Libya Asks U.S. to Set Up Military Base Against Russia by Samer Khalil Al-Atrush – Bloomberg News
Libya’s security chief called on the U.S. to set up a base in the North African country to counter Russia’s expanding influence in Africa.
Fathi Bashagha, the interior minister for the Tripoli-based administration, said his government proposed hosting a base after Secretary of Defense Mark Esper laid out plans to scale back the U.S. military presence on the continent and re-focus deployments globally on confronting Russia and China. Bashagha’s government has been engaged in a months-long battle with forces trying to seize the capital led by eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, who’s backed by Russian mercenaries.
“The redeployment is not clear to us,” Bashagha said, speaking in a phone interview with Bloomberg on Friday. “But we hope that the redeployment includes Libya so it doesn’t leave space that Russia can exploit.”…