Midea Bart: So France contributed to the rise of the star of Hafer

"While Paris officially recognizes the internationally recognized National Reconciliation Government in Tripoli, Libya has for years been secretly supporting its rival, retired Major General Khalifa Hafater," writes Rene Baccaman in an article published on the French media website "Media Bart."

He adds that this support enabled the "strong man in eastern Libya" to consolidate its strength and build the army, which recently launched an attack on the capital, which could ignite a full-scale war in the country.

He notes that the April 4 attack on Tripoli, part of the civil war that has ravaged the country since 2011, has not yet achieved its goal. There may be neither victor nor vanquished if UN Secretary General Ghassan Salama To persuade the belligerents to resume the dialogue scheduled for early April in the city of Ghadames in the Libyan desert.

The writer said that the attack clearly highlighted the diplomatic ambiguity and the double-strategic position of the French in the Libyan conflict, noting that the demonstrators in the Libyan capital bitterly condemned this ambiguity and this duality, and accused Paris to implicitly endorse the attack Haftar on their city.

Support for Hover
Although Paris has officially recognized Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj's national unity government since March 2016, it has been providing concrete support for several years in the form of secret military aid to Hafer, allowing him to gather an army of former officers of the Libyan leader's army The late Muammar Gaddafi and some of his men, local militias and fighters from the allied tribes, as well as "Salafis".

The site pointed out that Salama, without mentioning Paris explicitly, pointed out that "international divisions" encouraged Hafer to launch his attack on the capital.

The authorities in Paris, Washington and the Arab world agree on one point: a strong man is the only one who can get Libya out of the disaster that struck it, but the Skhirat agreement in Morocco did not reveal this strong man.

Since the beginning of 2016, the French advisers have been present in dozens, but their intervention alongside Hafer, the rival of Siraj, whom the French Foreign Ministry considers to be the legitimate interlocutors of France, has provoked some unrest in the government and some clashes between the State and the Defense.

Trump connection
"The goals were to fight terrorism but also to build trust with important interlocutors," Bernard Bajoulet, who led the French secret services from 2013 to 2017, told the Associated Press. "This is what we have done by forming ties with Hafer, who was an important player, but also with the winner of the Sarraj, But it controls only a very small part of Libya. "

The writer adds that US President Donald Trump's recent contact with Hafter, which has already won support from Moscow, adds a new asset that does not diminish Paris's importance. He wonders how France does not see this extraordinary rapprochement as a justification for the option it has secretly adopted since 2015 and has since been confirmed.

Washington, which retained a wise diplomatic position between the Libyan power poles, stood by Huffer indirectly at first by giving the green light to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, then through Trump's call, and finally through the White House statement, which welcomed "the important role of Hafar in fighting Terrorism and securing Libyan oil resources. "

The author concludes that Paris, although repeated today in the ears of the world that "France speaks to all", and the number of assistance provided to the Siraj, and confirmed that it did not know the attack on Tripoli, it can not deny its role in the rise of Hafter, which may be encouraged by the support of Washington Moscow to "go to the end."