#BBC – European Affairs Magazine

Al-Obeid accuses Khalifa Haftar of recruiting mercenaries to fight alongside his self-styled army

11 Marzo 2017 BreakingNews @en di

Major General Suleiman Mahmoud, the former National Transitional Council military chief, has accused renegade General KhalifaHaftar of forming an army of militias and hiring mercenaries. Speaking to BBC Arabic, Al-Obeidi said Haftar has also recruited about 500 fighters from his Al-Furjan tribe. “When Haftar was promoted to Marshal, about 7000 mercenaries from the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement were fighting with him”, he said. Reacting to the Return to Benghazi Military Operation launched by Benghazi Defense Brigades, Al-Obeidi identified members of BDB as Benghazi’s revolutionary fighters who were forcibly driven out of the city. “I am leftist, I can’t accuse them of Islamic extremism andHaftar can’t defeat them alone”, he remarked, referring to last year intervention of two Arab countries “Egypt and UAE” to help Dignity Operation repel the advance of BDB forces. This time, Al-Obeidi called the UN to impose a no-fly zone to facilitate the march of Benghazi Defense Brigades eastward. “We are still under the 7th Chapter, those fighters are under the Government of National Accord”, he noted.

U.K. representatives started talks with U.S. counterparts about what will be the relations between the two countries

The British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Boris Johnson, is in the U.S., as reported from British television BBC. He has already had meetings with some important members of the President-elect Trump staff, the chief strategist Steve Bannon and son in law Jared Kushner on Sunday in New York before departing for Washington where he will meet the Speaker of the the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, Sen. Bob Corker and the Majority Whip Mitch McConnell. Johnson’s trip to the U.S. serves not only in order to prepare that of the Prime Minister Theresa May in March but also to begin to talk about what will be the relations between the United States and the United Kingdom after the latter has left the EU. Although neither Theresa May neither Boris Johnson have had words of appreciation for Trump during the election campaign, the President-elect seems however well disposed towards the UK.