Libyan PM appoints new military commanders

The Presidency Council has appointed its first two military commanders following its announcement last week that it will divide Libya into seven military regions as part of efforts to secure the country.

The commander of the western region covering the Jebel Nafusa and west of Tripoli area will be former defence minister Major-General Osama Juwaili. Up until recently, he was the head of the Zintan military council and has been useful in building relations with the Misrata military council. The move is an attempt to entice Zintan, which has generally backed the House of Representatives and Khalifa Haftar in the east, into supporting the PC.

The commander of the central region, which will include Misrata and will stretch 700 kilometres east to Zueitina, will be Major-General Mohamed Al-Haddad, the head of Misrata’s Halbous Brigade. He has faced criticism that he will be handling control of much of the country’s oil industry to Misrata, which Haddad has dismissed saying that the oil facilities are not the remit of the military zone authorities but of the local Petroleum Facilities Guard.

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The PC’s plan to set up military zones has been denounced by the House of Representatives as illegal on the basis that it believes that the PC is illegitimate and does not have any authority.

Misrata’s Colonel Salem Juha has also questioned the move, saying that the creation of the military zones could complicate matters. However, he praised the appointment of the two commanders as an opportunity to create consensus within the military on both sides of the divide, according to news site Al-Marsad.