{"id":547,"date":"2017-03-08T02:23:38","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T02:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/?p=547"},"modified":"2017-03-08T02:24:07","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T02:24:07","slug":"libyan-strongmans-forces-lose-control-of-key-oil-export-terminal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2017\/03\/08\/libyan-strongmans-forces-lose-control-of-key-oil-export-terminal-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Libyan strongman’s forces lose control of key oil export terminal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The forces of eastern Libya’s military strongman Khalifa Haftar have lost control of a key oil export terminal they had seized last year, a spokesman conceded on Saturday.<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

Colonel Ahmad al-Mismari said that the rival forces had overrun the main airfield in the oil port of Ras Lanuf and identified them as Islamists of the Benghazi Defence Brigades.<\/p>\n

An array of forces, most of them loyal to the UN-backed government in Tripoli, have been involved in efforts to oust Haftar from the oil ports, whose seizure enabled him to pose a major challenge to its authority.<\/p>\n

But the Tripoli government on Friday evening denied any involvement in the renewed offensive on the oil ports, condemning it as a “military escalation”.<\/p>\n

The forces involved in the latest assault are a mixture of Islamist militias, eastern tribes opposed to Haftar <\/a>and members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard which controlled the ports before Haftar’s takeover.<\/p>\n

“The attackers were armed with modern tanks and a radar to neutralise our air force,” Mismari said.<\/p>\n

“But the battle is ongoing. The situation in the Oil Crescent <\/a>remains under control.”<\/p>\n

There are four ports along the Oil Crescent on the eastern part of the Gulf of Sirte which account for the lion’s share of Libya<\/a>‘s oil exports.<\/p>\n

Haftar’s forces seized Zueitina, Brega, Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra in a lightning offensive last September that dealt a major blow to the UN-backed Government of National Accord.<\/p>\n

Haftar dominates a rival administration based in the east that continues to defy the GNA’s authority.<\/p>\n

He has backing from neighbouring Egypt, from the United Arab Emirates and increasingly from Russia.<\/p>\n

Russia has been trying to broker talks in Egypt between Haftar and the GNA that would see it reformed with a major role for the strongman but so far they have not borne fruit.<\/p>\n

Exports from the eastern oil terminals are Libya’s main source of hard currency and so control over them has been bitterly contested.<\/p>\n

In December, the Benghazi Defence Brigades carried out a similar attack on the Oil Crescent, but were repelled by Haftar’s forces.<\/p>\n

And in January, powerful militias from the western city of Misrata joined another such attack.<\/p>\n

Rocked by chaos since the overthrow and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, Libya desperately needs to relaunch its oil exports, the backbone of its economy.<\/p>\n

The GNA has struggled to impose its authority as it faces a multitude of battle-hardened fighters who took part in the uprising that ousted Kadhafi.<\/p>\n

(AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The forces of eastern Libya’s military strongman Khalifa Haftar have lost control of a key oil export terminal they had seized last year, a spokesman conceded on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}