The UK parliament’s foreign affairs select committee is to ask the government whether it intends to send as many as 1,000 non-combat troops to Libya in an attempt to train a Libyan army capable of driving out Islamic State from the country.
Senior members of the committee were told in Tunis last week that the formation of a Libyan government of national unity (GNA), which was announced on Saturday, would pave the way this week for a European conference on military intervention including the UK defence secretary, Michael Fallon.
Committee members were told that the Italians would provide 5,000 troops and the UK 1,000, with more troops probably provided by the French. The British government is becoming increasingly concerned that a military vacuum in Libya has allowed Isis to gain a foothold around the town of Sirte in Libya as well as to make military incursions inside Tunisia. But there is frustration on the committee at the evasive responses from the government over its plans for Libya.
It is also expected that members of the committee will ask David Cameron to give evidence to its wider inquiry into Libya after Barack Obama last week claimed that the prime minister had become distracted and failed to pay sufficient attention to the Libyan slide into chaos in the wake of the western-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Critics say Cameron has got off lightly on his single most significant foreign policy intervention as prime minister. The committee has taken evidence from the then foreign secretary, William Hague, the then defence secretary, Liam Fox, and the then international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, but not from Downing Street.
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