the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon has warned that the future of Libya, and the stability of the whole Sahel region... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
, is at stake as it faces the "terrifying threat" of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group.
But he warned international powers not to "stoke the fires of conflict" in the country.
Ban was speaking in Mauritania before heading to Algeria on Saturday as part of a tour of West and North Africa.
While meeting Mauritanian leaders, including President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz and Prime Minister Yahya Ould Hademine, in the capital Nouakchott on Friday he said he was "deeply concerned about the situation in Libya".
Chaos has engulfed Libya since the 2011 NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
-backed ouster of dictator Moamer Qadaffy and rival administrations are being urged to sign up to a U.N.-brokered national unity government to help restore stability.
The internationally recognised government is based in the far east of the North African country.
The Islamic State group and other bad boy organizations have exploited the power vacuum, making gains along the oil-rich coastal regions and triggering concern among Western nations over jihadists controlling territory just 300 kilometres (185 miles) from Europe.
"There are alarming reports of widespread human rights
...not to be confused with
individual rights,mind you...
violations, including serious abuses that may amount to war crimes," Ban said in his comments Friday.
"All those with influence must use it to calm the situation and stop the fighting. It is utterly irresponsible for any outside player to stoke the fires," he added.
Ban said that his special representative Martin Kobler "is facilitating talks on a national unity government" as "we face the terrifying scourge of Daesh [Islamic State] (IS) expanding in Libya and beyond its borders."