Eastern Libya Parliament Member Says Attempt To Unite Army Destined To Fail

The Joint Military Committee's efforts to unite the Libyan army are hopeless, such attempt will not succeed, a member of the security committee of the country's eastern-based parliament, Ali Al-Tikbali told Sputnik

TUNIS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th March, 2023) The Joint Military Committee's efforts to unite the Libyan army are hopeless, such attempt will not succeed, a member of the security committee of the country's eastern-based parliament, Ali Al-Tikbali told Sputnik.

On Sunday, the 5+5 Libyan Joint Military Committee, that includes representatives of the western Government of National Unity and eastern Government of National Stability with the members of LNA affiliated with it, arranged a meeting in Tripoli with military commanders from the east, west and south of Libya. The meeting was hosted under the auspices of UN envoy for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily and was meant to help build trust among Libyan security and military leaders, Bathily said.

"Uniting the army now is practically impossible. Because those (military formations) in the West (of Libya) will never accept neither (eastern Libyan commander Khalifa) Haftar nor his sons," Al-Tikbali said.

According to Al-Tikbali, the conflict between the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) leader Haftar and the western commanders began in 2014. Then, Haftar moved against the transitional General National Congress which failed to develop a new constitution it had been entrusted to. That was followed by the battle of Tripoli, known as the 2019-2020 Western Libya Campaign, which turned unsuccessful for the LNA.

"They will never reach an agreement, they will not even sit together. These words of a united army are far from implementation. I think Bathily's plan and everything that he proposed are impulsive ideas that have been tried before, but now they are suggested more spontaneously, more improbably," Al-Tikbali said.

Over the past years, the LNA Chief of General Staff, Abdul Razzaq Al-Nadori, has discussed the unification of the Libyan army with his western counterpart supporting the Government of National Unity, Mohamed Al-Haddad.

At the moment, Libya is mainly ruled by two contending governments. The western part of the country is controlled by the Government of National Unity and Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Al-Dbeibeh, which are supported by the UN. The eastern part is under the Government of National Stability led by its Prime Minister, Fathi Bashagha. The south of the country is gripped by turmoil due to civil unrest, the persisting terrorist threat and armed tribal violence.

Libya has been grappling with multiple crises after the Western military intervention of 2011 overthrew its longtime leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and created a power vacuum that split Libya into rival factions. The UN has been struggling to fill the void by helping Libyans hold a general election, although internal divisions led it to cancel the vote set for 2021.