Russians and Americans. In Mali, Haftar frees everyone (with money from the Emirates)

In the no-man’s-land stretching from Fezzan to Mali and Niger, the Haftars talk to everyone. They talk to the coup-led juntas and the Tuareg separatists, to ISIS and al-Qaeda, and, of course, to the Russians. Few can boast such a wide-ranging network of contacts with such a diverse array of parties. The past week has served to demonstrate to everyone that anyone wishing to resolve problems in the Sahel must go via Benghazi, as shown by the Libyan General Khalifa and his son Saddam. Thanks to their mediation with ISIS and the Tuaregs, an American citizen, 49-year-old Kevin Rideout, was released, followed a few days later by two Russian mercenaries from the Africa Corps.

The case of Rideout is still partly shrouded in mystery. The American pilot and missionary was working for a humanitarian organisation and had been living in Niger for twenty years. Kidnapped last year outside his home in Niamey, Rideout was held captive by ISIS for nine months. “They took me away at night on a motorbike, north of Niamey and then towards Mali,” he said upon his release last Friday. “I would also like to thank General Saddam Haftar and the special forces,” he said in a video recorded in Benghazi shortly after landing at the airport as a free man. US President Donald Trump expressed his satisfaction: “I look forward to welcoming him to the White House along with his beautiful wife Krista,” he wrote on Truth. For the Haftars, these words are a badge of honour, especially as Saddam is the president-elect of the future unified Libya – the vision envisaged by the Trump administration, which has for months been the subject of intense negotiations between the east and west of the country.

Anonymous sources have told Reuters that the Cyrenaican army is even said to have carried out a raid by a Libyan special forces commando unit in Mali. Other, more reliable accounts – less inclined to glorify Haftar – suggest instead that the Libyan general paid a ransom to ISIS militants. According to some sources cited by "Il Foglio", the money in question is said to have been made available to Haftar by the United Arab Emirates, which has long established direct channels of communication with Islamic terrorist groups in the region. In October last year, Dubai paid around $50 million to secure the release of a member of the royal family, Sheikh Ahmed bin Maktoum bin Juma al Maktoum, who had been kidnapped by al-Qaeda in Bamako the previous month. “The United Arab Emirates is the main, if not the sole, external supporter of the American plan for the unification of Libya,” explains Jalel Harchaoui of the RUSI think tank in London. “It had every interest in doing Trump a favour by freeing an American – a Christian, at that – and in making Haftar look like a hero.” But according to many observers, the real mediation for Rideout’s release was carried out by Malian drug traffickers, such as Cherif Ould Taher, known as the ‘El Chapo of the Sahel’. “Haftar merely secured the funds from the Emirates, which, having paid $50 million to al-Qa’ida last year, deemed it excessive to pay ISIS as well this time,” explains a source.

Two days ago, Haftar secured another release of great political significance: that of two Russian mercenaries from the Africa Corps. The two had been taken prisoner by Tuareg separatists in Mali following the Battle of Tinzawaten, fought in the north of the country two years ago. Several sources confirm that Haftar’s forces also played a role in this case, at precisely the same time as Saddam Haftar had flown to Moscow to meet his other main backer, Vladimir Putin. The Russian president “expressed support for efforts aimed at unifying Libyan institutions, strengthening the country’s stability and preserving its sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Al Foglio has learnt that, in recent weeks in Benghazi, under Haftar’s auspices, meetings have taken place to broker a truce between the Russians and the Tuaregs, who are fighting on opposing sides in Mali – the former alongside the coup-led junta, the latter as allies of al-Qaeda. The release of the two mercenaries is said to have been part of these negotiations.

“It is clear that Saddam Haftar is the one who stands to gain the most from this whole affair,” Pawel Wójcik and Lucas Webber, two analysts who have recently investigated the links between the Haftars and Islamic extremism in Fezzan, explain to Il Foglio: “Haftar has had informal contacts with ISIS and JNIM (an al-Qaeda affiliate, ed.) amongst the southern tribes,” they explain. “Many members of these tribes have family ties to ISIS or al-Qaeda fighters. And if you want protection for your trafficking operations, you have to ask them.” “When Haftar needs to smuggle something across the border – particularly the tripartite border between Libya, Niger and Mali – he doesn’t check the identity documents of those he’s paying to deliver weapons or traffic people,” explains a source to Il Foglio. “This is a problem, because it’s not clear which armed groups end up receiving Haftar’s money.”