UN to Investigate Possible War Crimes in Libya

The United Nations Human Rights Council will send a fact-finding mission to Libya to determine whether war crimes were committed as part of a power struggle between the UN-backed government and a renegade general. On Monday, the Council passed a resolution urging UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet to “collect and review relevant information to document alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by all parties in Libya since the beginning of 2016… and to preserve evidence with a view to ensuring that perpetrators of violations or abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law are held accountable.” The resolution stemmed from the discovery of mass graves in areas recently relinquished by the self-styled Libyan National Army led by Benghazi-based warlord Khalifa Haftar. Haftar’s forces conquered much of the country during a yearlong offensive backed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The offensive became bogged down when Turkey came to the assistance of the Tripoli-based government with military advisers and troops said to have been recruited from the ranks of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels.