UN Envoy Accuses Haftar of Staging Coup in Libya

Date: 16 April 2019 - 21:20

News ID: ۶۴۹۱۹

TRIPOLI (Reuters) -- Eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar tried to stage a coup by issuing an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, UN envoy Ghassan Salame said with Libya’s top rivals locked in military confrontation over the capital Tripoli.
Haftar’s eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) advanced to the outskirts of Tripoli almost two weeks ago, predicting defections and victory within two days.
However, Serraj’s internationally-recognized government has managed to bog them down in southern suburbs, thanks largely to armed groups who have rushed to aid them from various western Libyan factions.
Haftar, a 75-year-old former general in the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s army, has been building up troop numbers and intensifying airstrikes in a campaign he is selling as necessary to restore order and eradicate jihadists.
But Salame, speaking to BBC radio, said Haftar’s decision to issue in the course of his campaign arrest warrants for Serraj and other top Tripoli officials "sounded more like a coup than counter-terrorism”.
Haftar’s side confirmed the warrant had been issued and Serraj’s government said it had been immediately rejected.
Diplomats believe Haftar for now faces no pressure to back off from backers including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and France, who see him as the best bet to end the factional chaos plaguing Libya since Gaddafi’s fall in a 2011 uprising.
Salame, whose plans for a national reconciliation conference this week had to be postponed because of the fighting, said he hoped both side will realize in the coming days that neither could achieve an outright military victory.
"We are in fact in a military stalemate since eight days, or nine days,” Salame said, adding that both sides had carried out 30 air strikes each that had not changed the situation on the ground.
Airstrikes and shelling have hit civilian infrastructure and residential homes, especially in the south of Tripoli where Haftar’s forces have sought to penetrate government defenses.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said targeting civilian facilities was a violation of international humanitarian law.
The United Nations Libya mission UNSMIL also warned in a statement that "the bombing of schools, hospitals, ambulances and civilian areas is strictly prohibited”, adding that it was documenting such cases for the U.N Security Council.