Haftar acquires UN embargoed combat drones

Eastern Libya's military leader, Khalifa Haftar, has acquired what appear to be Chinese and Turkish combat drones, Reuters reporting has found, despite a long-standing UN. embargo on ⁠supplying weapons to the divided North African country, notes US News. Commercial satellite images show at least three drones at Al Khadim airbase, ⁠located in the desert about 100 kilometres east of the city of Benghazi, between late April and December. Their arrival has not previously been reported. What appeared to be ground control equipment for the aircraft was still visible this year, according to three weapons experts who reviewed the ​images. Unmanned aerial vehicles played a significant role during a 2014-2020 civil war in Libya, when Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) tried to overthrow the UN-recognised government in Tripoli on the grounds it was harbouring armed gangs and ‘terrorists’, which it denied. Countries including the UAE, Egypt and Russia provided key backing to Haftar, according to UN investigators, while Turkey supported the Tripoli-based administration. China avoided taking sides.

Libya's warring factions agreed a ceasefire in 2020, but the ‌country remains divided between Haftar's administration in the east and the Tripoli-based government led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid ‌Dbeibah in the west. The arrival of new combat drones at Al Khadim ‘would be a huge symbolic win’ for Haftar, reinforcing his hold over the east and much of the south, including major oilfields, and strengthening his hand in negotiations to form a unified Libyan government, said Anas El Gomati, head of the Sadeq Institute, a Libyan think tank. According to US News, Gomati said the weapons could also be used to defend supply lines to the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group in ⁠neighbouring Sudan. Haftar has denied supporting the RSF. Haftar's LNA ⁠is not known to have the technical expertise to pilot these kinds of drones, Gomati told Reuters. ‘The question remains: who's operating them?’ Reuters could not determine who supplied the drones or when.