Category: North Africa

Militias withdrew from al-Ghardabiya airbase, also a civilian airport, on Thursday (file picture) Islamic State militants in Libya say they have seized the airport in the city of Sirte, as the group continues to make advances in the country. The news was announced by the group and by a Libyan militia that withdrew from the coastal city’s airport on Thursday. Most of Sirte, former leader Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown, fell to IS last week. In a statement, the group said it had also seized the Great Man Made River water project. The irrigation project, the world’s largest, supplies fresh water to Libyan cities and was also the base for the opposition Battalion 166, which has now fled. The battalion, and other Islamist militias, run the capital, Tripoli, although their government is not recognised by the international community. The al-Ghardabiya airport also housed an airbase, that was seized by militias after […]

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Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni on a visit to Tunis in March. ENLARGE Photo: mohamed messara/European Pressphoto Agency Libya’s internationally recognized prime minister escaped an assassination attempt, the latest sign of a widening security vacuum that is complicating European Union efforts to stem the flow of illegal migrants from the country. Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni was targeted Tuesday night when several unidentified gunmen shot at his motorcade as he left a parliamentary session in the eastern city of Tobruk, according to a member of parliament and security officials. Libya’s internationally recognized government is based in Tobruk while a rival administration opposed to Mr. Thinni is based in the capital Tripoli and controls the country’s west. Human smugglers have exploited Libya’s deep political crisis and insecurity to use the country as a launching ground for thousands of migrants —mostly African and Middle Eastern—making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea. […]

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AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko Interactive Interactives Buy AP Photo Reprints Multimedia Libya Opening Doors to Tourists BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Gunmen tried to assassinate Libya’s internationally recognized prime minister on his way to the airport in the eastern city of Tobruk on Tuesday, a spokesman for his government said. Arish Said, head of the government’s media department, said that Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni’s motorcade was attacked and one of his guards was lightly wounded but that there were no fatalities. "They managed to escape," Said said. Prior to the attack, he said armed men who had been protesting outside a session of the Tobruk government’s House of Representatives tried to storm the building, firing shots into the air and demanding al-Thinni be removed from office. They were "threatening to kill the prime minister and force the House to sack him," Said said. He identified the men as being funded by […]

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MILAN, Italy, May 26 (UPI) — Italian energy company Eni announced Tuesday it made its second discovery of the year at an exploration prospect off the coast of Libya. Eni said it made a natural gas and condensate discovery in so-called Area 3, a reserve area about 85 miles off the Libyan coast. "The well represents the second discovery made by Eni in Libyan offshore Area D since the beginning of 2015," the company said in a statement. Production tests yielded a preliminary flow rate from the well at 1,340 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Eni estimates the well should be able to produce at least 3,000 boe per day at its peak. Before NATO forces intervened in Libyan civil war in 2011, the country was producing more than 1 million bpd. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in its latest market report said production from member-state Libya […]

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The prime minister of Libya ’s internationally recognized government survived an assassination attempt Tuesday after facing hostile questioning inside Parliament and demands for his resignation from armed protesters outside. The mayhem and violence broke out amid growing signs of divisions in the faction backing the government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni against a rival faction that has taken over the capital, Tripoli. If the conflicts and discord further threaten the stability of Mr. Thinni’s government, the result could cripple the United Nations-brokered talks aimed at bringing the two factions together and could further compound the chaos that has engulfed Libya since the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011. It was unclear who was responsible for the assassination attempt. Armed forces allied with the government, which is based in Tobruk and Bayda, have been battling Islamist militants from Benghazi and Dernah. Last winter, militants hostile […]

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SIRTE, Libya Standing guard at his frontline post, Libyan soldier Mohammed Abu Shager can see where Islamic State militants are holed up with their heavy weaponry less than a kilometer away. The militants have effectively taken over former dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s home city of Sirte as they exploit a civil war between two rival governments to expand in North Africa. "Every night they open fire on us," said Abu Shebar, who with comrades on Sirte’s western outskirts holds the last position of troops belonging to one of the two warring Libyan governments, the General National Congress, which controls the capital Tripoli and most of the west of the country. "They are only active at night," he said, pointing to the militants’ position in a house just down the road blocked by sandbags. He sleeps in a shed next to his firing positions where used tank shells litter the ground. […]

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LONDON—Libyan National Oil Co. officials have launched a charm offensive to reassure foreign companies that are increasingly nervous over the use of oil payments and security arrangements in the war-torn country. The state-run oil company has been caught in the middle of a conflict playing out since the ouster and death of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, dividing the country between an internationally recognized government in the city of Bayda and an Islamist militia, Libya Dawn, that controls the country’s capital of Tripoli. The industry has also been rattled by attacks by the radical Islamic State, worker strikes and sabotage of oil facilities. Amid the mounting chaos, National Oil Co. and Libyan Central Bank officials have met with international energy companies to assure them that their oil payments are being managed transparently and independently, the company’s chairman, Mustafa Sanallah, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday. “We […]

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LONDON The head of Libya’s National Oil Corp (NOC) sees higher oil prices and said the company is working to boost output and regain market share taken by other producers. Speaking on a visit to London, NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanallah said he saw signs of oil demand increasing across the globe and a fall in the supply of shale oil in the United States. "There is a general consensus that oil prices will recover. The worst of the market is behind us now," he said on Tuesday at the Platts Global Crude Oil Summit. "It is expected that the oil price will start to rise by the beginning of the second half of this year and continue to rise in 2016." Brent crude was trading at around $65 a barrel, up from a low near $45 seen in January but still nearly half the level set in June 2014 […]

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