point of view”. The ministry added that the case was closed as per agreement concluded between Libya and the United States of America in August 2008, and highlighted that the agreement was ratified by Presidential Order No. 13477 issued signed by former U.S. President George W. Bush in October 2008.

NATIONAL POLITICS AND SOCIAL ISSUES

• Libya’s House of Representatives announced on Tuesday that it rejects the reopening of the case of 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and threatened to put on trial on charges of “higher treason” any Libyan who helps in reviving the case. This comes following the recent abduction of Masoud Abu Ajila al-Marimi, a former Libyan intelligence officer who is suspected of being involved in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, by unknown persons. The Libyan parliament said it will “prosecute those involved” in Abu Ajila’s abduction.
• The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, confirmed that “there is a new impetus for a political process in Libya that includes several stages.” “We have been entrusted with the stage of national reconciliation, as the basis for resolving the crisis,” Faki said in a press statement on the sidelines of the Francophone Summit in Tunis. “It is necessary to find a formula that allows the Libyans to reconcile, and then go to elections to choose who will run the country’s affairs,” he added.
• President of the Presidential Council, Mohamad Menfi, received the heads and representatives of the political parties in the Cyrenaica: The parties were “Libya for All, Libya Dignity, Libya’s Hope, Democratic Civility, Optimism, Entitlement, Democratic Society, Equality, Popular Movement, Federal Bloc, Future Movement, and Intilaaqah.” The meeting discussed developments in the political situation in Libya, the vision of the Presidential Council and the political parties, to get out of the political impasse, reach the elections and achieve stability in the country a statement by Menf office said.

• Intisar Schneib, Chairman of the House Committee for Woman and Children Affairs, has accused the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL), Saddek Elkaber, of failing to authorize disbursement of funds allocated for the treatment of 9 children, who died recently of cancer in Benghazi. In a statement released on Sunday, November 20, Schneib said that Elkaber’s actions led to the death of those children and warned that they are other children who are facing “the same tragic fate if their treatment costs were not disbursed”.
• Libyan Airlines made its first flight Kufra Intenational Airport on Monday, November 21, after a 3-year hiatus. The Chairman of the Board of the company, Hamed Khaled Isabah, a number of the company’s employees and House representatives of Kufra were all on-board of the flight. They received welcoming by the city’s community representatives upon arrival. Isabah told reporters that the airline company will conduct two flights per week.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

• The Italian Special Envoy for Libya, Nicola Orlando, expressed his support for “urgently relaunching the political process in Libya,” the Italian news agency Nova reported. Italy supports “the urgent relaunch of the political process in Libya, facilitated by the United Nations envoy, Abdoulaye Bathily,” Orlando said, after meeting Vice-President of the Presidential Council Musa al-Koni in Tunisia, at a conference on border cooperation between Libya and the coast organized by the European Union.
• The Speaker of Libya’s House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, held talks with Qatari Ambassador to Libya, Khaled Al-Dosari, at his office in the city eastern city of Qubba. The two discussed “bilateral relations”, “developments in the situation in Libya” and “ways to end the Libyan crisis through holding elections,” according to a statement by House spokesman Abdullah Bliheg. Bliheg said that the Qatari diplomat affirmed Qatar’s support for Libya in “overcoming the current crisis and preserve the unity of the Libyan soil”.

• Greece and Egypt has signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the fields of aeronautics and maritime search and rescue, according to Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias. “The agreement provides a significant boost to our joint effort to further deepen bilateral relations and bilateral cooperation,” Dendias said via twitter. The two countries also signed an agreement betweenon the employment of seasonal workers in the agricultural sector, the Foreign Minister added.

• The fight against illegal migration, terrorism and organized crime were at the center of talks for the first day of Sahel conference held on Tuesday in Tunisia with participation from the European Union, Libya, Algeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan and Egypt. Organized by Emanuela Del Re, EU Special Representative for the Sahel, in collaboration with the European Union Assistance Mission at the Borders in Libya (EUBAM), the conference aims to “better understand the dynamics that develop along the borders, but above all to try to favor and promote cooperation between all the states of the Sahel and Libya”, Del Re explained to Italian news agency Nova on the sidelines of the conference.
• Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush held talks on Tuesdaywith her Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on the sidelines of 9th Global Forum of the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations in Morocco. According to a statement by the Libyan Foreign Ministry, the two discussed bilateral relations and “Turkey’s support for stability efforts in Libya”. For his part, Çavuşoğlu stated via Twitter that he “will continue to work together to ensure stability in Libya.”

• The Governor of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL), Saddek Elkaber, was Ankara where he met Turkey’s Minister of Trade, Mehmet Muş, for talks on “joint cooperation between the Libyan and Turkish banking sectors,” according to a brief statement by the Libyan bank. For his part, Muş described the encounter with Elkaber as a “productive meeting to improve our bilateral trade and economic relations with Libya.”

• Libya’s Government of National Unity  summoned home its ambassador in Athens for consultation, in response to recent diplomatic controversy with Greece after the country’s Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias refused to get off the plane during an aborted visit to the capital Tripoli last week. “Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush summoned Ambassador (Hamed Bashir) Al-Mabrouk for consultation to clarify the diplomatic issue caused by Greek minister Dendias on Thursday, Nov. 17,” said a statement by the Tripoli-based Foreign Ministry.