East Libya’s Leader Keeps Tight Control Over Flood Aid

CAIRO — Days after a torrential downpour collapsed two growing older dams and unleashed a dashing wall of water that swept elements of the Libyan metropolis of Derna and hundreds of its folks into the ocean, the navy strongman who guidelines the world got here for a fast go to.

Khalifa Hifter, the 79-year-old renegade commander and longtime C.I.A. asset shook fingers with troopers, took a quick drive by means of 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 navy coalition that controls the jap half of the divided North African nation with an iron fist.

Greater than every 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 jap Libya has made it clear that he would be the total 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 navy dictatorship that competes for energy with an internationally acknowledged authorities within the western half of Libya that’s primarily based in Tripoli, the capital. He has enriched and empowered himself and his sons whereas failing to supply primary companies or preserve important 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 warfare crimes.

His overarching objective seems to be to rule all of Libya, a lot in order that as United Nations-sponsored peace talks have been set to start in 2019, he launched a navy assault on Tripoli with backing from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group. The assault finally failed.

Since final week’s catastrophe, Mr. Hifter has tried to solid himself in a extra benevolent gentle.

“He’s the savior. He’s not accountable for what occurred,” mentioned Tarek Megerisi, a Libyan analyst on the European Council on International Relations, summarizing Mr. Hifter’s messaging. “He has dominated the response, so there’s navy deployed in all places round Derna so he can appear like he’s securing town.”

Mr. Hifter has given his sons distinguished roles in his energy construction. Considered one 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 current days, these forces have refused to let overseas journalists enter jap 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. staff 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 dangerous 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 aimed toward taking up management of town. After lengthy battles, the Libyan Nationwide Military seized it in 2018.

Mr. Hifter has completed little to assist town repair the harm 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 jap Libya administration.

On Tuesday, lots of of Derna residents protested within the destroyed metropolis, calling for the ouster of Mr. Saleh for his position in an administration they mentioned has did not preserve them protected. 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 learn from the disaster as a result of he oversaw the one construction that would do an unlimited support operation. That would strengthen his ties with worldwide support 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 turn out to be 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 navy intervention, toppled and killed Mr. el-Qaddafi.

Within the years since, Mr. Hifter has enhanced his energy. A brand new civil warfare that started in 2014 ultimately put him and the Libyan Nationwide Military, or L.N.A., accountable for jap 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 one of the best 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 broadly thought to be extra involved in reaping income for Mr. Hifter and his cronies than in bettering the lot of Libyans.

“It’s an administration that focuses at the start on territorial management and repression,” mentioned Wolfram Lacher, a Libya researcher on the German Institute for Worldwide and Safety Affairs. “It is usually an administration that tries to extract as many sources as it might 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 jap Libya’s infrastructure to promote for scrap, Mr. Lacher mentioned.

For the reason that Derna catastrophe, analysts have talked about Mr. Hifter’s give attention to energy accumulation over governance as a part of why nothing was completed to shore up the growing older dams that specialists knew posed a risk 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 global pariah. He has obtained navy 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 attainable 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-about him a needed interlocutor in a messy nation about points together with counterterrorism, oil exports and efforts to stem migration to Europe.

“They aren’t satisfied that the choice shall be higher, and what he does is present a recognized amount in his consolidation over parts in jap Libya,” mentioned Mr. Lacher, the researcher. “He has turn out to be a truth on the bottom that you simply’ll should cope with till he dies.”

Mr. Hifter has leveraged points the West cares about to solidify his energy.

Lately, the variety of migrants departing for Europe from jap 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: Proscribing migration from Libya to Europe.

Vivian Nereim contributed reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.