Apr 10, 2018

Guns and bullets to train two companies of Libyan soldiers are gathering dust in a German warehouse as the Donald Trump administration holds off on delivering the weapons to the violence-plagued North African country.

The Defense and State departments previously authorized some $23 million to train and equip Libyan special operations forces and secure the country’s vast borders, under a 6-year-old plan to carry out security and counterterrorism training and rule of law programs in a handful of vulnerable countries. Expenditures under the Barack Obama-era Global Security Contingency Fund, however, have been frozen since mid-2016, according to congressional notifications reviewed by Al-Monitor, with just $220,000 out of $15 million in border security funding obligated.

“Due to Libya’s evolving political and security landscape, this project remains on hold,” according to the Global Security Contingency Fund’s annual report to Congress.

The report say the United States moved equipment and training ammunition for the special forces program from Morocco back to Germany, home of US Africa Command, in August 2016. The fund was renewed in this year’s defense authorization bill through September 2019, but expenditures for Libya remain in limbo. A State Department official told Al-Monitor that the equipment “remains in storage” and that the United States is legally prohibited from moving forward with the border security project “until we can implement as notified” to Congress.

Overall, Libya has received nearly $130 million in US security assistance since the 2011 overthrow of the Moammar Gadhafi regime, according to data compiled by the nonprofit Security Assistance Monitor in Washington. But military officials acknowledge that the ongoing civil war has left the weak UN-backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj unable to unify police and military forces, complicating America’s ability to provide assistance and throwing presidential and legislative elections later this year into doubt.