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Gunmen attack army bus in Cairo, kill 1 soldier

Egyptian security officials say gunmen have opened fire on an army bus in Cairo, killing one officer and wounding three soldiers. The officials say the bus, which belongs to the army’s Military Police, was driving through the capital’s Amiriyah district when it was targeted on Thursday morning. The officials did not say who was responsible for the attack, which bore the hallmarks of Islamic militants. In the eight months since the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, militants have targeted the military and police forces in Cairo and elsewhere in the country, often using motorbikes. Militants also are waging a full-fledged insurgency in the strategic Sinai Peninsula. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Libyan PM flees country after ouster

Former Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan  fled to Europe in defiance of a travel ban on Wednesday after parliament voted him out of office for failing to stop rebels from independently exporting oil from the country in a challenge to  Libya’s fragile unity . The crisis arose when rebels, who have seized three eastern ports since August, loaded crude oil onto a North Korean-flagged tanker  at Al-Sidra terminal over the weekend. The tanker left Al-Sidra on Tuesday. According to varying accounts by government officials, the navy or air force then fired on the vessel, although it was not clear if this happened in Libyan or international waters. Government spokesman Habib al-Amin told a news conference in Tripoli on Wednesday that the firing failed to disable the tanker, which proceeded eastwards into Egyptian waters. He said Libya had asked Egypt and other countries to help stop the ship. There was […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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North Korea Says Egyptian Firm Controls Libya Oil Tanker

North Korea denied on Thursday it was illegally exporting oil from rebel-controlled eastern Libya, claiming that an Egyptian company was operating a North Korean flagged oil tanker in the center of an armed standoff since Saturday. North Korea said it had revoked the registry of the tanker, named "Morning Glory," and demanded that Alexandria-based Golden East Logistics Company leave al-Sidra port without loading oil. The tanker, carrying at least 234,000 barrels of crude oil, sailed from a rebel-controlled port into international waters on Tuesday. A contract signed by North Korea with the Egyptian company prohibits the tanker from transporting contraband cargo and entering war or disaster zones, North Korea said through a report in its state media. "The ship has nothing to do with the DPRK at present and it (North Korea) has no responsibility whatsoever as regards the ship," the report said, using the abbreviation of country’s official […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Libya’s Prime Minister Ousted in Chaos Over Tanker

Libya’s transitional Parliament voted on Tuesday to remove its prime minister as his government conceded that despite days of bluster it was powerless to stop a tanker from sailing away with an illicit shipment of Libyan oil. The ouster of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan underscored the explosive danger of loss of control over Libya’s petroleum, the lifeblood of its economy. With negligible military or police forces, oil revenue has been the last bargaining chip for the weak transitional government in its struggle to subdue the fractious local militia and tribes that took up arms during the rebellion that overthrew Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi . The tanker escaped with the oil in defiance of military threats from Tripoli and legal warnings from Washington, and its voyage has evoked the lawlessness that prevailed on the same coast two centuries ago, when Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sent the Marines […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Political Killings Still Plaguing Post-Qaddafi Libya

People opposing an extension of the national government’s powers blocked a main street in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi last month.” data-mediaviewer-credit=”Abdullah Doma/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images” data-mediaviewer-src=”http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/12/world/TRIPOLI/TRIPOLI-superJumbo.jpg” itemid=”http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/12/world/TRIPOLI/TRIPOLI-master675.jpg” itemprop=”url” src=”http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/12/world/TRIPOLI/TRIPOLI-master675.jpg”> TRIPOLI, Libya — For Judge Jamal Bennour, one of the leaders of the Libyan uprising, the day the revolution turned sour was when his friend and fellow lawyer, Abdul-Salam al-Musmari, was shot dead in front of him. It was last July, nearly two years after the two had helped topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and a year since they had left government, ceding power to the General National Congress. The two friends had lingered after Friday Prayer in their mosque in Benghazi, and were walking home when a man leaned out of a passing four-wheel-drive car and shot Mr. Musmari in the chest. “It was just a moment,” his friend said. “We lost Abdul-Salam. It […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Libya’s ousted PM leaves country despite ban

Libya’s ousted prime minister has left the country despite a ban on travel, hours after parliament removed him from office in a no-confidence vote. Officials in Tripoli on Wednesday could not confirm the departure of Ali Zidan, Libya’s first democratically chosen leader who had struggled for 15 months to stem the country’s spiraling descent into chaos. But in nearby Malta, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told state-owned television that Zidan had made a brief stop-over on the Mediterranean island late on Tuesday, before traveling on. The Western-backed Zidan was ousted in a parliament vote on Tuesday as Libya faces a series of crises, including an escalation over oil ports seized by an eastern militia. Soon after parliament voted, Libya’s general prosecutor banned Zidan from travel pending an investigation into corruption allegations.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Libya's ousted PM leaves country despite ban

Libya’s ousted prime minister has left the country despite a ban on travel, hours after parliament removed him from office in a no-confidence vote. Officials in Tripoli on Wednesday could not confirm the departure of Ali Zidan, Libya’s first democratically chosen leader who had struggled for 15 months to stem the country’s spiraling descent into chaos. But in nearby Malta, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told state-owned television that Zidan had made a brief stop-over on the Mediterranean island late on Tuesday, before traveling on. The Western-backed Zidan was ousted in a parliament vote on Tuesday as Libya faces a series of crises, including an escalation over oil ports seized by an eastern militia. Soon after parliament voted, Libya’s general prosecutor banned Zidan from travel pending an investigation into corruption allegations.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Libyan parliament sacks PM after tanker escapes rebel-held port

Libya’s parliament voted Prime Minister Ali Zeidan out of office on Tuesday after rebels humiliated the government by loading crude on a tanker that fled from naval forces, officials said, in a sign of the worsening chaos in the OPEC member state. Libyan gunboats later chased the tanker along Libya’s eastern Mediterranean coast and opened fire, damaging it, a military spokesman said. Italian naval ships were helping move the tanker to a Libyan government-controlled port, he said. But Italy denied any of its vessels were in the area at the time and the reported firing incident could not be confirmed. Western powers fear the vast North African state could even break apart with the government struggling to rein in armed militias and tribesmen who helped oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 but want to grab power and oil revenues. Zeidan, a liberal weakened for months by […]

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Gunbattles Erupt as Libyan Forces Try to Seize Oil Tanker from Militias

Gunbattles erupted late Monday when Libyan government forces attempted to seize back an oil tanker that rebellious militiamen were trying to use to independently sell crude, a Libyan official said. Culture Minister Habib al-Amin said government forces had taken control of the tanker after the clashes. However, the militia controlling the As Sidra oil port denied it had lost control of the vessel. The clashes were the most serious confrontation yet between militias that have paralyzed the country’s oil industry by blocking major ports and a government too weak to confront them. The minister said at a late-night news conference that the Libyan forces took over the North Korean-flagged Morning Glory at around 9 p.m. local time after two skirmishes—one in the morning and one in the evening—with militiamen on speedboats around the tanker. He said there was a third exchange of gunfire after government forces seized the ship, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Libya says halts tanker outside rebel port, plans military offensive

Libya on Monday stopped a North Korean-flagged tanker that had loaded oil from a rebel-held port, after naval forces briefly exchanged fire with the rebels, officials said. They also said the government will assemble forces to "liberate" all occupied ports, raising the stakes over a blockage that has cut off vital oil revenue. The conflict over oil wealth is increasing fears that the OPEC producer may slide deeper into chaos or even splinter as the fragile government fails to rein in dozens of militias that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 but now defy state authority. The rebels, who have seized three ports and partly control a fourth in the North African country, said they had dispatched forces to central Libya to deal with any government attack. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan told Reuters naval forces had seized the North Korean-flagged tanker outside the eastern Es Sider […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple