By Saber Ayyub .
Tripoli, 31 March 2016:
Ajdabiya-based Petroleum Facilities Guard leader Ibrahim Jadhran has declared for the Government of National Accord . . .[restrict]in a move which seems set to boost existing tensions with the Libyan Armed Forces chief Khalifa Hafter.
Jadhran’s spokesman Ali Al-Hassi today told the Libya Herald that he welcomed the arrival in Tripoli of the Presidency Council and promised to cooperate in boosting the export of Libyan oil.
Hassi added: “We will work hardly to cooperate with a legitimate internationally recognised national body to stop the expansion of the terror organisations like IS and its threat to the Libyan resources”.
He explained that Jadhran had sought not to take sides between the Abdullah Thinni government in Beida and the Khalifa Ghwell administration in Tripoli.
“We saw that if we cooperated with one side and ignored the another, that would lead to more splits” said Hassi, “That’s why we were waiting for one national legitimate body to work with”.
The controversial Jadhran at one time sought to set up a rival to the federalist Cyrenaican Transitional Council. His Political Bureau of Cyrenaica was launched with the swearing in of a 24 member government in 2013. Little was heard of it thereafter. But Jadhran instead asserted himself by blocking oil exports from Ras Lanuf, Sidra and Zuetina. The government of Ali Zeidan tried but failed to reach a lasting settlement prompted, according to Jadhran, at the time, by unpaid salaries
In 2014 Jadhran attempted to sell a cargo of oil “for Cyrenaica”. Morning Glory, the tanker carrying it was intercepted by the US navy.
Jadhran’s father Ibrahim Saeed is a leading Adjabiya elder, while one brother, Salem, is the local mayor and another, Usama is a top leader of the Ajdabiya Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council. [/restrict]
