Turkey and Qatar: Malicious targets in the south of Libya

The Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Major General Khalifa Hifter, is continuing to take full control of the southern city of Murzuq, chasing remnants of armed militias backed by Turkey and Qatar, most notably the Chadian opposition mercenaries and ISIS operatives.

During the past week, the army has conducted intensive air and ground reconnaissance patrols, as part of operations to secure the south and preserve state sovereignty.

Libyan National Army spokesman Major General Ahmed al-Mesmari announced on Friday (August 16th) that he had taken control of Murzuq after violent confrontations with Chadian opposition mercenaries and members of the Islamic State terrorist group ISIS.

The head of the National Defense and Security Committee of the Libyan House of Representatives, Talal al-Mahyoub, said that Libya’s sovereignty is indivisible.

He called on the head of the defense committee to lift the arms embargo on the army, especially as the army is working to extend state sovereignty over the entire Libyan national territory.

Earlier, the Libyan parliament called on the General Command of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Interior to confront the terrorist gangs in “Murzuq”, which has witnessed violent clashes since the beginning of August, killing at least 90 civilians and wounding more than 200, according to data published by the United Nations Office to coordinate humanitarian affairs in the Middle East (OCHA), earlier.

On August 28, Major General Ahmed al-Mesmari said that al-Wefaq militias launched an attack on the city of Murzuq in cooperation with the Daesh terrorist organization.

He added that the armed militias supported by the government of reconciliation and the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist groups and Turkey are led by one of the deputies who are now separated from the House of Representatives, named Mohammed Adam, and leads the spirit of ethnic separatism.

He pointed out that the operations room in the region monitors these militias and reconnaissance and give the information to the General Command of the Armed Forces.

Al-Mesmari confirmed that the reconnaissance operations provided the army with a large amount of information on the movements of these militias and facilitated their tracking and targeting.

He said that these gangs destroyed the homes of citizens in the city of Murzuq and its surroundings, and its inhabitants were displaced to areas in the Wadi Ataba, Trajan and Sabha.

Al-Masmari revealed that the remnants of ISIS are located in the region of Murzuq, and formed what it called the desert army, and carried out a number of operations in the northeast of the region earlier, and allied with the so-called southern protection forces of the Saraj to achieve its goals.

Abd al-Sattar Hittita, a Libyan researcher on militia attacks, commented that there had been warnings for years by specialists against attempts to tear the south apart and divide it from the territorial integrity of Libya.

In a statement to the Reference he said that the south of Libya fertile ground helped to the presence and spread of many armed groups, and exploited the groups chaos suffered by Murzuq in previous attempts to control and dominate the city.