The LNA siege of Khalifa Haftar continues over Tripoli between water and power cuts

The siege on Tripoli by the National Liberation Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar continues in the face of resistance from the Government of National Accord (GNA) of Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj. The executive in the Tripolitan capital is suffering from severe water and electricity cuts as a result of the latest actions by Marshal Haftar's forces, which have been trying to knock down the last rival bastion since April.

The capital of Libya is currently deprived of electricity, running water and gas, and is the scene of daily fighting in the southern neighbourhoods. In an official note, the GNA, supported by the United Nations, denounced that Marshal Haftar's commandos broke into the Sidi al-Sayeh power station and closed the main valve, leaving the electrical stations that supply the western and southern neighbourhoods without gas supply.

The cuts have also reached large areas of the GNA-allied city-state of Misrata and other cities "that are in complete darkness," according to sources within the Tripolitan administration.

The Libyan General Electricity Company confirmed the interruption of the gas supply in the Sidi al-Sayeh pipeline on Sunday and assured that the action had reduced the power by 1,000 megawatts. "The situation of the electricity network is tragic. We have been working since night to rebuild the network," said the company, which aims to replace lost power with electricity from the plants in Al-Zawiya, a city on the west coast near the Tunisian border, and Ubari, in the southwest corner.

The interruption of electricity supply is the latest major stumbling block to the dramatic situation facing the population in and around Tripoli after an armed group broke into a control station in Shwerif on Monday, preventing water from being pumped in and threatening workers, the Great Man-Made River Project, which supplies water to much of Libya, said in a statement.

This armed militia is trying to use the water cut-off as pressure to force the release of the detained family members, as explained by UN humanitarian coordinator Yacoub El Hillo in an official note.

Within this panorama, the eastern government of Tobruk, represented by the LNA, is seeking to impose itself definitively within a Libyan civil war that has been going on for seven years and which is led by elements that materialized the overthrow of the dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi in 2011. 
 

The war in Libya has become in recent months a game board occupied by various international actors. The LNA in Khalifa Haftar and the Tobruk Executive in the east are supported by Russia, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates; Meanwhile, on the other side, the GNA has been supported by the UN since 2016 and, more recently, by Qatar and Turkey, the latter of which moved military equipment and armed troops (including pro-Turkish mercenaries in pay from Syria) to Libyan territory following the collaboration agreement signed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj at the end of last year. 

This link between the Ottoman nation and the Libyan GNA also focused on the economic aspect with a pact on the establishment of jurisdictional water limits and valuable exploitation areas in the Mediterranean arc, where Erdogan has set his eyes on the extraction of gas (this last aspect provoked the international denunciation of Cyprus and Greece, as they allegedly entered areas corresponding to Greek islands).

Despite the last commitment to a truce made at the last summit in Berlin on 19 January, military equipment and soldiers are still being transferred to the warring parties. The conclave on German soil meant the meeting, for the first time in years, of the opposing sides in the Libyan conflict. At the meeting in the Teutonic city, Sarraj and Haftar (a former member of the military leadership of Gaddafi) agreed on a "comprehensive plan" to solve the problem of the Libyan war, with the implementation of a ceasefire and a verification commission composed of both parties to ensure that it was not violated. Despite this appointment, violent episodes and further escalation of the war occurred under mutual accusations of ceasefire violations. 

Khalifa Haftar already controls a large part of Libya after having extended his influence over the large cities of the south and the western oil fields of Al-Sharara and Al-Fil; all that remains is for him to take the city-state of Misrata and demolish the resistant stronghold of Tripoli, the headquarters of the ANG and the target on which the ANG launched a last major offensive that has been going on for a year now. 

The LNA justifies its action by the intention to destroy the terrorist strongholds in Tripoli in order to bring peace to the country and to achieve a subsequent political process of transition. Meanwhile, the GNA presents itself as the legitimate power pole in Libya in the face of what they understand to be a military rebel coup. 

In the last year of the siege on Tripoli, since April 4, nearly 1,700 people have died - more than 150 this week -, around 17,000 have been injured and more than 150,000 have been forced to leave their homes

On the other hand, the threat of the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect Libya and threatens to spread further in the midst of the war. According to official figures, one death has been recorded and 25 cases have been diagnosed in the North African country.