A rival government in Libya has shut down just days after it hired a lobbying firm to sway Capitol Hill.
The Tripoli-based National Salvation government issued a statement this week saying, "We put the interests of the nation above anything else, and stress that the bloodshed stop and the nation be saved from division and fragmentation."
Yet, earlier this week, the National Salvation government agreed to pay Alexandria Group International a monthly retainer of $14,000 over the next year to make Libya a greater priority in Washington and to increase its exposure among lawmakers, the media and think-tank and academic communities. Alexandria Group received nearly $42,000 up front from National Salvation, according to Foreign Agent Registration Act records.
The agreement was between Libyan Foreign Minister Aly Ramadan Abuzaakouk and Alexandria Group's Marshall Harris, a foreign policy adviser to former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole at Alston & Bird as well as a U.S. State Department official in the Executive Secretariat and European Bureau and a special assistant in the Office of Secretary of State James Baker. It's not known how the National Salvation's resignation affects the agreement with Alexandria Group.
The resignation by the National Salvation government was in response to a United Nations-brokered unity government created to stem Libya's chaos and combat an Islamic State affiliate, which has taken over the central city of Sirte.
Militias have dominated Libya since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and killed in 2011.
