Libya

UAE warplanes secretly bombed Islamist militia targets in Libya, apparently catching Washington off guard, as turmoil in the North African country deepened with the Islamists naming a rival premier.
      
American officials said on Aug. 25 that the United Arab Emirates' jets launched two attacks in seven days on the Islamists in Tripoli using bases in Egypt.
      

Libyan rescuers have recovered the bodies of around 170 people after a boat carrying illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa sank at sea last week, a coast guard official said Aug. 25.

"We freed about 100 bodies trapped in the hold of the 16-metre (50-foot) wooden boat which foundered not far from the coast," Abdellatif Mohammed Ibrahim told AFP.

Libya's elected parliament has branded as "terrorists" the Islamist militias which announced their seizure of Tripoli airport after a weeks-long battle and are challenging its legitimacy.
      

Insurgents of Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) - which calls itself Islamic State - posted a video on Aug. 19 purportedly showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley and images of another U.S. journalist whose life they said depended on how the United States acts in Iraq.

By Angelos Stangos

Reading the Barack Obama interview by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, I have come to the conclusion that we still do not know how to go from diagnosis to policy action. That makes us woefully unprepared for what is happening in the Middle East.

An adviser to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has been appointed as a chief adviser to the Prime Minister’s Office two weeks before the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) elects its new leader. The appointment of Ali Sarıkaya was interpreted on Aug. 12 as yet another sign that Davutoğlu could soon become prime minister. 

Three Turkish nationals who were kidnapped in Libya in June were freed on Aug. 11 and received by the Turkish consulate general in Misrata on Aug. 12.

By Nikos Konstandaras

By Paschos Mandravelis