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CAIRO — Days after a torrential downpour collapsed two getting old dams and unleashed a speeding wall of water that swept components of the Libyan metropolis of Derna and hundreds of its folks into the ocean, the army strongman who guidelines the realm got here for a fast go to.
Khalifa Hifter, the 79-year-old renegade commander and longtime C.I.A. asset shook arms with troopers, took a short drive by Derna’s muddy streets and flew off in a helicopter.
The catastrophe that struck Derna on Sept. 11 has drawn renewed worldwide consideration to Mr. Hifter and his so-called Libyan Nationwide Military, a army coalition that controls the japanese half of the divided North African nation with an iron fist.
Greater than per week after the catastrophe, as rescue efforts shift to the lengthy and dear work of caring for the displaced and serving to town get well, Mr. Hifter’s tight maintain over japanese Libya has made it clear that he would be the general arbiter of the help operation within the oil-rich nation.
That makes many longtime Libya watchers, together with some who’ve hung out with Mr. Hifter, nervous.
He oversees what’s successfully a army dictatorship that competes for energy with an internationally acknowledged authorities within the western half of Libya that’s based mostly in Tripoli, the capital. He has enriched and empowered himself and his sons whereas failing to supply primary providers or preserve crucial infrastructure, just like the dams that burst final week, analysts and diplomats say. Human rights teams have accused his forces of grave abuses and potential struggle crimes.
His overarching objective seems to be to rule all of Libya, a lot in order that as United Nations-sponsored peace talks had been set to start in 2019, he launched a army assault on Tripoli with backing from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group. The assault in the end failed.
Since final week’s catastrophe, Mr. Hifter has tried to forged himself in a extra benevolent mild.
“He’s the savior. He isn’t in charge for what occurred,” mentioned Tarek Megerisi, a Libyan analyst on the European Council on Overseas Relations, summarizing Mr. Hifter’s messaging. “He has dominated the response, so there may be army deployed in every single place round Derna so he can seem like he’s securing town.”
Mr. Hifter has given his sons distinguished roles in his energy construction. One in every of them, Al-Siddiq, has modeled himself as a politician. One other, Saddam, leads a strong department of Mr. Hifter’s forces and is overseeing the help operation for Derna.
In latest days, these forces have refused to let overseas journalists enter japanese Libya to report on the disaster and restricted the actions of these already there. Checkpoints have been arrange at entrances to town. On Tuesday, a United Nations spokeswoman mentioned {that a} U.N. workforce had not been allowed to journey to Derna, though different groups continued to work there.
Additional complicating the help effort is a historical past of unhealthy blood between Mr. Hifter and Derna.
After native Islamist fighters defeated a franchise of the Islamic State terrorist group in Derna in 2015, they resisted an effort by Mr. Hifter’s forces geared toward taking up management of town. After lengthy battles, the Libyan Nationwide Military seized it in 2018.
Mr. Hifter has carried out little to assist town repair the injury left by the battles and blocked its native elections, appointing as mayor a nephew of Aguila Saleh, a political ally of Mr. Hifter’s and the speaker of Libya’s Parliament, which is a part of the japanese Libya administration.
On Tuesday, tons of of Derna residents protested within the destroyed metropolis, calling for the ouster of Mr. Saleh for his function in an administration they mentioned has didn’t preserve them secure. They didn’t chant in opposition to Mr. Hifter, and it stays to be seen whether or not the catastrophe in Derna will shake his rule.
A former Western diplomat who labored in Libya mentioned Mr. Hifter is well-placed to profit from the disaster as a result of he oversaw the one construction that would do an enormous help operation. That might strengthen his ties with worldwide help organizations, additional entrenching his management, the previous diplomat mentioned, talking on situation of anonymity.
Mr. Hifter has lengthy been a deft survivor of Libya’s brutal politics. He was a younger military officer in 1969 when he participated in a coup by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi that toppled the monarchy and paved the best way for Colonel el-Qaddafi to develop into Libya’s supreme ruler for 4 many years.
The 2 males fell out after the coup and Mr. Hifter fled to the USA, the place he lived in Virginia for twenty years as a C.I.A. asset and fruitlessly explored methods to oust his former comrade.
He returned to Libya in 2011, when the Arab Spring protests erupted throughout the nation and have become a pacesetter within the insurgent motion that, alongside a NATO army intervention, toppled and killed Mr. el-Qaddafi.
Within the years since, Mr. Hifter has enhanced his energy. A brand new civil struggle that started in 2014 finally put him and the Libyan Nationwide Military, or L.N.A., in command of japanese and southern Libya, the place he has arrange a shadow administration in opposition to the federal government in Tripoli.
Egypt, Jordan, Russia and the United Arab Emirates have backed his rise to various extents, primarily as a result of they view him as the perfect candidate to stabilize the nation by cracking down on extremist teams and political Islamists.
However his efforts to increase his management have usually been brutal, and rights teams have accused his forces of torturing and summarily executing captured foes and brutalizing civilians suspected of disloyalty.
His administration is extensively thought to be extra enthusiastic about reaping earnings for Mr. Hifter and his cronies than in bettering the lot of Libyans.
“It’s an administration that focuses in the beginning on territorial management and repression,” mentioned Wolfram Lacher, a Libya researcher on the German Institute for Worldwide and Safety Affairs. “Additionally it is an administration that tries to extract as many assets as it may possibly from these areas.”
Along with the earnings earned from controlling most of Libya’s oil manufacturing, Mr. Hifter’s forces have made cash from drug smuggling, trafficking migrants and disassembling japanese Libya’s infrastructure to promote for scrap, Mr. Lacher mentioned.
Because the Derna catastrophe, analysts have talked about Mr. Hifter’s deal with energy accumulation over governance as a part of why nothing was carried out to shore up the getting old dams that consultants knew posed a menace and had warned about prematurely.
“The rationale we acquired right here is as a result of, successfully, Libya has not had a functioning authorities for a very long time. So the cash that would have been spent on governance has been spent on the L.N.A.,” mentioned Tim Eaton, a researcher at Chatham Home, a analysis group.
Mr. Hifter’s strongman standing has not made him a world pariah. He has obtained army assist from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia and met with high-level Western officers, angering Libyans who say that such conferences bolster the standing of corrupt, unelected politicians.
President Emmanuel Macron of France welcomed Mr. Hifter in Paris in 2020 to debate a doable Libyan cease-fire, and William J. Burns, the top of the C.I.A., met with him and the top of the Tripoli-based authorities throughout a go to to Libya in January.
Analysts mentioned that Western officers had no illusions about Mr. Hifter’s goals, however thought of him a essential interlocutor in a messy nation about points together with counterterrorism, oil exports and efforts to stem migration to Europe.
“They don’t seem to be satisfied that the choice will probably be higher, and what he does is present a identified amount in his consolidation over parts in japanese Libya,” mentioned Mr. Lacher, the researcher. “He has develop into a reality on the bottom that you simply’ll must take care of till he dies.”
Mr. Hifter has leveraged points the West cares about to solidify his energy.
Just lately, the variety of migrants departing for Europe from japanese Libya surged, a phenomenon analysts mentioned couldn’t have occurred with out the involvement of his forces.
In Could, Mr. Hifter traveled to Rome for discussions with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and different senior officers.
The highest merchandise on the agenda: Limiting migration from Libya to Europe.
Vivian Nereim contributed reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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