{"id":41848,"date":"2019-12-07T08:22:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-07T08:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41848"},"modified":"2019-12-07T08:22:17","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T08:22:17","slug":"israel-detains-palestinian-journalists-for-illegal-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41848","title":{"rendered":"Israel detains Palestinian journalists for \u2018illegal activity\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nThe US military believes that an unarmed American drone reported lost near Libya\u2019s capital last month was in fact shot down by Russian air defenses and it is demanding the return of the aircraft\u2019s wreckage, US Africa Command says.
Such a shootdown would underscore Moscow\u2019s increasingly muscular role in the energy-rich nation, where Russian mercenaries are reportedly intervening on behalf of east Libya-based commander Khalifa Haftar in Libya\u2019s civil war.
Haftar has sought to take the capital Tripoli, now held by Libya\u2019s internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA).
US Army General Stephen Townsend, who leads Africa command, said he believed the operators of the air defenses at the time \u201cdidn\u2019t know it was a US remotely piloted aircraft when they fired on it.\u201d
\u201cBut they certainly know who it belongs to now and they are refusing to return it. They say they don\u2019t know where it is but I am not buying it,\u201d Townsend told Reuters in a statement, without elaborating.
The US assessment, which has not been previously disclosed, concludes that either Russian private military contractors or Haftar\u2019s so-called Libyan National Army were operating the air defenses at the time the drone was reported lost on Nov. 21, said Africa Command spokesman Air Force Col. Christopher Karns.
Karns said the United States believed the air defense operators fired on the US aircraft after \u201cmistaking it for an opposition\u201d drone.
An official in Libya\u2019s internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) told Reuters that Russian mercenaries appeared to be responsible.
Russian authorities deny using military contractors in any foreign military theater and say any Russian civilians who may be fighting abroad are volunteers. The LNA denies it has foreign backing.
One current and one former Russian contractor told Reuters that since September the LNA had received ground support from several hundred private military contractors from a Russian group.
Military officials linked to the GNA and Western diplomats have also confirmed the presence of Russian contractors in Libya.<\/p>\n

TIPPING THE BALANCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nHaftar, who claims to be fighting to rid Tripoli of Islamist-leaning armed groups, has received support from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, and, most recently, from Russian mercenaries, according to diplomats and Tripoli officials
Frederic Wehrey, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Russians\u2019 contributions of advanced capabilities \u2014 everything from snipers to precision weaponry \u2014 could be felt on the battlefield, boosting the morale of Haftar\u2019s forces.
\u201cIt\u2019s giving Haftar a real technological edge,\u201d said Wehrey, who recently returned from Libya.
US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in an interview with Reuters earlier this week, declined to comment directly on the drone but said he believed Russia was trying to \u201cput their finger on the scale\u201d in Libya\u2019s civil war to create a situation that was advantageous to Moscow.
Townsend voiced deep concern about Russia\u2019s growing role in the country, including how it would affect Libya\u2019s \u201cterritorial sovereignty and AFRICOM\u2019s counter-terrorism mission.\u201d
\u201cThis highlights the malign influence of Russian mercenaries acting to influence the outcome of the civil war in Libya, and who are directly responsible for the recent and sharp increase in fighting, casualties and destruction around Tripoli,\u201d Townsend said.
Mohammed Ali Abdallah, adviser for US affairs in Libya\u2019s GNA, said the US drone had come down near the pro-LNA stronghold of Tarhuna, 65km (40 miles) south-east of Tripoli.
More than 1,400 Russian mercenaries were deployed with the LNA, he said.
\u201cOnly the Russians have that ability \u2014 and they were operating where it happened,\u201d Abdallah said, in written comments sent to Reuters.
\u201cIt\u2019s our understanding that Haftar was asked by his Russian partners to claim responsibility, despite not having the capability or equipment to shoot down a US drone.\u201d
More than 200 civilians have been killed and more than 128,000 displaced in the fighting since April, according to UN figures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US military believes that an unarmed American drone reported lost near Libya\u2019s capital last month was in fact shot down by Russian air defenses and it is demanding the return of the aircraft\u2019s wreckage, US Africa Command says.Such a shootdown would underscore Moscow\u2019s increasingly muscular role in the energy-rich nation, where Russian mercenaries are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}