Allegations against Saddam Haftar derail Libyan unity plan

GNU says cooperation with Saddam Haftar ‘impossible’ after drone plot arrests

Four people were arrested in southern Tripoli on 5 September in connection with a series of drone attacks on Libya’s Zawiya oil station and fuel storage facilities, with sources in the country’s western government alleging the suspects were working for Saddam Haftar, the son of eastern Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar.

The arrests included three Libyans and one Spanish citizen, according to the Guardian, which first reported the allegations. Sources in the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity said the three Libyans were affiliated with Saddam Haftar, who serves as deputy commander of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA). “No formal decision has been made, but in light of what has been discovered it is impossible to work with Saddam,” the sources said.

The allegations strike at a US-backed plan to merge Libya’s rival eastern and western administrations — a diplomatic initiative that had positioned Saddam Haftar as a central figure. The plan’s unraveling threatens to deepen Libya’s decade-long political fracture, which has persisted since the 2011 fall of Col Muammar Gaddafi and left the oil-rich country at the mercy of corruption, militia, migrant traffickers, and external actors.

Over more than five days in August, drones struck the Zawiya oil station and fuel storage facilities in western Libya. The attacks hit a gasoline-storage tank at the Zawiya oil complex, west of Tripoli, causing a large fire and the tank’s collapse. The tank held approximately 4.5 million litres of fuel when it was struck, according to Libya’s National Oil Corporation. The strikes worsened electricity blackouts across western Libya, placing intense popular pressure on the GNU led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah.

Massad Boulos, Donald Trump’s Africa adviser, has put forward a plan to unify the two Libyan governments in which Haftar from the east would take on the role of president and a member of the Dbeibah family from the west would become prime minister. Boulos has insisted he is not pursuing a quick fix that entrenches family elites in Libya. “It’s not about families or names,” Boulos said when asked about the reported Haftar-Dbeibah deal, before adding: “At the end of the day, those are individuals that have to be in one position or the other.”

According to the Guardian’s sources, the alleged drone strikes were prompted by Haftar’s anger at Dbeibah apparently stalling on the Boulos merger plan and by Tripoli allegedly encouraging tribes in southern Libya to attack and kill LNA forces. The three arrested Libyans were allegedly affiliated with the Tareq ben Ziyad brigade, an LNA formation. The broader group involved in the alleged plot was thought to include five Spaniards and four Libyans, and the plot was reportedly intended to include an attack on Tripoli airport.

Information that has emerged from interviews about the plot, and Saddam Haftar’s alleged role, has been described as a “goldmine” capable of weakening Khalifa Haftar, the Guardian reported. The claims not only damage Saddam Haftar’s role in the Boulos plan but also threaten the parallel UN-sponsored “4+4” talks involving the main four political institutions in Libya, which produced an August agreement to stage elections within two years. The deal, endorsed by the UN Security Council, had been backed by the main actors capable of delivering the change.

Walid Ellafi, minister of state for political affairs in the UN-backed GNU, defended the 4+4 process while opposing the Boulos-style elite deal. “Our support for the 4+4 process is rooted in its role as a UN sponsored framework offering a new approach to achieving practical results that pave the way for elections and institutions whose political legitimacy derives from the will of the people – not as a political settlement that overlooks violations or sets aside the rights of those affected,” Ellafi said. He pointed to longstanding grievances, including the displacement of 9,000 families in Benghazi during the 2014 war, that an elite east-west deal would set aside.

The allegations may also intensify a power struggle between the three sons of Khalifa Haftar in the east. Saddam Haftar is seen as his father’s most likely heir, possesses the most resources, and enjoys the backing of the United Arab Emirates; he has so far dominated the political tracks. But his brothers, Khaled and Belqasim — more allied with Egypt than the UAE — have recently begun to challenge his dominance, according to the Guardian.