World powers said Monday they supported the lifting of an arms embargo on Libya and were ready to supply weapons to the country’s new unity government to help it fight the growing threat posed by the Islamic State group.
“The government of National Accord has voiced its intention to submit appropriate arms embargo exemption requests to the UN Libya Sanctions Committee to procure necessary lethal arms and material to counter UN-designated terrorist groups and to combat (ISIS) throughout the country. We will fully support these efforts,” read a statement by US secretary of state John Kerry and 24 other top diplomats after talks in Vienna. The conference was co-chaired by Mr Kerry and his Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni, whose country has faced a major influx of migrants from Libya fleeing violence and poverty.
The North African nation was plunged into chaos after the 2011 Nato-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival militias vying to control the oil-rich country.
Taking advantage of the mayhem, the Islamic State group has carved itself a bastion after overrunning the Mediterranean coastal city of Sirte — Kadhafi’s hometown — last year and transforming it into a training camp for militants. A unity government was formed in late March after months of negotiation by UN mediators in a bid to end the political chaos that has undermined the fight against ISIS.
But while the government of National Accord has received backing from key institutions like the central bank and the National Oil Corporation, it still faces resistance from rival administrations in the east and west of Libya.
In a bid to stabilise the country, the fledgling regime of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj drew up a list of requests for Western partners to assist its forces with arms, training and intelligence.
The meeting comes as a senior US official said on Sunday that the Islamic State has not gained significant ground since it took the Iraqi city of Ramadi a year ago, which it then lost in December, as the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria has been helped by better intelligence and better equipped local forces.
Islamic State “is shrinking so they are very much on the defensive,” Mr Brett McGurk, US President Barack Obama’s special envoy in the fight against Islamic State, told a press conference in Amman.
