By Farah Waleed.
Tripoli, 7 December 2014:
Though reports persist that Major-General Khalifa Hafter is about to be appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Libyan . . .[restrict]National Army, an influential member of the House of Representatives has denied the new role is in the offing.
Fatallah Mohamed, a member of the Defence and National Security Committee told the Libya Herald that social media reports he had seen were not true. His committee had received no proposal about Hafter’s appointment. “We have not heard about this from anyone, except Facebook” Mohamed said.
Yesterday another member of the House told this newspaper that the parliament would decide on posting Hafter with two days. But it is clear that not all members are happy with the general, who was reappointed to the army last week, and is therefore no longer officially “retired, as he was often described.
The earlier report that Hafter, who had reached statutory retirement age, had been reappointed into the army was denied some days ago when an HoR spokesman stated that such a decision had never been issued by the HoR or its President and had never been debated.
Three days ago, 30 HoR members signed a petition protesting Hafter’s role in Operation Dignity in the first sign of cracks appearing in the parliament’s united front against Libya Dawn in Tripoli and Misrata. [/restrict]
