Headlines:
- Trouble ahead for the US in Libya
- America seeks to build Arab Force in Syria
- “Musharraf handed over 4000 Pakistan to US”
Trouble ahead for the US in Libya
Reports have emerged this week that Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, the 75-year-old commander of the Libyan National Army suffered either a stroke or a heart attack and is now receiving treatment in France. Hifter first joined the Libyan military under King Idris I in 1966. Three years later, he participated in Moammar Gadhafi’s coup against the monarchy. For the next 20 years, Hifter ascended to ever-higher positions in the Libyan military, eventually becoming a key commander in the Chadian-Libyan conflict in the 1980s. After Chadian forces took Hifter prisoner, however, he and a number of other Libyan soldiers defected in 1987, pledging their allegiance to the CIA- and Saudi-backed National Salvation Front for Libya (NSFL), an overseas opposition group that called for the overthrow of Gadhafi. Hifter quickly rose through the ranks of the NSFL’s military wing, the Libyan National Army. Soon after the 2011 Libyan revolution began, the US sent Hifter back to Libya in the hopes of constructing a rebel army in close collaboration with regime defectors. Hifter was able to strengthen the government in Tabruk, which weakened the government in Tripoli which was backed by the Europeans. Hifter’s has spent more than six years attempting to construct a professional military – the Libyan National Army, but it remains, at its heart, a hodgepodge of different armed militias, each often operating independently of one another according to their own agenda and own turf battles. Hifter’s departure would weaken the US position in Africa’s largest oil reservist.
America seeks to build Arab Force in Syria
The White House is reportedly seeking to build an Arab force to replace the US military presence in northeast Syria and help stabilize the area, The Wall Street Journal reported April 17. US President Donald Trump’s administration has requested billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to restore northern Syria. The US currently has two major points of military presence on the ground in Syria: one on the border with Jordan in the south and one in northeastern Syria in an area controlled by the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Force (SDF). According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration wants to shift the burden of occupying northeastern Syria – which is touted as an effort to stabilize the area by the newspaper – to Arab countries. The WSJ said John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser, called Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s acting intelligence chief, to see if the Arab nation with the largest standing army was willing to contribute to the planned changing of guard. “The mission of the regional force would be to work with the local Kurdish and Arab fighters the US has been supporting to ensure Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS] cannot make a comeback and preclude Iranian-backed forces from moving into former Islamic State territory, US officials say,” according to the newspaper.
“Musharraf handed over 4000 Pakistan to US”
Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman and National Commission for Enforced Disappearances President Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal on confirmed on Monday 17th that during former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s tenure, over 4,000 Pakistanis were handed over to foreigners for dollars. Briefing the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights Javed Iqbal outlined that during former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s tenure, the-then interior minister Aftab Sherpao handed over 4,000 Pakistanis to foreigners. He added that Musharraf had himself admitted to having done so and that parliament did not raise its voice against the former president and interior minister. “He should have been questioned that according to which law he handed people to foreign elements,” Iqbal added.