An important point lost in the noise: there is not, in fact, a deal between GNA/NOC and LNA to restart oil and share revenues. There's a deal between Maiteeq and LNA that's opposed by Central Bank, NOC etc
The issue is confusing but gist is: Maiteeq made a deal with LNA whose terms on revenue collection and distribution were certain to be opposed in the West. LNA lifted the blockade.
What happens now, and until revenues start flowing in, is an effort by international mediators and Libyans to *strike an agreement*--which hasn't happened yet--on how revenues will be collected and distributed.
And another note: Haftar had announced the fields would be open only for *one month*. So sans an agreement on revenue distribution, which will be difficult to reach, a renewed shutdown is a real risk.
This last point is important. A mechanism in place to distribute revenues (as opposed to NOC plan for 4 months to freeze till it's figured out) is *sine qua non* for Haftar, Egypt, and UAE to keep blockade lifted.
And the clock is ticking until revenues start pouring in in a few weeks.
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Exclusive: After years in hiding, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi is poised to go public imminently as he considers running in elections this December, having conducted outreach to diplomats and journalists thetimes.co.uk/article/gaddaf…
Saif al-Islam, who I spoke to by phone to verify his relationship with his political team, will be making a public statement (it will be via an interview with a Western newspaper).
His aides say it is premature for him to announce his candidacy, as the election law has yet to be ratified, but it is his aim to be president.
Short thread here on Dmitry Utkin, the commander of the Russian Wagner mercenary force. A picture of this distinguished gentleman appeared on line showing he sports Nazi tattoos.
Just off the bat, a spokesman for the litiguous Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of Wagner, denies Prigozhin's links to Wagner or Utkin and said my questions prompted a 10 minute Prigozhin rant.
Now that's out of the way, the notorious Wagner group is in fact thought to be named after Utkin's military codename...Wagner--an affectation by the former special forces commander who has a penchant for white supremacist ideology
Details of that drone strike on Juffra had not been fully published. A commander directly involved in the operation said the Emirati officers were in the Pantsir cab when struck. It was operational.
Turkey used several Bayraktars in the raid. The Pantsirs succeeded in downing at least two but could not take all of them on and the remaining drones destroyed them.
Exclusive details: In 2019 a Turkish drone strike killed Emirati officers in Libya. The UAE then tried to move in an American Patriot battery to Libya, drawing a rebuke from the US.
Russia’s Wagner mercenaries calls the shots in fight for Libya
The Biden administration wants the UAE to end financing the Wagner mercenaries in Libya, who answer only to Moscow and no longer pretend to work with Haftar.
Soon after the Russian Wagner mercenaries appeared on the front lines near Tripoli, United States officials warned Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the man who recruited them, that he was making a Faustian bargain.
Exclusive: Remember that Pantsir, the Russian missile defence system the US extracted from Libya? It ended up in Turkey, under joint US and Turkish custody.
The United States had ordered an operation to extract the Pantsir, fearing it could fall into the hands of extremists.Turkey, keen to study the Pantsir in detail, insisted it should take custody of it. Both sought to sway the Libyan government into siding with them.
The GNA’s Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and interior minister Fathi Bashagha “felt like children in a divorce,” said an official, explaining how the government in Tripoli was dragged into this international dispute.
They were relieved when the US and Turkey agreed a compromise.
Exclusive: A Russian Pantsir air defence missile system captured on a Libyan battlefield was flown intact to a US air base in Germany in a covert mission, The Times has learnt.
The operation involved sending a team on a US air force C-17 Globemaster cargo plane to Zuwara airport, west of Tripoli, last June to load the battery and transport it back to the Ramstein base
A Russian official said Moscow was aware the US removed the Pantsir but suggested its capture would be of limited intelligence value..Export versions..are stripped of a carefully guarded identification friend or foe database with the transponder codes for Russian air force jets