Libyan General’s Promotion Could Hinder United Nations Peace Talks

MISURATA, Libya — The speaker of Libya’s
internationally recognized Parliament named
Gen. Khalifa Hifter on Monday to the recently
created position of commander in chief of the
army, potentially hindering United Nations-
sponsored talks to end the country’s internal
strife.

General Hifter has had many roles: He was an
ally of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi when he came
to power; later became an opponent; returned to
join the uprising against him in 2011; and last
year announced an abortive military takeover of
Libya’s transitional government.

Since the spring of 2014, General Hifter has been
leading a military campaign with the stated goal
of ridding Libya of Islamists, whether they are
the extremists based in and around Benghazi or
the more moderate politicians who played a
major role in the first transitional Parliament.

A narrow majority of Libya’s internationally
recognized Parliament has been seated since last
summer in Tobruk, an eastern Libyan town
under Mr. Hifter’s control, where it has aligned
itself with his efforts. His appointment on
Monday for the first time gives him formal
legitimacy as the top military commander under
that government. The appointment should
ostensibly make General Hifter accountable to
Parliament.

But he and certain regional militias allied with
him are fighting a rival militia coalition that
includes both hard-line and more moderate
Islamists, and that coalition, known as Libya
Dawn, considers the general an aspiring autocrat
and its greatest enemy. Libya Dawn controls the
capital, Tripoli. It claims its own provisional
Parliament and prime minister, and it includes
the city of Misurata on the central coast.

The United States, Britain and other allies have
been hoping to help broker an agreement
between the two factions. They have threatened
to use sanctions to isolate those on either side
who oppose a reconciliation, including trying to
marginalize the Islamist extremists in the Dawn
faction and General Hifter, who christened his
military campaign Operation Dignity. His
appointment as commander in chief may make it
harder to separate him from the Tobruk-based
Parliament and the rest of the faction.

Many in eastern Libya have embraced General
Hifter as their best hope to tame extremist
militias that have dominated the eastern city of
Benghazi and to restore order to Libya. But
seemingly everyone in the Libya Dawn coalition,
meanwhile, rejects any government that includes
him.

“He just wants to be on top of the throne,” said
Fathi Bashaagha, a local leader in Misurata who
has participated in, and argued for, the unity
talks. “If any unity government appoints Hifter,
he will eat the unity government.”