Libya asks for US military base to counter Russian presence
5632 Mins Read
Libya’s security chief called on the U.S. to set up a base in the North African country to counter Russia’s expanding influence in Africa.
Fathi Bashagha, the interior minister for the Tripoli-based administration, said his government proposed hosting a base after Secretary of Defense Mark Esper laid out plans to scale back the U.S. military presence on the continent and re-focus deployments globally on confronting Russia and China.
Bashagha’s government has been engaged in a months-long battle with forces trying to seize the capital led by eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, who’s backed by Russian mercenaries.
“The redeployment is not clear to us,” Bashagha said, speaking in a phone interview with Bloomberg on Friday. “But we hope that the redeployment includes Libya so it doesn’t leave space that Russia can exploit.”
Bashagha warned that Russia’s backing of Haftar was part of a broader push for influence.
“The Russians aren’t in Libya just for Haftar,” he said. “They have a big strategy in Libya and Africa.”
“Libya is important in the Mediterranean: it has oil wealth and a 1,900-kilometer coast and ports which allow Russia to view it as the gate to Africa,” Bashagha said. “If the U.S. asks for a base, as the Libyan government we wouldn’t mind — for fighting terrorism, organized crime and keeping foreign countries that intervene at a distance. An American base would lead to stability.”
he U.S. hasn’t had forces in Libya since last April, when it withdrew them as Haftar’s forces marched toward the capital. The country has been in turmoil since a 2011 U.S.-led and NATO-backed uprising ousted long-time autocrat Moammer al-Qaddafi. The following year, a jihadist-led mob attacked the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, killing the American ambassador, Christopher Stevens. In a 2016 interview with Fox News, then-President Barack Obama said that failing to plan for the aftermath of Qaddafi’s ouster was the worst mistake of his presidency.
“We hope that the U.S. can move on from this regretful incident,” Bashagha said of the attack on the embassy. “All Libyans regret it. It wasn’t the Libyan people but a small group of criminals that did it.”
