American Libyan ally wears badly pressed suit

The general has come a long way. Born in 1943 he was one of the soldiers who supported Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s rise to power in 1969. However, he eventually fell out with the Libyan dictator and moved to the US. In 2011 when the US and European countries supported the Libyan uprising against Gaddafi, Haftar thought he might be able to sweep into Libya as a rebel leader. But it was not to be. He was sidelined, and younger men came to the forefront. Libya soon disintegrated into chaos with armed factions and extremist groups vying for control. US Ambassador Christopher Stevens was murdered in September 2012 in Benghazi. Things only got worse in the next years. ISIS arrived in Libya and beheaded Christians. Armed groups fought amongst each other. It was in this context that Haftar once again appeared in eastern Libya, this time with stronger forces and launched operation Dignity in 2014 to remove jihadist and other groups from eastern Libya. Critiqued for his harsh methods against the extremists, his forces nevertheless have shown the determination to slowly take back not only the east of the country, but swaths of the center and now the West.