By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 12 May 2016:
Sadik Al-Ghariani, the head of the Dar Al-Ifta (the fatwa house), has said the so-called . . .[restrict]Islamic State which controls Sirte is not the real enemy in Libya. Instead it is Khalifa Hafter.
Speaking on his Tanasah TV channel last night, he said that Libya was divided into two opposing camps, those of the revolutionaries and those of Hafter and his supporters. The real battle, he claimed, was for Benghazi, not for Sirte; the revolutionaries had to fight Hafter, not IS.
Given that situation, he expressed surprise that the Presidency Council should congratulate Hafter’s army in Benghazi on its victories.
Developing his idea, he called on Misratans not to try and move on past Abu Grain and fight IS in the central region. If they did they risked being “swallowed up” in the desert, as he put it. They needed at stay put and act as a “bulwark” to defend Tripoli from a possible advance by Hafters’ forces.
Abu Grain and its checkpoint are now effectively controlled by IS.
The logic of Ghariani’s argument that the revolutionaries should fight Hafter not IS appeared to fall apart, however, when he said that Hafter and IS were “one body”. This, he declared was, evident.
Ghariani has on other occasions claimed that Hafter and IS were two sides of the same coin.
In a separate move, Ghariani has also attacked the Libyan Politial Agreement and the Government of National Accord. In an opinion article written by him and published by the Libya Observer, he wrote “the government does not have legitimacy and is not an accord government as it was appointed by the UN envoy and no one was consulted about it.”
He accused it of starving people, its supporters of “waging large-scale media campaigns against the Fatwa House”, and the Libyan Political Agreement of humiliating and dividing Libya and taking it once again towards oppression.
Ghariani was recognised as the country’s grand mufti by the now vanished General National Congress and the Ghwell regime, although not by the House of Representatives which sacked him last year. The Presidency Council has so far taken no position on him, leaving him free to continue to operate. [/restrict]
