Qatar, Turkey fuel conflicts to seize Libya's wealth

CAIRO - 2 November 2020:  After numerous interventions from 2011 until now, most notably the Qatari and Turkish interventions, the cities of southern Libya have been turned into a theater for ethnic and tribal conflicts.

These interventions aim to seize Libya’s wealth, where 70 percent of that wealthis concentrated in the south of the country.

Experts believe that the main reason for the continued suffering of the south and the lack of international aidmaybe the national sovereignty agenda imposed by the LNA which aims to adequately protect the Libyan south, and block the way to foreign intervention.

On Oct. 29, the Supreme Council of Tuareg Tribes criticized the lack of participation of personalities representing the tribesin the list of 75 that will participate in the political dialogue set to be held in Tunis on Nov.9.

The statements of the council described the absence of representation as absenteeism, marginalization, and the deliberate exclusion of a factionof the Libyan people.

The problems were complicated in southern Libya after the intervention of Qatar and Turkey in 2011, and their appearance in tribal conflicts in what Libyan observers described as a struggle of all against all.

Qatar and tribal disputes

Qatar has created some tribal conflicts and sanctioned others, as there are conflicts between the Tabu and Zawiya, the Tuareg and the Tebu, the Sons of Suleiman and the Qadhadfa, and between the Tabu and the Sons of Suleiman. This is addition to the conflict between the government of reconciliation led by Fayez al-Sarraj, and the Libyan National Army to extend influence over the south, as well as the conflict supported by certain terrorist organizations and countries, such asmercenaries and militias from Chad, Niger, and Sudan.

Doha paid money to complete the reconciliation between the Tuareg and the Tubu in 2015, and provided military support for the Gaddafi and Tabu alliance during their struggle with Awlad Suleiman until they managed to take control of the Tamanat airbase.

In November 2014, the Misrata militias, supported by Qatar, helped the Tuaregs to seize control of the Sharara oil field from the Tabu, who had allied with Zintan, as Qatar sought to draw close to the Arab tribes.

Mohamed Sweilem, a Libyan economist and lecturer at the University of Sirte, says that wealth is the cause of multilateral international conflicts using local parties or using armed formations from outside the region.

He explained, in a special statement to Sky News Arabia, that interests sometimes overlap and intertwine between the international powers that have a role in the region, and the armed formations.

Sweilem gives an example of this when Qatar and Turkey sought the help of the Libyan terrorist group Ibrahim al-Jadhran, which earlier seized the oil crescent in the vicinity of the cities of Sidra and RasLanuf.

The Tebu coalition backed by Qatar and the Chadian gangs and led by the Chadian rebel TimanErdimi, who lives in Qatar, controls the Gold Mountains and gas basins in the far south of Libya.

Turkey and the Libyan Buried Treasure

A Turkish report indirectly revealed the agenda of Turkish President RecepTayyipErdogan in southern Libya.

The Turkish report, published by the Anadolu Agency, indicated that Libya's wealth is concentrated in the south, where there are iron mines in the southwest, north of the city of Sebha.While in the western Al-Owainat region near the city of Ghat, which borders Algeria, there are uranium mines. Gold ore is also found near the border triangle with Egypt and Sudan, in El Owainat region, and at the Tibesti Mountains on the border with Chad.

The Turkish report was based largely on a study issued by the US Energy Agency, whichstated that Libya has a stockpile of shale oil estimated at 74 billion barrels, making it the first in the Arab world and the fifth globally. The report referredto the existence of shale oil reserves in the northwest and south Libya, a stockpile of the shale oilestimated at 177 trillion cubic feet, in addition to solar energy.

For his part, Libyan political analyst Muhammad al-Zubaidi believes that the ongoing conflict in the south, which is fueled by certain countries, is a struggle for influence over the natural resources of the region, which have been estimated by Libyan experts between 60 to 70 percent of the volume of Libyan natural wealth.

Zubaidi added, in a special statement to Sky News Arabia, that for the Turks, southern Libya is a "buried treasure" because Libya is not only an exporter of petroleum and a little gas, but it also possesses important untapped mineral resources such as gold, iron, uranium, silica sand, manganese, and other minerals.

Libyan National Army

For his part, the Libyan military expert, Muhammad Hammouda, told Sky News Arabia that the absence of the security and military role of the state, as well as the marginalization of the people of Fezzan region and leaving some tribes and affiliated militias to play the role of security and guard the borders, made the region an open playground forall parties.

The solution to the Libyan problem, from Hammouda's point of view, starts with the cohesion of the military establishment and the development of its ability to control the current situation in the country, an example of this is the success of the Libyan National Army in restoring the oil fields of al-Sharara and Fila after a fight with the so-called third force that includesMisrata militia, Ibrahim al-Jadhran's group of Chadian mercenaries, and the terrorist Benghazi Shura Council. All these militias, linked to Qatar and Turkey,creep through thesouth through the American, French, and Italian contradictions.

Hammouda calls on countries that sponsor real peace in Libya, such as Egypt, to help eliminate the marginalization of southern Libya through adequate representation of the Southin meetings and consultations such as the military consultations known as (5 + 5).

Egypt has played a pivotal role in resolving the Libyan crisis, as the several meetings held in Hurghada, and Cairo, during 2017 and 2018, paved the way for the signing of the ceasefire agreement in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The ceasefire agreement was signed between the delegations of the Military Committee at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in the presence of the Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-general of the United Nations and the Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Stephanie Williams.

Previously, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with LAAF head, Commander KhalifaHaftar; and Libyan Parliamentary Speaker,Aguila Saleh in, in Cairo, to discuss ways to resolve the Libyan crisis. Both Libyan officials emphasized that any initiative to solve the crisis in the war-torn country has to include “the removal of Turkish-backed mercenaries and militias.”

Libya has suffered a severe division between two factions; the Libyan Parliament and the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Field Marshal KhalifaHaftar in the east; and the GNA led by Fayez al-Sarraj. The latter is internationally recognized but is not accepted by the Parliament.