Why a probe into the killing of notorious human trafficker ‘Bija’ is a test of Libya’s rule of law

Analysis Why a probe into the killing of notorious human trafficker ‘Bija’ is a test of Libya’s rule of law
Abdel-Rahman Milad also known as ‘Bija’. (Supplied)
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Updated 16 September 2024
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Why a probe into the killing of notorious human trafficker ‘Bija’ is a test of Libya’s rule of law

Why a probe into the killing of notorious human trafficker ‘Bija’ is a test of Libya’s rule of law
  • Abdel-Rahman Milad was killed in Tripoli on Sept. 1, raising fresh concerns about Libya’s political instability — and European border control
  • The former coast guard commander’s murder has cast a light on the country’s militia power struggles, organized crime, and political rivalries

LONDON: Abdel-Rahman Milad, known as “Bija,” a former coast guard commander notorious for human trafficking, was killed in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on Sept. 1, shining a harsh light on the North African country’s chaotic political landscape.

Milad’s death has drawn renewed attention to the intersections between the country’s rival militias, organized crime networks, and weak government institutions, and has raised questions about the wider implications for European border security.

“Milad’s assassination sends shockwaves far beyond Libya’s borders,” Anas El-Gomati, director of the Sadeq Institute, Libya’s first independent public policy think tank and research center based in Tripoli, told Arab News.

“For Europe, it’s a stark reminder that their outsourced border control is built on quicksand.”

Milad’s violent end marks the culmination of a long, controversial career that has become emblematic of the lawlessness and corruption that has plagued Libya since the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

For more than a decade, the oil-rich nation has been divided between two rival administrations, each with its own international backers and militia allies. Its dysfunctional governance has left it seemingly unable to reform its economy or provide for its population.

This was amply demonstrated in September last year, when devastating floods hit the coastal town of Derna after Storm Daniel caused two dams to collapse, unleashing torrents of water that swept away entire neighborhoods.

The disaster left thousands dead or missing, many of them migrants who had arrived in the town with plans to make the sea crossing to Europe. Political instability hindered rescue efforts, and recovery has been slow due to the fractured state of the country.

“Libya’s chaos didn’t just emerge — it was engineered,” said El-Gomati. “Bija’s death highlights a painful truth about Libya’s ongoing turmoil. It’s not just a story of internal strife but one of international negligence and miscalculation.”

Indeed, multiple foreign powers have interfered in Libyan affairs since Qadaffi’s ouster, creating the conditions for armed groups and criminal gangs to flourish.

“The residual division and stalemate is untenable and has allowed international and local actors to shape the chaos to their advantage,” said El-Gomati. “This persistent instability is a direct result of enabling those who thrive on the country’s dysfunction.”

Milad was a prominent figure in the Libyan Coast Guard, commanding a unit in Zawiya, a coastal town in the west of the country that had become a hotspot for people smuggling. While officially responsible for intercepting migrant boats, Milad was deeply involved in human trafficking.

He was sanctioned by the UN Security Council in 2018 for his role in sinking migrant boats and for working with smuggling networks to exploit migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

Libya’s geographic position as a gateway to Europe has made it a prime route for migrants from Africa and the Middle East seeking better lives, but it has also turned the country into a battleground for smuggling networks and militias seeking to profit from the chaos.

The EU’s strategy of relying on Libyan forces to control migration flows has been called into question, with many warning that it has done little to address the root causes of migration or the human rights abuses that migrants face in Libya.

“The real question is whether this crisis will force Europe to rethink its approach to migration management in Libya, or if it will continue to rely on an unstable and corrupt system that only perpetuates chaos,” said El-Gomati.

Milad’s notoriety stemmed not only from his criminal activities but also from his involvement in international diplomacy. In 2017, he participated in a meeting in Sicily, where Libyan Coast Guard officials and humanitarian agencies discussed migration control.

Despite being under suspicion for human trafficking, Milad attended the summit, highlighting potential complicity, or at the very least negligence, on the part of Italian authorities.

His presence at this meeting sparked outrage, with many suggesting that European governments were aware of the criminal ties of Libyan officials but chose to turn a blind eye in exchange for cooperation in stemming the flow of migrants to Europe.

The controversy underscored the fraught relationship between European countries, particularly Italy, and Libya over migration. In 2017, Italy brokered a deal with Libya’s UN-recognized government, then led by Fayez Al-Sarraj, to prevent migrant boats from reaching European shores.

As part of the agreement, Italy provided funds, equipment, and training to the Libyan Coast Guard, which was tasked with intercepting migrants and returning them to Libya. However, this strategy has been widely criticized for subjecting migrants to inhumane conditions, including torture and extortion in detention centers controlled by militias.

Rights groups have long condemned the EU’s approach, claiming that by partnering with Libyan authorities, European governments are complicit in the abuses that migrants face once they are returned to Libya.

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Milad, as a central figure in this system, reportedly profited from these arrangements, with accusations that intercepted migrants were held in detention centers where they had to pay bribes for their release.

“Bija was involved in the strategic decisions about the naval assets of the Libyan Coast Guard that would be sent for the interceptions of migrants at sea, as well as being involved in identifying disembarkation points on the coast,” Nancy Porsia, an Italian journalist who has long tracked Milad’s activities, told Arab News.

“The disembarkation points are extremely important when it comes to the main business of detention. In fact, nowadays, the real gain out of human smuggling in Libya is not the organization of sea crossings — rather, it is the business of detention, which is funded by the international community, and also the business of the interceptions.”

Porsia knows only too well how deeply entangled Milad was in the world of criminality. She was given a security detail after Milad threatened her and her family due to her reporting on his human trafficking activities.

Milad’s crimes were not limited to human trafficking, however. He was also reportedly involved in fuel smuggling, using his position in the coast guard to control illicit trade routes in western Libya.

These criminal operations likely helped fuel the wider conflict in Libya, where rival factions and militias have vied for control of resources and territory.

Milad’s close connections with various militias in Zawiya allowed him to operate with impunity for years, despite being the subject of multiple international sanctions.

In 2020, Milad was arrested by Libyan authorities on charges of human trafficking and fuel smuggling. However, after serving only six months in prison, he was released and even promoted within the coast guard.

FASTFACTS

• Abdel-Rahman Milad, or ‘Bija,’ was a former Libyan Coast Guard commander notorious for human trafficking.

• He was killed in Tripoli on Sept. 1, raising concerns about Libya’s political instability and migration control.

His release sparked outrage, with many questioning the Libyan government’s commitment to tackling human trafficking. Milad’s ability to move freely in western Libya despite his criminal background further highlighted the weak rule of law and the power wielded by the militias.

However, Milad’s misdeeds eventually caught up with him. On Sept. 1, he was shot dead while sitting in a chauffeur-driven car in the Sayyad area of Tripoli.

His death was met with mixed reactions. Some Libyan officials, including militia leader Moammar Dhawi and Abdullah Allafi, deputy head of the Presidential Council, have expressed condolences and called for an investigation.

No group has claimed responsibility for the killing, and the motive remains unclear.

Some speculate that his killing could be linked to infighting among Libyan militias or to his potential threats to reveal incriminating information about the dealings between the Libyan Coast Guard and human smuggling networks.

The arrest of Mohamed Bahroun, another militia leader from Zawiya and commander of the First Support Battalion, in connection with Milad’s death adds another layer of complexity to the case, suggesting that the killing may have been the result of a power struggle.

“Bija was killed in the context of the political struggle in his own town, Zawiya,” said Porsia. “For months now, there have been armed confrontations in Zawiya. It is a unique case across the whole of Libya.

“Bija and Bahroun, better known as Al-Far, are competitors because both are officers who, under the table, carry out illicit trafficking, as corrupted officers … Al-Far was in theory the main competitor to Bija. So, it might be true that he ordered this murder.

“Or it might be that it was actually done by the prosecutor’s office to pin this murder, which is of course so political, with strong political consequences, on a character, a player, like Al-Far.”

El-Gomati likewise believes the murder can only be understood in the wider context of Libya’s political and criminal landscape.

“Milad’s assassination isn’t just the silencing of a single man — it’s a power play,” he said. “His death could be seen as a settling of scores, a pre-emptive strike, or a message to others in his network.

“To some, Milad was seen as a hero who built the naval academy and was pushing back against human smuggling. To others in Zawiya, he was a threat to their smuggling networks.

“Bahroun, a key figure in Zawiya’s smuggling underworld, had every reason to see Milad removed, and their rivalry was well documented.

“If he was indeed disrupting Bahroun’s operations, his death could realign the balance of power in Zawiya, giving rival smuggling factions room to expand. The murder sent a message — those who challenge the status quo don’t survive.”

He added: “Bahroun’s arrest might cause a temporary disruption in human trafficking routes, but history shows that new players will quickly fill the void.”

How prosecutors handle the investigation into Bahroun, who handed himself in to authorities voluntarily, could be seen as a test for the rule of law in Libya — determining where power really lies in the troubled country.

“This case is a litmus test for the very concept of rule of law in a fractured state,” said El-Gomati. “Can a country where ‘might often makes right’ suddenly deliver impartial justice? The handling of Milad’s case will either be a turning point or another nail in the coffin of Libya’s legal institutions.”

Milad’s death is a symptom of the larger problems facing Libya. Since Qaddafi’s fall, the country has been divided between rival governments, with the UN-backed administration in the west and the government of military strongman Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in the east.

“The reality is that the strongest armed groups and figures like Haftar, who escape accountability despite waging war and assassinations, underscore the deep flaws in Libya’s justice system,” said El-Gomati.

“Tripoli’s actions will reveal whether it can enforce true justice this time or merely manage a facade.”

For El-Gomati, the old model of engagement with Libya by foreign powers, including the UN, the EU, Russia, Turkiye, and others, has to change.

“For Libya to break free from this cycle, there needs to be a fundamental shift in how the international community engages,” he said.

“It requires more than just selective sanctions and recycled initiatives. It demands a rethinking of the UN’s roadmap to elections and a commitment to holding all players accountable for their role in its disruption. It needs real consequences for those who exploit the country’s misery.

“Until the rules of the game change, Libya will remain a playground for the powerful and a prison for its people.”

For Porsia, who herself became part of the Milad story after his threats to kill her and her family, the murder has only confirmed her grim assessment that Libya is a “failed state,” run “according to the dynamics of a mafia network.

“After his assassination, I don’t feel safer, in terms of the ability to return to Libya, because the problem is not Bija but the system itself,” she said.

“And then I feel also sorry because it’s a confirmation that Libya is not going to recover from the chaos any time soon, and the murder of Bija itself was an excellent example of a political assassination. And it was done in broad daylight.”

 


Fresh protests in Turkiye over violence against women

Women shout slogans during a protest against violence against women in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP)
Women shout slogans during a protest against violence against women in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP)
Updated 13 October 2024
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Fresh protests in Turkiye over violence against women

Women shout slogans during a protest against violence against women in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP)
  • Erdogan, having initially blamed alcohol and social media, on Wednesday promised to toughen the justice system and crack down harder on crime

ISTANBUL: Hundreds of women protested in Turkiye Saturday against a wave of murders of women, the latest rallies in response to a recent double slaying in Istanbul.
A crowd of hundreds in Istanbul chanted slogans denouncing Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted AKP party, an AFP correspondent reported.
“You are a government that lets young girls get killed,” one of the rally’s organizers, Gunes Fadime Aksahin, told the crowd.
Gulizar Sezer, the mother of a young woman who was murdered, also addressed the rally. Her daughter’s body was found in June after being thrown into the sea wrapped in a carpet.
Other protests took place in the capital Ankara and Izmir, another major city, according to photos posted by a women’s rights federation.
There have been similar such protests every day for a week across the country, notably on university campuses.
A man arrested on suspicion of having killed two young women on the same night took his own life last week, sparking the protests.
The suspect and the two women were all aged 19, said Istanbul officials. The women had been killed within 30 minutes of each other, they added.
It was not known if they knew their attacker.
Erdogan, having initially blamed alcohol and social media, on Wednesday promised to toughen the justice system and crack down harder on crime.
Turkiye has struggled to contain a wave of killings of women.
One monitoring group says there have been 299 murders of women this year in the country of 85 million people, with more than 160 “suspect” killings officially classed as suicides or accidents.
In 2021, Turkiye withdrew from the Council of Europe convention on preventing violence against women, known as the Istanbul convention.
It obliges national authorities to investigate and punish violence against women.

 


Israel’s airstrike warnings terrify and confuse Lebanese civilians

Israel’s airstrike warnings terrify and confuse Lebanese civilians
Updated 13 October 2024
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Israel’s airstrike warnings terrify and confuse Lebanese civilians

Israel’s airstrike warnings terrify and confuse Lebanese civilians
  • The Lebanese government says at least 1.2 million people have been displaced by the war, the vast majority since Israel ramped up airstrikes across the country last month

BEIRUT: As the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies, Lebanese civilians are increasingly paying the price – and this dangerous reality often becomes clear in the middle of the night: That’s when the Israeli military typically warns people to evacuate buildings or neighborhoods to avoid airstrikes.
Moein Shreif was recently awakened at 3 a.m. by a neighbor calling to alert him that Israel planned to strike a nearby building in his middle-class suburb south of Beirut where Hezbollah has a strong presence.
Shreif, his wife and their three children quickly fled their multi-story apartment building and drove away. Within minutes, explosions rang out, he said later that day upon returning to see the smoldering ruins of his building and the one next door.
“I didn’t even have time to dress properly, as you can see,” said Shreif, a well-known Lebanese folk and pop singer who was still wearing his pajamas from the night before. “I didn’t take anything out of the house.”
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging strikes nearly every day since the start of the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will fire rockets into Israel until there’s a ceasefire in Gaza; Israel says its fighting to stop those attacks, which have forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes.
But it wasn’t until late last month, when Israel dramatically expanded its aerial campaign against Hezbollah, that Lebanese people began receiving regular warnings about upcoming airstrikes. Human rights groups say Israel’s warnings — which aren’t issued before many airstrikes — are inadequate and sometimes misleading.
On Sept. 23, Israel made 80,000 calls into Lebanon, according to Imad Kreidieh, head of the country’s telecommunications company – presumably recorded warnings about upcoming airstrikes.
The calls caused panic. Schools shut down. People rushed home early from work. It ended up being the deadliest day of airstrikes in Lebanon in decades, with over 500 people killed — roughly one quarter of all those killed in Lebanon the past year, according to the country’s Health Ministry. Women and children make up one quarter of all the deaths, the ministry says.
Israel has issued warnings on social media nearly every day since then.
On Oct. 1, 27 villages in southern Lebanon were told to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, dozens of kilometers (miles) away. “Save your lives,” the instructions said.
That is when Salam, a 42-year-old mother of two, fled the village of Ain Ebel. She and her family are now staying with relatives in Beirut. Salam refused to give her full name for fear of reprisals.
So far, Ain Ebel – a mostly Christian village – hasn’t been bombarded, although surrounding villages whose residents are predominantly Shiite Muslims have been. Salam’s teenage children are terrified of going home, especially since Israel launched a ground invasion.
Salam is still baffled and angry that her village was evacuated.
So far, evacuation notices in Lebanon have been far more limited than in Gaza, but the messages in both places have a common theme. In Gaza, Israel says it is targeting Hamas militants embedded among Gaza’s civilians. In Lebanon, it warns of similar behavior by Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.
Most of the Israeli military’s warnings first appear on the social media accounts of its Arabic spokesperson. They are then amplified by the Lebanese media.
The warnings instruct people to vacate homes “immediately,” and they are usually followed by a series of overnight strikes that often cause damage in areas beyond those that were warned. Israel says it is targeting Hezbollah fighters, weapons or other assets belonging to the group. Warnings are rarely issued before daytime strikes.
The Lebanese government says at least 1.2 million people have been displaced by the war, the vast majority since Israel ramped up airstrikes across the country last month. Over 800 of some 1,000 shelters are over capacity.
One quarter of Lebanese territory is now under Israeli military displacement orders, according to the UN’s human rights division.
“Calling on residents of nearly 30 villages to leave ‘immediately’ is not effective and unlawfully suggests that civilians who do not leave an area will be deemed to be combatants,” said Ramzi Kaiss, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Beirut.
Kaiss said Israel — which usually issues warnings 30 to 90 minutes ahead of airstrikes — is obligated to protect civilians who refuse to evacuate, or who are physically unable to.
Amnesty International is also critical of Israel’s practice of warning entire towns and villages to evacuate. It “raises questions around whether this is intended to create the conditions for mass displacement,” Agnes Callamard, the group’s secretary general said in a statement on Thursday.
The Israeli military didn’t respond to a request for comment. It has previously said it makes a significant effort to save civilian lives with its warnings.
For almost a year, Israel’s strikes were mostly concentrated in communities along the border, far from the capital and its populous suburbs. But now people who once felt relatively safe in the outskirts of Beirut are increasingly at risk, and their neighborhoods are receiving a small but growing share of airstrike warnings.
In Shreif’s case, he said his neighbor called about five minutes after the Israeli military issued a warning on the social media platform X.
Shreif considers himself lucky: If it wasn’t for that wake-up call, his family might not be alive. The AP could not determine whether any people were killed or injured in the strike that destroyed Shreif’s building or the one next door.
To the northeast of Beirut, in the Bekaa Valley, Israel recently issued a warning to people to stay at least 1,000 meters (yards) away from their town or village if they are in or a near a home that has weapons belonging to Hezbollah.
Some of the warnings have come in the form of animated videos. One shows an elderly woman in a kitchen, suggesting she is unaware of hidden rooms and compartments in her own house that contain weapons for Hezbollah.
“Didn’t you know?” the narrator says in Arabic, as the elderly woman discovers rockets under the couch, behind the shower curtains and elsewhere. The video warns viewers to leave their homes immediately if they – or their neighbors – discover weapons.
But in many cases there are no warnings at all.
Last month, in Ain el-Delb near the southern city of Sidon, an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building, burying about 70 people under the rubble.
Achraf Ramadan, 34, and his father were among the lucky one who rescue workers were able to pull out alive. His mother was taken to the hospital alive, but she later died from her wounds. His younger sister Julia, a public relations professional in her late 20s, was found dead. Achraf and Julia together had been leading initiatives to support displaced Lebanese families in and around Sidon.
“This is a nice and peaceful neighborhood,” Ramadan said, sounding dejected. “The international community is asleep and not taking initiative. On the contrary, I think it’s giving Israel an excuse for its barbarity on the pretext of self-defense.”


As Hezbollah and Israel battle on the border, Lebanon’s army watches from the sidelines

As Hezbollah and Israel battle on the border, Lebanon’s army watches from the sidelines
Updated 13 October 2024
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As Hezbollah and Israel battle on the border, Lebanon’s army watches from the sidelines

As Hezbollah and Israel battle on the border, Lebanon’s army watches from the sidelines
  • Analysts familiar with the army’s workings said that, should the Israeli incursion reach the current army positions, Lebanese troops would put up a fight — but a limited one

BEIRUT: Since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have clashed along the border while the Lebanese army has largely stood on the sidelines.
It’s not the first time the national army has found itself watching war at home from the discomfiting position of bystander.
Lebanon’s widely beloved army is one of the few institutions that bridge the country’s sectarian and political divides. Several army commanders have become president, and the current commander, Gen. Joseph Aoun, is widely regarded as one of the front-runners to step in when the deadlocked parliament fills a two-year vacuum and names a president.
But with an aging arsenal and no air defenses, and battered by five years of economic crisis, the national army is ill-prepared to defend Lebanon against either aerial bombardment or a ground offensive by a well-equipped modern army like Israel’s.
The army is militarily overshadowed by Hezbollah. The Lebanese army has about 80,000 troops, with around 5,000 of them deployed in the south. Hezbollah has more than 100,000 fighters, according to the militant group’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Its arsenal — built with support from Iran — is also more advanced.
A cautious initial response
Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters have been clashing since Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets over the border in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza.
In recent weeks, Israel has conducted a major aerial bombardment of Lebanon and a ground invasion that it says aims to push Hezbollah back from the border and allow displaced residents of northern Israel to return.
As Israeli troops made their first forays across the border and Hezbollah responded with rocket fire, Lebanese soldiers withdrew from observation posts along the frontier and repositioned about 5 kilometers (3 miles) back.
So far, Israeli forces have not advanced that far. The only direct clashes between the two national armies were on Oct. 3, when Israeli tank fire hit a Lebanese army position in the area of Bint Jbeil, killing a soldier, and on Friday, when two soldiers were killed in an airstrike in the same area. The Lebanese army said it returned fire both times.
Lebanon’s army declined to comment on how it will react if Israeli ground forces advance farther.
Analysts familiar with the army’s workings said that, should the Israeli incursion reach the current army positions, Lebanese troops would put up a fight — but a limited one.
The army’s “natural and automatic mission is to defend Lebanon against any army that may enter Lebanese territory,” said former Lebanese Army Gen. Hassan Jouni. “Of course, if the Israeli enemy enters, it will defend, but within the available capabilities … without going to the point of recklessness or suicide.”
Israeli and Lebanese armies are ‘a total overmatch’
The current Israeli invasion of Lebanon is its fourth into the neighboring country in the past 50 years. In most of the previous invasions, the Lebanese army played a similarly peripheral role.
The one exception, said Aram Nerguizian, a senior associate with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, was in 1972, when Israel attempted to create a 20-kilometer (12-mile) buffer zone to push back Palestinian Liberation Organization fighters.
At that time, Nerguizian said, the Lebanese army successfully slowed the pace of the Israeli advance and “bought time for political leadership in Beirut to seek the intervention of the international community to pressure Israel for a ceasefire.”
But the internal situation in Lebanon — and the army’s capabilities — deteriorated with the outbreak of a 15-year civil war in 1975, during which both Israeli and Syrian forces occupied parts of the country.
Hezbollah was the only faction that was allowed to keep its weapons after the civil war, for the stated goal of resisting Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon — which ended in 2000.
By 2006, when Hezbollah and Israel fought a bruising monthlong war, the Lebanese army “had not been able to invest in any real-world post-war modernization, had no ability to deter Israeli air power” and “was left completely exposed,” Nerguizian said. “The few times that the (Lebanese army) and Israeli forces did engage militarily, there was total overmatch.”
International aid has been a mixed blessing
After the 2011 outbreak of civil war in neighboring Syria and the rise of the Islamic State militant group there, the Lebanese army saw a new influx of military aid. It successfully battled against IS on Lebanon’s border in 2017, although not alone — Hezbollah was simultaneously attacking the group on the other side of the border.
When Lebanon’s financial system and currency collapsed in 2019, the army took a hit. It had no budget to buy weapons and maintain its existing supplies, vehicles and aircraft. An average soldier’s salary is now worth around $220 per month, and many resorted to working second jobs. At one point, the United States and Qatar both gave a monthly subsidy for soldiers’ salaries.
The US had been a primary funder of the Lebanese army before the crisis. It has given some $3 billion in military aid since 2006, according to the State Department, which said in a statement that it aims “to enable the Lebanese military to be a stabilizing force against regional threats” and “strengthen Lebanon’s sovereignty, secure its borders, counter internal threats, and disrupt terrorist facilitation.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has also touted the Lebanese army as a key part of any diplomatic solution to the current war, with hopes that an increased deployment of its forces would supplant Hezbollah in the border area.
But that support has limits. Aid to the Lebanese army has sometimes been politically controversial within the US, with some legislators arguing that it could fall into the hands of Hezbollah, although there is no evidence that has happened.
In Lebanon, many believe that the US has blocked the army from obtaining more advanced weaponry that might allow it to defend against Israel — America’s strongest ally in the region and the recipient of at least $17.9 billion in US military aid in the year since the war in Gaza began.
“It is my personal opinion that the United States does not allow the (Lebanese) military to have advanced air defense equipment, and this matter is related to Israel,” said Walid Aoun, a retired Lebanese army general and military analyst.
Nerguizian said the perception is “not some conspiracy or half-truth,” noting that the US has enacted a legal requirement to support Israel’s qualitative military edge relative to all other militaries in the region.


40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn ‘attacks’

40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn ‘attacks’
Updated 13 October 2024
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40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn ‘attacks’

40 nations contributing to UN Lebanon peacekeeping force condemn ‘attacks’
  • At least five peacekeepers were wounded by Israeli fire in the past 48 hours as Israel takes its fight against Hezbollah into southern Lebanon
  • UNIFIL, which involves about 9,500 troops of some 50 nationalities, is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah

UNITED NATIONS, United States: Forty nations that contribute to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Saturday that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers.
“Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” said the joint statement, posted on X by the Polish UN mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India.
Other signatories include Ghana, Nepal, Malaysia, Spain, France and China — all countries that have contributed several hundred troops to the force.
At least five peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as Israel takes its fight against Hezbollah into southern Lebanon.
The peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, has accused the Israeli military of “deliberately” firing on its positions.
The 40 contributing countries “reaffirm our full support for UNIFIL’s mission and activities, whose principal aim is to bring stabilization and lasting peace in South Lebanon as well as in the Middle East,” the statement read.
“We urge the parties of the conflict to respect UNIFIL’s presence, which entails the obligation to guarantee the safety and security of its personnel at all times,” it added.
UNIFIL, which involves about 9,500 troops of some 50 nationalities, is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.
Its role was bolstered by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of that year, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.
At a summit on Friday, French, Italian and Spanish leaders said the “attacks” on UNIFIL peacekeepers violated Resolution 1701 and must end.
UNIFIL said that, in recent days, its forces have “repeatedly” come under fire in the Lebanese town of Naqura where it is headquartered, as well as in other positions.
The mission said that Israeli tank fire on Thursday caused two Indonesian peacekeepers to fall off a watch tower in Naqura.
The following day it said explosions close to an observation tower in Naqura wounded two Sri Lankan Blue Helmets, while Israel said it had responded to an “immediate threat” near a UN peacekeeping position.
On Saturday UNIFIL said a peacekeeper in Naqura “was hit by gunfire” on Friday night.
UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP the peacekeeping mission’s work had become “very difficult because there is a lot of damage, even inside the bases.”
 

 


Lebanon says 15 killed in 3 Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds

Lebanon says 15 killed in 3 Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds
Updated 12 October 2024
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Lebanon says 15 killed in 3 Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds

Lebanon says 15 killed in 3 Israeli strikes outside Hezbollah strongholds
  • The ministry reported “nine dead and 15 wounded” in an “Israeli enemy strike“

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said Saturday that at least 15 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on three areas considered outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds, updating earlier tolls.
The ministry reported “nine dead and 15 wounded” in an “Israeli enemy strike” on the village of Maaysra north of Beirut, raising an earlier toll of five dead.
It also reported two dead, four wounded and unidentified “body parts” in a Israeli strike on Deir Billa, near the northern town of Batroun, and said four people were killed and 18 wounded in a strike on Barja, raising an earlier toll of 14 wounded for the raid in the Shouf district south of the capital.