Ghassan Salama: conflict in Libya is not between East and West and the country is not an incubator for jihad in Africa.

London, 14 March 2022 (Lana) The New Africa Magazine, published in the British capital in English, conducted an interview with former UN Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salama on his impression of the situation in Libya after his departure three years ago, in which he stressed that he does not agree with those who say that Libya is an incubator for jihad in Africa, and recalled that the country despite the difficult situation managed to fully thwart the ISIS project in Sirte.

Salama said in this interview that the proceeds of Libyan oil and the failure to distribute its revenues fairly by the authority of a weak state increased the monolith of armed groups that seized the huge arsenal left by Kadhafi the day after the fall of the regime in 2011, and then got weapons from abroad.

The former UN Envoy said: "The conflict in the country is often described as an East-West conflict and this is not true, because what happened in 2011 in Libya is the explosion of the state from within, and the problem of Libya is that it lives on oil profits and therefore can finance its own war, however, the conflict in Libya, like all other conflicts in the world, will necessarily be affected by the major crisis that is taking place in Europe)

Salama stressed that it was and still is necessary for the United Nations to try to re-establish the state, which is a slow process, noting that Libya is at risk of partition but that he does not believe that the actual forces are pushing towards it.

The former UN Envoy said everyone has an interest in maintaining a strong state in Libya that can put an end to terrorist groups that use the country as a haven, as well as problems such as irregular migration to Europe and elsewhere.

=Lana=

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