The sources referred to “Sky News Arabia” to the meeting held by the “strong man” from the city of Misurata, with Mustafa Sanallah, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Libyan National Oil Corporation, last Sunday, in which they explicitly addressed “the issue of controlling natural gas pipelines.”
The sources went on to say that Bashagha has the intention to wrest control of the Mellita oil and gas complex, located east of Zuwara, as well as the Zawiya oil refinery, which is controlled by the Zawiya militia.
Bashagha’s anticipated moves aim to reduce the fuel smuggling operations recorded in the UN reports, and he will use the “assassination attempt” as a justification to launch his anticipated operation.
Preparations for the attack
According to the Libyan political analyst Ezz El-Din Aqil, Bashagha found no way to implement his plan, which he called “snake hunting,” other than to invent the “assassination operation” in order to justify this attack.
Last January, Bashagha announced the launch of a campaign called “snake hunting”, saying that its aim was “to target outlaws and eliminate a number of armed militias that impede the solution in Libya.”
At the time, observers questioned the intentions of this campaign, describing it as a “new attempt by the Misrata militias supporting Bashagha to impose itself in front of its other opponents in the West, including the Zawiya militia.”
Speaking to “Sky News Arabia”, Aqil added that “the Mellita complex and the Zawiya refinery” are two main objectives of Bashagha, but the context of their investigation is still “ambiguous,” adding: “Is it in the context of arrangements with the United States for reasons that specifically concern its interests, or is it a paper?” He is playing with it to achieve some gains in the post-government phase, especially since there is a systematic attempt to disrupt the government, and there are those who delay its formation in order to give Bashagha the opportunity to do something. “
He continued: “There are international parties that were greatly shocked by Bashaga’s failure to win the presidency of the government, and they were relying on him a lot. We do not know the true change of the nature of the interests that they seek to achieve behind his support, but this step definitely comes within the methodology of disrupting the elections and achieving the efforts of those forces.”
Disruption of the new authority
For his part, the Libyan political researcher Al-Hadi Abdel Karim believes that Bashagha is explicitly planning to take control of the Zawiya refinery and the Mellita complex, recalling a tweet of the latter on his Twitter account, in which he referred to “understandings” with the Oil Corporation with the intention of “securing the sector from any security threats.” He played on sentiments, saying that the aim is to “strengthen his independence from political disputes, in a way that guarantees a fair distribution of wealth.”
In statements to “Sky News Arabia”, Abdul Karim warned of dangerous developments that will take place in the Libyan arena, unless Bashagha leaves Tripoli, and also the militia leader Osama Al-Juwaili, pointing out that they did not accept the loss after they failed to obtain the approval of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, which preferred a list. The new President of the Presidency Council, Mohamed Al-Manfi, means that they may seek to disrupt the new authority.
Faced with these developments, Abdel-Karim expressed his doubts about the new government’s ability to gain confidence and start its work, in light of the current “ambush”, hoping that the exile would have an “alternative plan.”
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