If we have a glance at the history in the past six decades, we will see how the Americans have waged wars in different parts of the world just for their own interests under the guise of protecting the nations. In the 1950s to 1970s, the U.S. had a war with Vietnam where the American forces committed horrible crimes against the Vietnamese by killing some 2m Vietnamese but they were forced to leave there buy suffering humiliation.

The crimes of the Americans have continued through the history but mostly in the Middle East where the Americans were seeking to loot the oil and wealth of the countries through causing rifts among the groups, creating and supporting terrorist groups or triggering direct clashes with the regional forces.

After committing horrible crimes during the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. troops turned to Afghanistan under the pretext of combatting terrorism and fighting Al-Qaeda group which was behind the September 11 terrorist attack in the U.S.

However the Americans were forced to leave Afghanistan after 20 years and spending trillions of dollars with suffering humiliation but killing of thousands of Afghan nationals and they have to leave Iraq by killing thousands of Iraqis soon because of the pressures from Iraqi people.

Now international media by publishing a report have claimed that the U.S. forces have also killed thousands of African people during their presence in the African states to show that the U.S. crimes are not just limited to the Asian states.

At least 22,000 civilians have been killed in airstrikes conducted by U.S.-led forces in a number of countries in Africa and West Asia over the past 20 years of the so-called ‘forever wars,’ a conflict monitor says.

In a new approximation, the UK-based organization Airwars said at least 22,679 civilians, and as many as 48,308 ones, lost their lives in airstrikes that were part of the US-led “war on terror” launched following terror attacks in New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001.

The not-for-profit company, which tracks and archives the international air war against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and other terror factions in Iraq, Syria and Libya, issued its report ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The report added that the figures take into account civilians that were killed during the military intervention and the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq by the US-led forces, as well as their bombing campaign supposedly against Daesh plus targeted airstrikes in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Airwars further noted that the deadliest year – when looking at the minimum total death toll – was 2003, when at least 5,529 civilians were killed by U.S. airstrikes, almost all of them during the invasion of Iraq.

It added that the next deadliest year – likewise – was 2017, when at least 4,931 civilians lost their lives in bombing campaigns by the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq and Syria.

But as for the maximum possible death toll, the deadliest year was 2017, when as many as 19,623 civilians lost their lives by the U.S. or U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against purported Daesh positions, the report said.

According to Airwars, 97 percent of civilian strikes-caused fatalities occurred during the occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2009, the two-decades-long occupation of Afghanistan, and the bombing campaign ‘against Daesh.’

The London-based monitor, citing data from several sources, said the US Department of Defense does not publish full counts of civilian casualties recognized by the agency.

Airwars compiled its report using statistics from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, The Nation, and the volunteer project Iraq Body Count.

This report is just one example for tens of U.S. crimes in the world while the country accuses Islamic countries and nations of terrorism or violence.

Recent disgraces in the Middle East have shown the world the true face and nature of the U.S. in dealing with the human rights issues as they interpret it, and it does pursues it wherever it wants.

But claims of Americans regarding democracy and defending human rights have lost its color and they are better to go and find a better and logical pretext and claim for keeping their presence in the countries because people in the world have noticed who is the real blood shedder and supporter of terrorism and violence in the world.

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2011 has been named disastrous year for the Libyan people and in this year since its first months, namely, since January and February which were the beginning of public protests, the grounds for toppling the Muammar al-Qaddafi government were laid. Since the second week of February of this year which Qaddafi’s government started bloody crackdown on Libyan people in Benghazi, the world oil-devouring powers began their moves for entering Libya for looting this country’s oil and they laid the ground for toppling Qaddafi’s government. The more atrocity and blood-shed resulted from Qaddafi’s anger, the more the plan for the future of the country deepened. Forasmuch as one or two countries were unable to own the oil of Libya for itself and actually other countries did not like this idea, either, the global cruel joint-stock company which has been named by them the “United Nations” stepped into the issue and in just few months, it approved five consecutive resolutions regarding interference and dissolving Libyan government. Resolutions 1970, 1973, 2009, 2016 and 2017 each one was approved in short time by the consensus or unanimous votes of participating members in the UNSC while each of members benefitted from the resolutions.

IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

By killing of Qaddafi and collapse of his ruling system in September 2011, the National Transitional Council was formed to transfer power from the despotic ruler to the Libyan people and the imaginary theory of Responsibility to Protect which had been created by some of the UN members took shape. The “Responsibility to Protect” is a global political commitment which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations in order to address its key concerns to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. But it seems the theory has been just set as a pretext for looting of these people.

Since then till now, Libya has never enjoyed even single day of peace and tranquility. Nine years of war and bloodshed and internal fratricide with support of aliens has created a calamity for the Libyans that faces a vague ending. Today Turkey and Libya have expressed their greed to Libyan oil more openly than others. Egyptian government claims it considers Libya its strategic country due to its 1300 kilometers of joint borders and it is more interesting that Turkey is after revival of the glorious days of Ottoman Empire this time in North Africa. Beside these two countries, there are probably more actors in Libya, too. Russia with forces of Wagner Company, Italy with its military’s direct support of the formed the Government of National Accord in Libya, France with deployment of its forces in the Libyan borders and Algeria and the U.S. with their direct supports of Egyptian government are the other major actors in this octopus-like greed towards Libya.

Turkey’s greed is because of restoration of interests of its presence in Libya because before the public upraising in Benghazi in 2011, Turkey was one of the biggest contractors of construction and development projects during Qaddafi’s era. Till the last moments of Qaddafi’s ruling, Ankara did its best for a compromise between the West and Qaddafi and it even voted against any NATO’s military operation against Libya. But after the toppling of Qaddafi’s government in Libya, Turkish companies lost some trade contracts worth 20b euros and some 26,000 Turkish workers who were involved in those projects with Qaddafi government lost their jobs.

When the city of Tripoli was on the threshold of collapse, one Turkish private defense consultancy, SADAT, took responsibility of transferring Syrian terrorist militia to Libya. This company is run by former Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) brigadier general, Adnan Tanriverdi, who is currently military advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The motivation for attracting interests in Libya has continued after it under several strange pretexts. Turkey’s support from the Government of National Accord in Libya is nothing but financial. But Egypt’s support is different story and the country both pursues financial interest and its Godfather-like attitude in Africa. Egyptians have always claimed of having the biggest and strongest Army in the Arab world and it is not an exaggeration.

Egypt has the most number of Abrams tanks after the U.S. and its air force has a collection of American fighter jets. With such a backbone of power, if the country remains indifferent and passive regarding developments in its neighboring country Libya, it will definitely lose its credibility among Arab states.

Although Egyptian parliament has recently approved a law which lets the government have military intervention in Libya, it seems President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi still refrains from taking any military intervention in Libya and confronting with Turkey. Hereby, the octopus-like approach for seizing Libya’s oil interests has put Libyan people on the eve of tenth anniversary of war and bloodshed and the United Nations which is supporter of this octopus-like taste has contracted the silence disease and the theory of Responsibility to Protect is not applicable.

 By: Hamid Reza Naghashian

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According To Iran News, Analysts say that Libya is one of the most important crisis to watch for in 2020 because of the involvement of Russia and Turkey. More importantly, the plight of the Libyans after almost 10 years of civil war cannot be ignored.

Jens Stoltenberg, head of NATO military alliance recently said in an interview that Turkey remains an important ally and NATO is ready to support GNA increasing the possibility of Russia and NATO locking horns.

Eight years after Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi eliminated his country’s weapons of mass destruction the colonel found himself on the wrong side of the gun, when he was overthrown and killed in 2011 submerging the country in a civil war.

NATO members led by Britain and France supported the so-called revolution by airstrikes – then watched as the country sank into chaos. Barrack Obama said leaving Libya without a plan after Gaddafi was the “biggest mistake” of his presidency.

There are fears that the global Covid-19 pandemic could devastate the war-torn Libya, where a decade long conflict has ravaged key infrastructure and created dire medical shortages.

Today the country is divided into two factions backed by foreign powers struggling to put the country together.

On the one side, there is the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) under Prime Minister Fayez Mustafa al-Sarraj in Tripoli supported by Turkey, Qatar, and Italy. Turkey has deployed Syrian mercenaries.

Tripoli has been under siege by the Libyan National Army (LNA) headed by Khalifa Haftar, who started his offensive on Tripoli in April 2019. The offensive was launched while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in Tripoli to prepare for a peace conference.

Unsuccessful in taking Tripoli, Haftar has laid a siege on the capital city for the last four months.

The 76-year-old Libyan-born commander Haftar is supported by Russia, Egypt, France, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and to a lesser extent Israel. Russia has sent mercenaries.

The Wall Street reported that prior to his April offensive on Tripoli, Haftar was in Riyadh where Saudis gave him tens of millions of dollars.

In his dominion, Haftar is known as “the marshal”, and is the military ruler of eastern Libya, with Benghazi as his stronghold. He has promised to build a stable, democratic, and secular Libya but the regions in his control are without any law and order and corruption abounds.

There were several summits by the international community to put an end to the Libyan strife before the Covid-19 pandemic sidelined the Libyan crisis.

The last summit was called the Berlin Conference was held on January 19. Haftar and al-Sarraj didn’t even meet face to face and the summit failed to yield results.

China has remained neutral in this conflict. Under the Gaddafi regime, China engaged in various infrastructure activities with 35,000 Chinese laborers working across 50 projects, ranging from residential and railway construction to telecommunications and hydropower ventures. The year leading to Gaddafi’s overthrow, Libya was providing three percent of China’s crude oil supply, constituting roughly 150,000 barrels a day. All of China’s top state oil firms – CNPC, Sinopec Group, and CNOOC – had had standing infrastructure projects in Libya.

In the outbreak of protests in 2011, China sought to preserve economic ties with Libya and rejected the NATO-led military intervention. China abstained at the UN Security Council vote to authorize military intervention.

In late 2015, the GNA emerged as the new political authority, the product of negotiations brokered by the United Nations and backed by China.

Although many Chinese projects were suspended in Libya and bilateral trade decreased by 57 percent, China’s neutrality paved the way for Beijing to stand in good stead with GNA for years to come.

Immigrants crisis

Home to an estimated 654,000 migrants – more than 48,000 of them registered asylum seekers or refugees – many of them cramped conditions with little access to healthcare amidst the pandemic. An outbreak can be catastrophic.

Many live on transfers from friends and family and UNHCR handouts. With work hard to find much hope to proceed with their journey to Europe. Smugglers have put hundreds and thousands of them in boats and sent them across the Mediterranean to Italy.

UNHCR has been evacuating some of the most vulnerable refugees until the airspace was shut in early April.

On May 13, WHO issued a joint statement on Libya emphasizing that the entire population of the country, especially some 400,000 Libyans that have been displaced – about half of them within the past year, since the attack on Tripoli — are at risk of Covid-19 pandemic.

The statement reported everyday challenges that humanitarian missions and workers face to carry on with their mission. The UN verified 113 cases of grave violations, including killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools, and health facilities.

The report points out that as of May 13, there were 64 confirmed cases of Covid-19, including three deaths, in different parts of the country. This shows the transmission of the disease is taking place and the risk of further escalation of the outbreak is very high.

The report talks about food security and the latest assessments show that most cities are facing shortages of basic food items coupled with an increase in prices, urging all parties to protect the water supply facilities that have been deliberately targeted.

“We look forward with anticipation to the pledged financial support to the Humanitarian Response Plan for Libya, as announced by the GNA,” WHO statement said.

Oil production

Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa with 46.4 billion barrels as of 2010. Much of Libya’s oil wealth is located in the east but the revenues are channeled through Tripoli-based state oil firm National Oil Corporation (NOC), which says it serves the whole country and stays out of its factional conflicts.

Prior to the 2011 Libyan civil war, Libya produced over 1.5 million barrels a day. As a result of a blockade of export terminals by LNA by February of this year oil production dropped to 200,000 barrels a day reports Bloomberg. NOC said the North African state’s current level of production is at 91,221 barrels per day as of March 17.

In order to choke GNA from the crucial crude export revenue, the LNA seized Libya’s export terminals and ports in the east in mid-January. The blockade has cost Libya some $560 million, Petroleum Economist reported in January.

According to NOC, the blockade has plunged production from around 1.2 million barrels a day, and added losses had surpassed four billion dollars by April 15.

Conflict wages

In the last couple of weeks, significant developments have been happening in the Libyan civil war.

In an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica, Jens Stoltenberg, head of NATO military alliance said that Turkey remains an important ally and NATO is ready to support GNA. He stressed NATO is supporting the UN’s efforts for a peaceful solution to conflicts both in Libya and Syria.

Meanwhile, the independent English language Tripoli-based Libyan Express reported that Haftar launched a rocket attack Thursday on Tripoli, hitting the Central Hospital on other downtown areas.

Tripoli Central Hospital and some civilian areas were targeted. GNA’s Health Ministry said 14 civilians were injured, adding that the hospital will not be able to serve people due to the attack pointing out what a massive setback was amid the outbreak of Coronavirus.

Libyan military forces said Monday that the Libyan army struck forces loyal to Haftar in Al-Watiya airbase in the southwest of Tripoli during the government-led Operation Volcano of Rage.

LNA has intensified attacks on civilians since the beginning of May as GNA made substantial military progress in the offensive in the western part of Tripoli. Armed drones provided by Turkey conducted effective attacks against the LNA.

Libyan Interior Minister Fathi Bashaghe has accused Haftar’s forces had used chemical weapons on the Salah Al-Deen front, south of Tripoli. The accusations were confirmed by Canadian journalist Amru Saleheddine, who found several government soldiers with symptoms to those of epilepsy, usually caused by nerve gas.

The conflict in Libya is backed by foreign actors with different objectives and priorities. Any emerging power configuration will be fragile unless the external actors come to a shared understanding.

First Published in Tehran times

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