Staff were evacuated from terminals in Libya’s eastern oil crescent and exports were suspended last Thursday when armed opponents of eastern-based military commander 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. 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...stormed the ports and occupied them.
The closure has led to production losses of up to 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) and two oil storage tanks were destroyed or badly damaged by fires during the fighting.
For the past week, Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) has pounded the area with air strikes as it mobilised to retake the ports, and it continued to target its rivals with air strikes on Thursday as they retreated.
Haftar is one of the figures vying for power in Libya since the country fragmented following a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
-backed uprising in 2011. He has received increased international recognition since seizing the oil crescent ports in 2016 and allowing the National Oil Corporation (NOC) to reopen them, despite his rejection of a UN-backed government in the capital 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...
Ahmed al-Mismari, a front man for the LNA which Haftar built up during his three-year campaign to seize the eastern city of Benghazi, said troops had retaken Es Sider by mid-morning.
He said Ras Lanuf ‐ which includes a residential town, an air strip, storage tanks and a refinery alongside the oil terminal ‐ had also been taken by the LNA, as rivals had fled to the west and south into the desert, suffering heavy losses.
"The oil crescent is thanks to God under full control," Mismari said.
Hours earlier military and local sources said festivities had resumed south of Ras Lanuf when the LNA’s opponents counter attacked. Medical and military sources confirmed 10 dead and 13 maimed among LNA forces.
An oil engineer said a third oil storage tank may have been hit after photos published on social media showed thick black smoke rising from the area, though officials were still trying to confirm the source of the fire.