Haftar wins the first round of vaccine war with help from Abu Dhabi and Moscow

摘要

The delivery of Libya's very first batch of Covid-19 vaccines to Tripoli on 4 April was a major success for... eastern Libyan strongman and Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar. The arrival of a little over 100,000 doses of Sputnik-V was duly celebrated by prime minister Abdelhamid Dabaiba. The operation was organised, however, by health minister Ali Zanaty, who joined the government of national unity as part of the ministerial quota allocated to eastern Libya and Haftar. A native of Benghazi, he was deputy minister in charge of hospital affairs in the government of Fayez Sarraj in 2016 but quit when Presidential Council members who supported Haftar resigned in 2017. Zanaty is seen, too, as a close associate of Aoun Al Ferjani, Haftar's chief of staff. His appointment as a minister is also thought to have been backed by Muwafak El Mabrouk, head of Alfa Healthcare and a leading trader in hospital equipment. El Mabrouk has distinguished himself by taking advantage of the Covid crisis to snap up a number of contracts for the supply of respirators and other equipment needed for patient care both in Benghazi and Tripoli (Africa Intelligence24/04/20). On the back of his success with the vaccines, Zanaty announced on 6 April that he was winding up the special anti-Covid committee set up by the previous government to take closer direct charge of the campaign.