A Libyan general who has gained control of the city of
Benghazi and is believed to have ties to the CIA has hired a Texas-based
lobbying firm to help him forge closer relations with the US as he seeks to
defeat rival militias and consolidate his hold on the North African country, AP reported.
Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army
have hired Linden Government Solutions, based in Houston, according to a
foreign agent registration document released Tuesday by the Justice Department.
Linden, which would receive about $2 million under the
13-month agreement, also will assist with “international coalition building,
and general public relations” for the Libyan National Army.
Haftar last month was granted a phone call with President
Donald Trump and has been gaining international support in his campaign to take
control of an oil-rich country that has been in turmoil since the uprising that
toppled dictator Moammar Gaddafi in 2011.
A White House statement about the call said “the two
discussed a shared vision for Libya’s transition to a stable, democratic
political system.”
The chaos that followed the overthrow and killing of Gaddafi
resulted in a divided country, with a weak UN-supported administration in
Tripoli overseeing the country’s west and a government in the east aligned with
Haftar.
Haftar served as a senior officer under Gaddafi but defected
in the 1980s during Libya’s ruinous war with Chad, in which he and hundreds of
soldiers were captured in an ambush. He later spent more than two decades in
the suburbs of Washington, where he is widely believed to have worked with the
CIA, before returning to join the uprising in 2011. He eventually built up the
forces known as the Libyan National Army.
The Linden executives leading the firm’s representation,
Stephen Payne and Brian Ettinger, have extensive knowledge of Libya, the
company said in a statement. Payne, Linden’s president, said he has been in
communication with Haftar for the past five years, according to the statement.
Libya has struggled to rebuild its oil industry — its main
source of revenue — since 2011. The firm’s statement doesn’t mention a specific
role for Linden in Libya’s energy industry, but both Payne and Ettinger have
experience in international oil and natural gas markets.
Payne represented the government of Turkmenistan, a central
Asian nation of 5.4 million people, in a consortium of other countries and
international companies to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to
Pakistan, according to highlights of Payne’s career provided by Linden.
Ettinger and Payne traveled to Libya in 2011 on a
humanitarian mission, before Gaddafi was removed, and helped negotiate the
release of several imprisoned journalists, the statement said. Ettinger is
Linden’s general counsel.
Payne did foreign travel advance work for the George W. Bush
administration. He also served on Bush’s campaigns. Other clients Payne has
represented include Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, JP Morgan, Boeing and
Lockheed Martin.
