Last Saturday May 17th, amidst heavy fighting in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi, civilians were told to leave town as troops prepared for a new assault on Islamist militias. These were not however part of the country's army but of the self-declared Libyan National Army, which includes some army and air force units led by the retired general, Khalifa Heftar, as the interim authorities had previously denounced an offensive launched by the former general against Islamists as a "coup" bid. This is not the first alarming news coming from the North African country. Even though the news went unnoticed because Ukraine and the Malayan plane swamped our screens for a while, Libya is not faring that well. First, a Panamanian-flagged North Korean tanker (beautifully called "Morning Glory") took an illegal cargo of crude oil from rebels in the east of the country and safely left the port, ignoring the government’s threats of military action . Afterwards and as a co...
A blog on Middle Eastern affairs... and everything related to it.