Eritrea’s role in breaking UN sanctions in Libya

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In May a report by Bloomberg quoting UN sources gave the first evidence of the role the UAE’s base in Assab is playing in the war in Libya.

Now a second report has been published (see below). This argues that: “In the first quarter of the year (January-April 2020), the Emiratis organized more than 100 airlifters carrying weapons” - including flights from Assab.

There are also reports of supplies of fuel: “UAE companies have shipped about 11,000 tons of jet fuel to eastern Libya, the stronghold of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, in violation of the international arms embargo, the Financial Times reported.”

If these are accurate then Eritrea is in violation of UN Sanctions, which forbid the supply of weapons to Libya. The UAE is one of the main supporters of the forces of Khalifa Haftar, whose troops are attacking the UN recognised government in Tripoli.

This is what UN Security Council Resolution 1970 of 2011 concerning Libya requires of all UN member states:

“All Member States are required to prevent the sale or supply to Libya of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts for the aforementioned (with an exception for the Libyan government for non-lethal materiel, technical assistance, training or financial assistance); prohibits the export by Libya, and procurement by Member States, of all arms and related materiel.”

Further background at end of this post

 

In Libya, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are testing their ambitions as a middle power, exactly like they did - and are still doing despite extensive military disengagement - in Yemen. In both arenas, the UAE intertwines geopolitical and ideological goals: it needs strong proxies and trusted allies to achieve them.

As a matter of fact, to be influent in a sub-national geographical area (as Cyrenaica in Libya or Southern regions of Yemen) means, at the same time, weakening rivals (the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar and Turkey), and work to carve out a platform for power projection, especially at the maritime level.

The Emirati strategy relies on two different tactics: the presence of capable proxy actors on the ground (Southern militias, in the Yemeni case), and of strong allies with a traditional footprint in the area of interest (Egypt, in the Libyan case).

In 2019, the Emirati military presence in Yemen was consistently reduced, with few units still deployed in Balhaf, Riyan and Socotra[1]: but the UAE remains the most powerful player in Yemen’s Southern regions, given the role of the militias it established. From a chronological perspective, the withdrawal of Emirati military from Yemen was combined with Abu Dhabi’s rising assertiveness on Libya, where this would not have been possible without Egypt’s support in Cyrenaica.

In Libya and Yemen, the Emiratis have displayed so far similar features and differences, revealing Abu Dhabi’s tactical and goal-oriented pragmatism.

GEOGRAPHY

In the UAE’s network perspective, maritime dynamics matter a lot. In Yemen, the Emiratis have operated in Southern coastal areas, the Southern Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb and Socotra island. As a result, large part of Yemen’s rimland is now controlled or influenced by actors linked to Abu Dhabi. In Libya, the UAE focuses on Cyrenaica, with an eye to Sirte. Eastern Libya provides strategic depth towards the Sahel, opening a geostrategic highway both to West and East Africa (ex. Niger, Mali and Mauritania; Sudan and Eritrea). Cyrenaica has also to deal with the Mediterranean Sea and Southern Yemeni regions are a cornerstone for the Indian Ocean: in between, the Red Sea looks like a strategic bridge for Emirati commercial and military ambitions.

GROUND/AIR FORCES, TRAIN AND EQUIP

Ground forces and training activities mark the UAE’s role in Yemen, while airstrikes and supply of equipment characterize its presence in Libya. In Yemen, the UAE mostly deployed ground forces (Special Forces of the Presidential Guard) with task-force commanders from the army also supporting local militias, with limited bombing operations.

In Summer 2015, the Emiratis organized from the Assab base (in Eritrea) the operation Golden Arrow to retake Aden, formerly seized by the Houthis. Other Emirati-led ground operations succeeded in securing Mukalla (Hadhramawt governorate, April 2016) and Al Mokha (Taiz governorate, early 2017), occupied respectively by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Houthis. Instead, airstrikes are at centre of the Emirati indirect support for Khalifa Haftar’s forces in Libya: in April 2019-2020, the UAE conducted more than 850 drone and jet strikes in the country.

The Emiratis help the Libyan National Agreement (LNA) forces with modern airplanes, since Libyans have fighter jets that are at least forty years old. The UAE restructured the air-base of al-Khadim (65 miles east from Benghazi), which played a fundamental role during the Libyan third civil war: hundreds of cargos coming from the bases of al-Sweihan (UAE, emirate of Abu Dhabi) and Assab (Eritrea), supplying 6,200 tons of weapons and ammunition, landed in al-Khadim.

In the first quarter of the year (January-April 2020), the Emiratis organized more than 100 airlifters carrying weapons: one of the reasons why the EU Operation Irini, implementing Libya’s arms embargo only in the Central Mediterranean Sea, seems just a chimera.

In Yemen, the Emirati “equip and training” approach to local forces succeeded in crafting proxy actors on the ground: capacity-building has been a decisive tool of UAE’s military involvement in the country, while the training dimension has not appeared in Libya so far. Since mid-2015 onwards, the UAE has organized, trained, equipped and, in some cases, paid the salaries of Yemeni Southern militias, with the purpose to: fight/prevent the Houthis’ territorial expansion, contain AQAP’s local strengthening, reorganize security governance at a community level. Most of these militias has been institutionalized under the Ministry of Interior (ex. Security Belt Forces), or the army (Hadhrami Elite Forces and Shabwani Elite Forces); other militias continue to be formally out of state legal boundaries although taking part in pro-government operations (ex. West Coast Forces, Abu al-Abbas Brigade in Taiz).

TRIBES

In the UAE’s approach, tribes matter but direct/indirect cooptation follows regional identities (Yemen) and established power connections (Libya). Both the countries have extensive tribal social fabrics. However, the experience of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) waned tribal bonds in the South and many Southern tribal chiefs were hosted in the United Arab Emirates; in Libya, Gaddafi’s Jamahiriya also weakened tribal linkages. The UAE opts for direct (Yemen) and indirect (Libya) support to local actors. In this way, regional belonging prevails on strict tribal belonging, although in some cases these allegiances are overlapped: for instance, the Security Belt Forces (present in Aden, Lahj, al-Dhale and Abyan) rally fighters predominantly from the Yafe’i tribal confederation. But in Yemen, the Emiratis have followed a locally/regionally-based pattern of recruitment (ex. Hadhrami Elite Forces and the attempts to establish elite forces also in Mahra and in Socotra). In Libya, the UAE’s relationship with tribes is indirect and mediated by Egypt, Libyan expatriates and pro-Emirati politicians like Aref al-Nayed (former presidential candidate and former Libya’s ambassador to the UAE). This network of allies is, especially in Cyrenaica, fundamental, since the Emirati lacks direct knowledge of Libyan local dynamics: for instance, Saudi Arabia facilitated the Emirati outreach to Tripoli’s tribes in 2017.[2]

NATIONAL, LOCAL IDENTITIES AND THE SALAFI VARIABLE

In the Emirati eyes, Salafi combatants, whether secessionists (Yemen) or “would-be” nationalists (Libya), are disciplined fighters who can back military-style leaderships opposed to the Muslim Brothers. The UAE mainly supports secessionist or autonomist forces in Yemeni Southern regions. These regionally-based militias often rally Salafis willing to fight against Islah forces (the party including the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood, the conservative milieu and segments of the Salafis). But the UAE sustains also remnants of the Ali Abdullah Saleh’s old regime, still pursuing nationalist aspirations. In the Al Mokha-Bab el-Mandeb area, the West Coast Forces are quite revealing of the Emirati pragmatic stance on national/local identity issues. In fact, the West Coast Forces are a hybrid coalition commanded by Tareq Saleh (nephew of the former president), which clusters the Tihama Resistance (a militia fighting for the autonomy of the Tihama, the Red Sea coastal area), the Giants Brigades (a Salafi local group) and the National Resistance Forces of Saleh (remnants of the disbanded Republican Guard). In Libya, the Emiratis welcome the idea of a strongmen, a “Sisi-style” leadership able to stabilize the country and open to business deals. For this reason, the UAE continues to bet on Haftar, also because secessionist spirits are still weak in Cyrenaica. Together with Saudi Arabia, the Emiratis support madkhali Salafis fighting for GNA’s forces (madkhalis were integrated also in the LNA’s army): they are quietist Salafis who sided with Muammar Gaddafi in the past and are strongly opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood.

COUNTERING TERRORISM

In Yemen, the UAE carried out specific counterterrorism operations against AQAP, in districts (Aden 2016), cities (Mukalla 2016) and interior safe havens (in Abyan, Shabwa and Hadhramawt[3]) shaping, supported by the US, a “by-with-through” (BWT) operational approach with Yemeni partners. This also occurred to secure areas where the Emiratis had direct geopolitical interests. The UAE has not organized or participated to counterterrorism operations in Libya so far, although Abu Dhabi agrees with the fight against the cartel of militias in Tripoli. However, this kind of engagement has not to be excluded for Libya, especially in a post-conflict scenario, given the Emirati narrative of “stabilization” and other first-hand counter-insurgency experiences in the broader region (ex. the UAE’s enduring counter-insurgency commitment in Afghanistan).

THE “SUDANESE CONNECTION”

In Yemen as in Libya, Sudan’s forces support Emirati goals on the battlefield: this is possible since Khartoum opted for the Saudi-Emirati geopolitical camp in 2016. Since April 2019, the UAE is reportedly financing Sudanese militias in Libya against the United Nations-backed GNA.[4] Between 2015-2019, at least 15.000 Sudanese soldiers (mainly from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces) were deployed in Yemen: most of them fought alongside pro-Emirati militias in Aden, Taiz and Hodeida.

PORTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURES

In both countries, the Emiratis can rely on proxies and allies operating in areas hosting maritime and energy infrastructures. Thanks to its proxy actors, the UAE has gained leverage on commercial ports (Al Mokha, Aden, Mukalla, Hadiboh), refineries (Aden) and the only LNG gas terminal of Yemen (Balhaf now contested). Through the LNA-allied militias and tribes, the Emiratis are influent in the oil-rich Sirte area. Recently, production stopped in some of the biggest oilfields: while the average oil production in 2019 was about 1.2 million of barrels per day (bpd), it now reaches no more than 100.000 bpd. This has created a huge loss in income, estimated in more than 4 billion dollars.

Finally, the UAE is master of soft power, also in highly-military contexts such as Yemen and Libya. In the second half of 2019, Abu Dhabi convinced Saudi Arabia about a power-sharing government in Yemen, with the secessionists of the Southern Transitional Council who formally entered unified institutions (the “Riyadh Agreement” whose implementation the Saudis are trying to accelerate through the mechanism brokered on July 28, 2020). Egypt, the main ally of the Emiratis in Cyrenaica, has been now working to deter as much as possible Turkey’s rising assertiveness in Libya. Again, the UAE needs proxies and allies to move forward with its strategy, further expanding its middle power’s ambitions.

 

NOTES:

[1] UN Panel of Experts on Yemen, 2020, p. 12; (plus updates by one of the authors of this article). The UAE still provides logistics and training support to the West Coast Forces (Al Mokha).

[2] We are grateful to Jalel Harchaoui for comments on the Emirati approach to tribes in Libya.

[3] In February 2018, the HEF deployed from Mukalla to Mesini Valley (west of Mukalla), as part of the UAE-led Operation Faisal to secure Hadhramawt’s border with the governorate of Shabwa, protecting also the critical LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) Balhaf energy plant. In late February 2018, the UAE supported the Shabwa Elite Forces against AQAP in Operation Decisive Sword, using Mukalla as a base to retake Shabwa’s Al-Saʿid district (Wadi Yeshbum), fiefdom of the radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (killed in 2011). In March 2018, the UAE backed the Security Belt Forces in Operation Sweeping Torrent, thus securing Wadi Hamara and al-Mahfad in Abyan governorate.

[4] Middle East Monitor The presence of Sudanese militias in Libya is destabilising for Sudan July 1, 2020; and Middle East Monitor UAE urged to pull Sudan mercenaries out of Libya, January 30, 2020.

Source: Guardian

Libyans fear regional war as rival powers vie for control, says envoy

UN representative has two months to secure ceasefire but warns that risks are rising

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Stephanie Williams’ term as acting UN envoy to Libya ends in October. Photograph: Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images

The Libyan people are increasingly scared that their future is being taken out of their hands by external actors, and that the risk of a regional war is rising, Stephanie Williams, the acting UN special envoy for Libya, said on Saturday.

Williams said on a visit to London: “The Libyan people are exhausted and scared in equal measure. They are tired of war, and want peace, but they fear this is not in their hands now. They want a solution and a ceasefire. The alternative to a ceasefire and an inclusive political solution is essentially the destruction of their country.

“With so many external actors with their own agendas, the risk of miscalculation and a regional confrontation is high.

“This is as much a battle between external rivals, as a civil war now, in which the Libyans are losing their sovereignty.”

Williams, a former US State Department diplomat, is working hard to secure a ceasefire and demilitarised zone, as well as the departure of all foreign mercenaries on a timetable agreed before she quits her post in October.

Her successor has not been named, and the US is holding out for the post to be split between two envoys, one working inside and another outside Libya, a division opposed in European capitals and inside the UN itself.

Williams’ own boss, Ghassan Salame, quit his post in March saying that he had been stabbed in the back by UN Security Council members who pretended to support him.

Williams’ departure without a named successor would only underline the diplomatic chaos, as countries rival each other to influence the outcome of a civil war that is now as much about their military and economic stake in Libya, as the political balance between Libyans themselves.

The UN is urging the key actors in the country itself not to rely on external forces to settle their differences, but knows both sides are using a ceasefire to strengthen their military positions, including by importing weapons in breach of a UN embargo.

Williams is working specifically to create a demilitarised zone in Libya’s central region, with a separation of forces around the coastal city of Sirte, seen as the front line in the battle between the UN-recognised and Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and on the other side the forces aligned to General Khalifa Haftar in the east of the country.

Haftar, after getting the green light in a phone call from the former national security adviser John Bolton, launched an assault on Tripoli on 4 April last year, so killing a peace initiative prepared for a year by Salame.

Since the start of the year, the arrival of Turkish-funded mercenaries has decisively pushed Haftar back. The UN senses that Turkey now wants the reward of a naval base in Misrata and an air base in Al-Watiya, indicating that Turkey intends to stay and cement its power.

Egypt has warned that any attempt by the Turkish backed GNA to capture the coastal town of Sirte would be a red line for Cairo leading to an Egyptian military response. Sirte, seen as the gateway to oilfields that Haftar controls, is more than 1,000 kilometres from the Egyptian border, so the threat is treated with both scepticism as well as concern.

Haftar is supported by as many as 2,000 mercenaries from the Russian Wagner group with 2,000 Syrians. As many as 8,000 Syrian mercenaries are backing the GNA. However, Haftar also has the active military support of the United Arab Emirates, which stands accused of committing some of the worst air atrocities of the civil war. The UN insists it has called the UAE out for these actions. But the pressure to rein in the UAE has to come from France, its chief European ally, some officials say.

Williams managed this week to secure an external audit of the Central Bank of Libya by Deloitte, as well as an audit of the rival central bank – audits that have been under discussion for two years. Eastern forces have often complained that oil revenues sent to the Central Bank by the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) are not dispersed fairly across the country, or that they are used to prop up militias and fuel corruption.

Libyan oil revenue is largely used by the central bank to pay the salaries of 2.9 million public sector workers, or to subsidise fuel.

In a bid to park the issue of the distribution of oil revenues, Mustafa Sanalla, the NOC chairman, proposed that the NOC temporarily keep the revenues until the distribution issue is settled. The plan agreed by the parties in talks in early July was scuppered partly due to UAE objections.

The oil fields remain shut, depriving the NOC of $6.5bn (£5bn) in revenue. The NOC said this week that the presence of foreign mercenaries – believed to be Russian – is increasing especially in Ras Lanuf petrochemical complex. The NOC complains the mercenaries “work for governments who have an active interest in blockading Libyan production and damaging Libyan infrastructure” because this translates into millions of dollars of additional revenue for their own oil industries. Neither Russia nor the Gulf States have any interest in seeing an increase in Libyan oil on saturated international markets.

Faced by Turkey and Russia’s exploitation of the UN’s divisions, the UN mission has been watching the slow rise in US interest in the Libyan crisis. US support for Haftar has faltered since Bolton’s departure, with the Pentagon and State Department using the threat of a Russian base in Libya on Nato’s southern flank as leverage to gain interest in the White House. On Monday the US charge d’affaires met leaders in the east to urge a ceasefire, but there is scepticism that Trump will see Libya as worth a row with either Russia or Egypt.

But in a sign of the struggle the UN faces to remain the chief diplomatic conduit, Turkish and Russian negotiators are also due to meet in Moscow to discuss Libya’s future. Turkey does not look in the mood to pull back saying it will hold the UAE to account for what it calls its “malicious” acts.

“There is a civil war and then there is a proxy war going on in Libya. It will be very difficult to end the first if the second is still going on. Nothing like enough has been done to stop the mercenaries and weapons coming into the country. We not only have mercenaries on the ground, and not just drones, but warplanes as well,” said Williams.

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