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Africa North

Libyan Army redeploys forces to Tripoli for big battle: spox

2020-05-20

[ALMASDARNEWS] The front man for the Libyan National Army (LNA), Major General Ahmed al-Mismari, announced that the General Command decided to relocate to some axes in Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
, in a process he described as "purely tactical military."

He explained that the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar

...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy, so it's kind of hard to describe him as a Qadaffy holdover. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all. Actually, he is, but slowly...
, "decided to relocate some to the hubs in the city of Tripoli in a purely tactical military operation, to new points and to new concentrations."

He stated that this positioning or localization may impose "the withdrawal or return of sites to previous locations, but in some axes, which is a tactical process that we hope the Libyan citizen does not care about this, because it is a military matter and an operational matter."

Mismari said, however, that Haftar confirmed, just before, that this step is to "dismantle some of the densely populated neighborhoods and people during the days of Eid, so that there is no friction or reason to target them from the enemy and terrorist militias."

He recounted that "what happened at al-Watiyah in the past hours," noting that the army carried out a "successful withdrawal operation with distinction" from the air base to the "second assembly point".

The military front man revealed that the decision to withdraw was taken by Haftar based on a report from the commander of the Western Military Region, and that the withdrawal process began three or four months ago, by withdrawing planes and vehicles from the base, leading to the recent withdrawal of individuals under cover.

Posted by:Fred

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