US Evacuates Its Embassy in Tripoli, Libya; Warns US Citizens to Leave Immediately

[MorningSong]

Now that the Tripoli International Airort is completely destroyed, the US evacuates it's Embassy via land to Tunisia....


U.S. Embassy in Libya evacuates personnel
By Barbara Starr, Joe Sterling and Azadeh Ansari
July 26, 2014 -- Updated 1801 GMT (0201 HKT)


(CNN) -- The U.S. Embassy in Libya evacuated its personnel on Saturday because of heavy militia violence raging in the capital, Tripoli, the State Department said.

About 150 personnel, including 80 U.S. Marines were evacuated from the embassy in the early hours of Saturday morning and were driven across the border into Tunisia, U.S. officials confirm to CNN.

U.S. officials stress that this is a relocation of embassy personnel and the operations have been "temporarily suspended" until "the security situation on the ground improves." The embassy will continue to operate from other locations.

A senior State Department official said some of the staff from Libya will be sent to other U.S. embassies in the region and others will come back to Washington.

CNN has learned the plan to evacuate the Americans was in the works for several days, but the decision to carry out the plan was made just in the last few days as the security situation around the embassy deteriorated.

President Obama approved the State Department recommendation to temporarily relocate personnel because of the "ongoing violence resulting from clashes between Libyan militias in the immediate vicinity" of the embassy, a White House official said.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the United States is grateful to Tunisia "for its cooperation and support." She said the personnel are "traveling onward" from Tunisia.

"We are committed to supporting the Libyan people during this challenging time, and are currently exploring options for a permanent return to Tripoli as soon as the security situation on the ground improves. In the interim, staff will operate from Washington and other posts in the region," Harf said in a statement.

"Securing our facilities and ensuring the safety of our personnel are top Department priorities, and we did not make this decision lightly. Security has to come first. Regrettably, we had to take this step because the location of our embassy is in very close proximity to intense fighting and ongoing violence between armed Libyan factions.

Militia fighting in the area of the embassy and airport has degraded security in Tripoli significantly.

Eyewitnesses in Tripoli told CNN's Jomana Karadsheh that in the early hours of Saturday there was "a lot of movement with fighter jets and helicopters."

The Libyan government was informed of the evacuation after it was carried out, according to U.S. officials.

"Robust" force was ready to protect evacuees

The Pentagon had a "robust package of military forces" in the vicinity but out of sight, ready to move in if the convoy of evacuees had come under attack.

CNN has learned there were two F-16s on combat air patrol overhead, a drone tracking the convoy to the border and a Navy destroyer offshore in the Mediterranean.

There were also several dozen heavily armed Marines flying overhead on V-22 Osprey aircraft in an "airborne response force" that were prepared to land and rapidly evacuate the Americans during the transit to the Tunisian border if they came under attack.

The Pentagon had pressed for weeks to evacuate the embassy, especially after the Tripoli airport came under repeated militia attack, leaving Americans no way to get out via commercial air, the official said.

The decision to use vehicles to drive the Americans across the border was seen as the best low-profile approach to conducting the evacuation rather than sending U.S. military helicopters and troops into Tripoli.

Harf said the United States will work with Libya and the international community "to seek a peaceful resolution to the current conflict and to advance Libya's democratic transition."

"We reiterate that Libyans must immediately cease hostilities and begin negotiations to resolve their grievances. We join the international community in calling on all Libyans to respect the will of the people, including the authority of the recently-elected Council of Representatives, and to reject the use of violence to affect political processes. Many brave Libyans sacrificed to advance their country toward a more secure and prosperous future. We continue to stand solidly by the Libyan people as they endeavor to do so," Harf said.

Secretary of State John Kerry, at the U.S. Embassy in Paris meeting with the Turkish and Qatari Foreign Ministers Saturday, called upon various factions to engage in a political process saying "the current course of violence would only bring chaos." Kerry added that due to the "freewheeling militia violence that is taking place in Tripoli" the U.S. along with other countries, one of them Turkey have decided to "suspended our current diplomatic activities at the Embassy."

Tensions escalate

The United Nations and other international organizations and businesses temporarily evacuated staff from Libya earlier this month.

Nearly three years after the revolution and NATO military intervention that overthrew the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, central government has been outgunned by increasingly powerful militias.

The civil war that culminated in Moammar Gadhafi's 2011 death has given way to warring militias fighting over Tripoli's international airport.

The State Department "recommends that U.S. citizens currently in Libya depart immediately" in a travel warning issued on Saturday.....

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/26/world/africa/libya-us-embassy-evacuation/

[MorningSong]

Now..



Foreigners urged to leave Libya amid rising violence

AFP
By Imed Lamloum 2 hours ago

Tripoli (AFP) - Egypt and several western states on Sunday urged their citizens to leave Libya amid spiralling violence after two weeks of fighting in the capital Tripoli left 97 people dead.

Washington evacuated its embassy staff on Saturday, with Secretary of State John Kerry warning the mission had faced a "real risk" from fierce fighting between armed groups for control of Tripoli's international airport.

Another 38 people, mostly soldiers, were killed in 24 hours of fighting between the army and Islamists in the eastern city of Benghazi, military and medical officials said on Sunday, a further sign of the chaos plaguing the North African nation.

The Tripoli clashes, the most violent since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, started with an assault on the airport by a coalition of groups, mainly Islamists, which has since been backed by fighters from third city Misrata.

The attackers are battling to flush out fellow former rebels from the hill town of Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, who have controlled the airport for the past three years.

The health ministry said on Sunday the violence had killed 97 people, a toll based on casualty reports from eight public hospitals in the city and its suburbs.

More than 400 people were wounded.

Fighting was still raging, with explosions heard from early morning as militiamen battled around the airport.

Egypt's foreign ministry said a rocket hit a house in Tripoli on Saturday, killing 23 people, including several Egyptians.

"There are 23 people dead after a Grad rocket fell on a house in Tripoli. Some of them are Egyptians, but we don't know how many," ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty told AFP.

Cairo called on "all Egyptian nationals in Tripoli and Benghazi to immediately leave and save themselves from this chaotic internal fighting".

The foreign ministry said they should seek "safer areas in Libya or head to the Libya-Tunisia border".

There were an estimated 1.5 million Egyptians in Libya before Kadhafi's ouster. About two-thirds left during the war but many returned in 2012.

Also on Sunday, a British embassy convoy was fired on in a suspected attempted carjacking in western Tripoli. There were no casualties, a spokesman for London's mission in Libya said.

The violence prompted Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands to join Washington in urging their citizens to leave as soon as possible, after the US pulled out its diplomatic staff under air cover on Saturday.

Belgium, Malta, Spain and Turkey previously urged their nationals to leave.

Libya's health ministry warned that foreigners leaving could cause a shortage of health workers, particularly since the Philippines ordered the departure of its citizens, 3,000 of whom were doctors and nurses in Libya, Tripoli said.

The airport has been closed since July 13 because of the clashes.

Libya's interim government has warned that the fighting between those vying for control of the strategic airport threatened to tear the country apart....


http://news.yahoo.com/western-countries-warn-nationals-leave-libya-184504045.html;_ylt=AwrBEiFRWdVTFEMABRAQ5gt.


Eni, Repsol Evacuate Staff

Posted on 21 July 2014. Tags: Eni, Italy, Repsol, Spain, Tunisia
Eni, Repsol Evacuate Staff

Oil giants Eni and Repsol have evacuated expatriates from Libya following escalating violence at Tripoli’s airport, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

Spain’s Repsol withdrew its expatriates on Friday by road to Tunisia, after fighting between rival militia groups closed Tripoli International Airport.

Italy’s Eni is said to have brought its expats by vessel to its Bouri offshore facility (pictured) last week on their way to Italy.

The move by the country’s two largest foreign oil and gas investors comes after France’s Total also pulled out its foreign staff.

In addition, several oil-services companies have also taken their expatriates out of Libya through Tunisia, according to another person familiar with the matter.

(Source: WSJ)


http://www.libya-businessnews.com/2014/07/21/eni-repsol-evacuate-staff/

Italy has evauated over 100 but I can't find anything in English at this time....

[sheme]

Are they preparing the way for ISIS to descend I wonder-it is an oil state after all.

[MorningSong]

As of today, Canada leaves Libya, too..


Canada temporarily withdraws staff from Libya

The Canadian Press
Published Tuesday, July 29, 2014 6:56AM EDT

OTTAWA -- The Canadian government is temporarily suspending its consular operations in the Libyan capital of Tripoli and pulling out all staff.

In a statement, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Lynne Yelich, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, cite an "unpredictable security environment."

They say Canada's charge d'affaires and Canadian diplomats in Tripoli will temporarily work out of the Canadian embassy in Tunisia.

Libya is witnessing one of the worst bouts of violence more than three years after the downfall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Libya's interim government, which relies on militias filled with rebels who battled Gadhafi's forces for security, now finds itself unable to rein them in.

On Saturday, the United States also evacuated its diplomats from Tripoli to neighbouring Tunisia and shut its embassy.

"The government of Canada takes the safety and security of our diplomats abroad very seriously," said the joint statement from Baird and Yelich.

They stressed this decision is based solely on security concerns and Canada "remains committed to supporting Libya's democratic transition."

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya and the International Committee of the Red Cross have already withdrawn their staff as well.


http://www.cp24.com/news/canada-temporarily-withdraws-staff-from-libya-1.1936650#ixzz38r1c1ME0

[MorningSong]

Atrocities compiuted against 2 Phillipine nationals pushes the decision to evacuate by ferry:



Philippines to ferry workers out of Libya after beheading, rape

AFP
55 minutes ago


The Philippines is to charter ferries to speed up the removal of 13,000 nationals from Libya, officials said Thursday a day after a Filipina nurse was abducted and gang-raped there.

The foreign ministry on Thursday confirmed the sexual assault of the woman in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Wednesday.

It occurred 10 days after discovery at a hospital in the port of Benghazi of the beheaded remains of a Filipino construction worker who had been abducted earlier.

"We condemn these crimes that have been committed against our people," President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Herminio Coloma told reporters in Manila.

The woman was seized outside her residence and taken to an unknown location, where she was sexually assaulted by up to six youths, foreign department spokesman Charles Jose told reporters.

She was released about two hours later and a Filipino consular team took her to hospital for treatment, he added.

The Philippines ordered all 13,000 of its citizens to leave Libya following the beheading, with a consular team organising evacuation by land to neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt.

However, only just over 700 had left Libya by Wednesday, according to a foreign ministry tally, despite the rapidly deteriorating situation, with warring militias battling for control of key population centres.

The Philippines has also barred its nationals from travelling to Libya.

The government had also evacuated thousands of its nationals from Libya during the 2011 upheaval that toppled the late dictator Moamer Kadhafi, some boarding ferries that took them to Malta where they later caught flights back to the Philippines.

Many of them later returned to their jobs there.

"Just like what we did before, the Department of Foreign Affairs has hired ships to ferry and evacuate Filipinos," Coloma said.

"We reiterate our appeal to those Filipinos still in Libya to comply with the mandatory evacuation (order)," Coloma said.

Jose, the foreign department spokesman, said he had no information to share for the time being on how many vessels would be chartered, which port would the Filipinos be taken in and where they will be offloaded.

"We're working on it," he added.

About 10 million Filipinos live and work abroad, many of them in the Middle East, in search of better-paying jobs.

Many were "hesitant to come home even if the country where they work" was in crisis or undergoing political conflict, said Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz.

The government had a "re-integration" programme to help returning Filipinos displaced by conflicts in Libya and elsewhere, she said.

The Philippines has also ordered about 100 Filipinos living in Gaza to leave the besieged Palestinian territory as Israel presses its offensive against Hamas militants.

http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-urges-nationals-libya-beheading-rape-053522520.html

And China (et al) takes their citizens to Malta:


China evacuates hundreds of workers in Libya to Malta

VALLETTA Malta (Reuters) - China has evacuated several hundred workers from Libya and is taking them by ship to Malta, the head of the Malta Civil Service, Mario Cutajar, said on Wednesday.

He said the Maltese government was arranging temporary accommodation for the workers and was preparing for the eventuality of a bigger evacuation from the North African country if the unrest there continues to grow.

Cutajar is heading a crisis center to cater for the fallout of the situation in Libya.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Philippines said it had chartered a ship to take up to 1,000 Filipinos to Malta. Cutajar said 150 foreign workers, mostly Filipinos, had arrived in Malta on Tuesday on flights from Mitiga airport near Tripoli.

On Monday the United States said its ambassador to Libya, who was evacuated on Saturday, will be temporarily based in Malta.

The island played a pivotal role in the evacuation of thousands of workers during the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, when countries including China, the Philippines and India chartered ships to transport workers there before they returned to their home countries. A British warship also used Malta as a base for crossings to Libya to evacuate Europeans.

(Reporting by Chris Scicluna; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

http://news.yahoo.com/china-evacuates-hundreds-workers-libya-malta-025613735.html

I think something really BIG is getting ready to go on there in Libya!

[MorningSong]

After much silence from the MSM, ths is quite revealing in many ways:


Egypt and United Arab Emirates Said to Have Secretly Carried Out Libya Airstrikes

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and ERIC SCHMITTAUG. 25, 2014

CAIRO — Twice in the last seven days, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have secretly teamed up to launch airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli, Libya, four senior American officials said, in a major escalation between the supporters and opponents of political Islam.

The United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without informing Washington or seeking its consent, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines. Egyptian officials explicitly denied the operation to American diplomats, the officials said.

The strikes are another high-risk and destabilizing salvo unleashed in a struggle for power that has broken out across the region in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolts, pitting old-line Arab autocrats against Islamists.

Since the military ouster of the Islamist president in Egypt one year ago, the new Egyptian government, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have formed a bloc exerting influence in countries around the region to roll back what they see as a competing threat from Islamists. Arrayed against them are the Islamist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, backed by friendly governments in Turkey and Qatar, that sprang forward amid the Arab Spring revolts.

Libya is the latest, and hottest, battleground. Several officials said that United States diplomats were fuming about the airstrikes, believing they could further inflame the Libyan conflict at a time when the United Nations and Western powers are seeking a peaceful resolution.

“We don’t see this as constructive at all,” said one senior American official.

Officials said that the government of Qatar has already provided weapons and support to the Islamist aligned forces inside Libya, so the new strikes represent a shift from proxy wars —where regional powers playout their agendas through local allies —to direct involvement.

The strikes have also proved counterproductive so-far: the Islamist militias fighting for control of Tripoli successfully seized its airport the night after they were hit with the second round of strikes.

American officials said Egypt had provided bases for the launch of the strikes. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and other officials have issued vigorous but carefully worded public statements denying any direct involvement inside Libya by Egyptian forces. In private, officials said, their denials had been more thorough.

The officials said that the U.A.E. — believed to have one of the most effective air forces in the region, thanks to American aid and training — provided the pilots, warplanes, and aerial refueling planes necessary for the fighters to bomb Tripoli out of bases in Egypt.

The U.A.E. has not commented directly on the strikes. But on Monday an Emirati state newspaper printed a statement from Anwar Gargash, minister of state for foreign affairs, calling questions about an Emirati role “an escape” from the recent election that he suggested showed a desire for “stability” and a rejection of the Islamists. The allegations about the U.A.E. role, he said, came from a group who “wanted to use the cloak of religion to achieve its political objectives,” and “the people discovered its lies and failures.”

The first strikes occurred before dawn a week ago, hitting positions in Tripoli controlled by Islamist-friendly militias, blowing up a small weapons depot, and killing six people.

A second set of airstrikes took place south of the city early on Saturday, hitting rocket launchers, military vehicles, and a warehouse all controlled by Islamist-allied militia.

The second strike might have been motivated by a desire to prevent an imminent capture of the Tripoli airport by Islamist aligned militia, many of whom are based in the coastal city of Misurata and more tribal than Islamist in orientation. It had previously been held by militias based in Zintan and aligned against the Islamists. But after besieging the airport for a month, the Islamist aligned forces overtook it that night.

Responsibility for the airstrikes was initially a mystery. After the first set, several American officials initially said that signs pointed to the United Arab Emirates, but some said that the evidence was not conclusive.

Anti-Islamist forces based in eastern Libya under the renegade former general Khalifa Hifter sought to claim responsibility, but their statements were inconsistent and the strikes were beyond their known capabilities.

A former Qaddafi official now consulting with the Emirates, meanwhile, argued on the condition of anonymity that the strikes must be the work of the United States, contending that the Western powers had sought to deter the danger posed by Libya’s Islamists.

On Monday, however, American officials said that the second set of strikes had provided enough evidence to conclude that the Emirates were responsible, even provided the refueling ships necessary for fighters to reach Tripoli from Egypt.

The officials said this was not the first time that the Egyptians and Emirates had teamed up to strike against Islamist targets inside Libya. In recent months, a special forces team operating out of Egypt but possibly composed primarily of Emirates personnel had also successfully destroyed an Islamist camp in eastern Libya without detection.

American officials said the success of that earlier raid may have emboldened Egypt and the U.A.E. to think they could carry off the airstrikes without detection. Or the brazenness of the attack may reflect the vehemence of their determination to hold back or stamp out political Islam.
Correction: August 25, 2014

An earlier version of this article misidentified the country where Egyptian and Emirates forces had previously teamed up to strike against Islamist targets, according to American officials. It was Libya, not Egypt.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/world/africa/egypt-and-united-arab-emirates-said-to-have-secretly-carried-out-libya-airstrikes.html