Ubari conflict | |||||
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Part of the Second Libyan Civil War | |||||
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Belligerents | |||||
Awlad Suliman tribe (Arab) Supported by: Government of National Accord | Supported by: Libyan National Army | ||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||
Edel Abu Baker Issa † (Tuareg Ghat leader) [1] [2] Ali Salah al-Husseini [3] Cpt. Ali Hussein (military operations commander) [2] Otman Ziad [4] Bello Ahmed Hamadeen [4] Ahmed Allal (Brigade 30 commander) | Issa Abdel Majid Mansur (Toubou Front for Salvation of Libya leader) [3] Ali Akri [3] Sharafeddine Barka Azaiy [3] | ||||
Casualties and losses | |||||
400 dead and 600 injured [4] |
The Ubari conflict was a territorial dispute between the Tuareg and Tubu tribes over control of the town of Ubari, located near the oasis town of Sabha, Libya. [2] [1]
The conflict began in September 2014, when the Tuareg and Tubu fought for control of the city. The Arab Awlad Suliman tribe, an enemy of the Tubu, supported the Tuareg in what they viewed as combating Tubu expansionism. The Tuareg took positions on Tendi Mountain, north of the city, while the Tubu took most of the Eastern side of town and adjacent foothills, cutting off the Eastern road leading to the Tuareg stronghold of Sabha, in Western Libya. [5]
As the conflict progressed, both sides received reinforcements. The Tubu mobilised in Sabah and Qatrun, bringing hundreds of its tribesmen to Ubari. The Tuareg mobilized in Ghat, and Sabha, bringing several hundred of its fighters to Ubari. [3]
On 23 November 2015, Qatar mediated a ceasefire between the Tuareg and Tubu; both groups agreed to withdraw from Ubari, and allowed for Arab tribesmen of the Hasawna tribe to enter the city to act as peacekeepers. [6] [4] In March 2017, representatives from the Tuareg, Tebu, and Awlad Suleiman signed a peace treaty in Rome as a replacement for a failed 2015 ceasefire brokered by Qatar. [7]
In February 2019, both the Tuareg and Tubu temporarily united under the GNA and its Tuareg commander Gen. Ali Kanna to defend themselves against Libyan National Army offensive in Fezzan. [8]
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Fezzan is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara Desert. The term originally applied to the land beyond the coastal strip of Africa proconsularis, including the Nafusa and extending west of modern Libya over Ouargla and Illizi. As these Berber areas came to be associated with the regions of Tripoli, Cirta or Algiers, the name was increasingly applied to the arid areas south of Tripolitania.
Ubari or Awbari is a Tuareg Berber–speaking oasis town and the capital of the Wadi al Hayaa District, in the Fezzan region of southwestern Libya. It is in the Idehan Ubari, a Libyan section of the Sahara Desert. It was the capital of the former baladiyah (district) called Awbari, in the southwest of the country.
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The Fezzan campaign was a military campaign conducted by the National Liberation Army to take control of southwestern Libya during the Libyan Civil War. During April to June 2011, anti-Gaddafi forces gained control of most of the eastern part of the southern desert region during the Cyrenaican desert campaign. In July, Qatrun changed to anti-Gaddafi control on 17 July and back to pro-Gaddafi control on 23 July. In late August, anti- and pro-Gaddafi forces struggled for control of Sabha.
The 2012 Sabha conflict started in the aftermath of the Libyan civil war, and involved armed clashes between the Tubu and Abu Seif tribes in Sabha, a city of almost 100,000 in the region of Fezzan, Libya. It happened after February 2012 clashes in Kufra, that involved the Tubu people, too. On 27 March, Jomode Elie Getty charged the clashes as "genocide". A Paris-based Tabu official, Jomode Elie Getty, who was an official with the NTC but resigned on Tuesday, accused the NTC of siding with Arabs in attacks on Tabu tribesmen. He called for U.N. intervention.
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In late January 2019, the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive to take control of the city of Sabha and the rest of southern Libya from the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and local factions. Officially, the LNA announced that the reason for the operation was to remove terrorists, Chadian rebel groups, and to secure the border, but it has expanded Haftar's territorial control and acquired him oil fields near Sabha. It has also restarted some interethnic conflicts as the LNA has allied with local Arab tribes, while the Tuareg and Toubou tribal militias are loyal to the GNA.
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