Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com.
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Foreign Staff
CAIRO — U.S. Navy SEALs took control of a rogue ship illegally loaded with Libyan crude oil early Monday in Mediterranean waters off the coast of Cyprus, ending a crisis that led to the ouster of the country’s prime minister and highlighted the inability of Libya’s central government to protect its most valued assets.
It was the most overt U.S. military intervention on behalf of the fragile Libyan government since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi 2 years ago.
The Pentagon said no one was hurt in the operation, which it announced at around 2:30 a.m. in Washington.
The Pentagon said three armed men had been taken into custody aboard the vessel, the commercial tanker Morning Glory, but it was not clear whether the men had been handed over to the Libyan government. A Libyan government statement said that the ship’s crew was “safe and well” and “would be dealt with in accordance to international and national law,” but it made no mention of the armed men.
The Libyan government said its navy “and other forces” had tried to capture the ship “but faced challenges owing to bad weather and inadequate resources.”
“The government expresses its appreciation to all countries who participated in this operation which took place to enforce the sovereign will of the Libyan nation,” the statement said. “In particular, it wishes to thank the United States of America and the Republic of Cyprus.”
President Barack Obama approved the operation at 10 p.m. EDT Sunday or 4 a.m. local time Monday, the Pentagon statement said.
In the Pentagon statement, spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said the operation was undertaken at the request of both the Libyan and Cypriot governments. It referred to the Morning Glory as “stateless,” meaning it was not registered in any country, allowing the United States to move without gaining any other government’s permission.
When the Morning Glory’s presence was first noted in Libyan waters earlier this month, it was flying the North Korean flag. But after Libya complained, North Korea denied that it had been registered there legally.
“The SEAL team embarked and operated from the guided missile destroyer USS Roosevelt (DDG-80),” the Pentagon statement said. “USS Roosevelt provided helicopter support and served as a command and control and support platform for the other members of the force assigned to conduct the mission.”
The statement did not specify how many Americans were involved in the early morning operation. It said a team of sailors from the USS Stout had boarded the ship and would “be supervising” its return to an unidentified Libyan port.
The tanker episode marked the biggest crisis to strike Libya’s central government since Gadhafi’s overthrow and was the latest sign of the ongoing hostility between that government and the militias that came together to battle Gadhafi in 2011.
Since then, the militias have refused all entreaties to surrender their weapons, and the central government has proved incapable of asserting its authority over them.
AFP Photo/Robert Fluegel
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times
CAIRO — U.S. Navy SEALs seized control of an oil tanker that had illegally taken on a cargo of crude oil peddled by rebels in Libya who had earlier captured key oil ports, the U.S. military announced early Monday.
The seaborne raid, staged off of the Cypriot coast, came at the behest of the governments of both Libya and Cyprus, the Pentagon said in a statement.
“No one was hurt tonight when U.S. forces…boarded and took control of the commercial tanker Morning Glory,” the statement said.
The SEAL team, backed by helicopters, launched its operation late Sunday local time from the U.S. guided missile destroyer Roosevelt, the Pentagon said.
The episode marked the latest chaotic turn of events for Libya, which has been plagued by turmoil in the nearly three years since the oil-rich North African nation rose up against longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. A weak central government has been struggling to maintain some semblance of control, while powerful militias, some them tribally base, have tried to fill the power vacuum.
Among the most high-profile of the armed groups is that of Ibrahim Jathran, whose forces engineered the illicit oil sale. He and other groups in Libya’s East have demanded autonomy and a greater share of oil revenues. But their months-long blockade of key ports had reduced oil output to a trickle.
The North Korean-flagged tanker had sailed last week from the Libyan port of Es Sedr, following ineffectual threats from Libya’s deposed Prime Minister Ali Zeidan to use force to prevent it from leaving. Zeidan was ousted by lawmakers hours after the vessel left the port, with Defense Minister Abullah Al-Thini stepping in as his interim replacement. Zeidan, who left Libya, said Parliament’s move against him was invalid.
The tanker was being brought back to Libya, the Pentagon said — presumably to a port under the control of government forces. The rebels who months ago took control of eastern Libya’s main oil ports and other installations had announced their intention to sell the oil on the black market.
The Morning Glory’s cargo was estimated to be worth about $36 million, money that Libya’s government said belonged to the Libyan people. North Korea said the flagging of the vessel had been in error, and said it had no connection with its owners.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been killed in Pakistan, delivering another big blow to a terrorist group that the U.S. believes to be on the verge of defeat, U.S. officials said Saturday.
The Libyan national had been the network’s operational leader before rising to Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 spot after the U.S. killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a raid on his Pakistan compound in May.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that Al-Qaeda’s defeat was within reach if the U.S. could mount a string of successful attacks on the group’s weakened leadership.
“Now is the moment, following what happened with bin Laden, to put maximum pressure on them,” Panetta said, “because I do believe that if we continue this effort we can really cripple Al-Qaeda as a major threat.”
Since bin Laden’s death, Al-Qaeda’s structure has been unsettled and U.S. officials have hoped to capitalize on that. The more uncertain the leadership, the harder it is for Al-Qaeda to operate covertly and plan attacks.
Bin Laden’s longtime deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is running the group but is considered a divisive figure who lacks the founder’s charisma and ability to galvanize Al-Qaeda’s disparate franchises.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to summarize the government’s intelligence on al-Rahman, said al-Rahman’s death will make it harder for Zawahiri to oversee what is considered an increasingly weakened organization.
“Zawahiri needed Atiyah’s experience and connections to help manage Al-Qaeda,” the official said.
Al-Rahman was killed Aug. 22 in the lawless Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan, according to a senior administration who also insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.
The official would not say how al-Rahman was killed. But his death came on the same day that a CIA drone strike was reported in Waziristan. Such strikes by unmanned aircraft are Washington’s weapon of choice for killing terrorists in the mountainous, hard-to-reach area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Rahman has been thought to be dead before. Last year, there were reports that Rahman was killed in a drone strike but neither senior U.S. administration officials nor Al-Qaeda ever confirmed them.
Al-Rahman, believed to be in his mid-30s, was a close confidant of bin Laden and once served as bin Laden’s emissary to Iran.
Al-Rahman was allowed to move freely in and out of Iran as part of that arrangement and has been operating out of Waziristan for some time, officials have said.
Born in Libya, al-Rahman joined bin Laden as a teenager in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union.
After Navy SEALs killed bin Laden, they found evidence of al-Rahman’s role as operational chief, U.S. officials have said.
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