Int'l Community Failed to Understand Libya’s Plight in the Face of Terrorism, Thinni Says

Al-Thinni said there must have been a break-down in communication between Libya and the international community, because apart from Egypt, the UAE, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, international players just have not  grasped the severity of the terrorist threat within Libya’s borders – a threat that he says that promises to spread across North Africa and into Europe.

Thinni stressed that the conflict in Libya was not a political one between conflicting Libyan parties, but rather a full-blown war on terror.

Pointing to the terrorist attack against tourists in Tunisia this week the perpetrators of which are said to have been trained in Libya and provided with weapons from it, Thinni insisted that the problem was growing, and that without more support from the international community, Libyan efforts to curb the spread of terrorism would be fruitless.

“We have made every effort to explain what is happening inside Libya to the outside world, but we feel like our words have fallen on deaf ears,” Thinni pressed, Libya Herald reported.

The Prime Minster went on to renew his call for the United Nations to lift the arms embargo on Libya, which would allow the Libyan army to have access to the weapons it says it needs to fight the terrorists who, it claims, raided Qaddafi’s weapons stockpiles after the dictator’s fall in 2011.

For its part, the United Nations has been reluctant to lift the embargo apart from the formation of a unity government in Libya, fearing that the introduction of more weapons into the country could further complicate the divisions between the warring factions in the country.