Haftar accuses Erdogan of using the ceasefire to intervene militarily in Libya

The forces led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, commander of the National Liberation Army (LNA), accused Turkey of using the brief ceasefire negotiated months ago to arm and reinforce militias fighting alongside the UN-backed National Accord Government in Tripoli (GNA) and of interfering in the Libyan civil war.

In statements released by the local press on Tuesday, LNA spokesman General Ahmed al-Mismari said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the January 12 ceasefire negotiations with Russia to plan a Turkish military operation on Libyan territory. “The Turkish and Erdogan took advantage of the January ceasefire to transport weapons and try to attack the Al Watyah airbase, but were defeated. Now, they have started phase two, attacking Tarhouna,” a city located about 80 kilometers southwest of Tripoli, Al-Mismari denounced.

The aforementioned town, one of the pillars supporting the siege of the capital, has been the scene of intense fighting since last Friday, which has claimed the lives of more than a dozen militiamen from both sides. “He has a secret agenda that represents a threat to the whole region and to the Turkish people. Mercenary flights arrive daily to Tripoli and Misrata,” the city-state that supports the GNA, he added.

Al-Mismari denounced war crimes allegedly committed by militias linked to the GNA in the assault on the cities of Surman and Sabratah, over which the LNA lost control last week, and warned that he would submit a report with evidence to the UN Security Council. At this crossroads of recriminations, officials of the GNA on Tuesday accused Haftar's forces of using Sudanese, Russian and Chadian militias and the United Arab Emirates of violating the arms embargo imposed by the UN in 2011.

Marshal Haftar, who controls most of Libya's territory and the country's main energy reserves, laid siege to Tripoli on April 4, 2019, in the middle of the UN Secretary General's official visit to the capital, in a clear message to the international community. Since then, the civil war that Libya has been suffering since 2015 has mutated into a multinational conflict waged by local militias and foreign mercenaries without the help of regular armies.

Haftar has the economic and military support of Jordan, Egypt, Russia and the UAE, as well as the assistance of Sudanese Arab Janjaweed mercenaries, Chadian soldiers of fortune and Russian Private Military Security Companies (PMSCs) such as the controversial Wagner Group, owned by an oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In addition, it has received political approval from the United States and France.

The GNA, a government without electoral legitimacy imposed after the failed peace process led by the UN in 2015, is supported by Qatar, Italy and Turkey, and has among its ranks nearly 6,000 Syrian mercenaries, according to figures from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

Since the beginning of the siege, around 1,700 people have died, more than 18,000 have been injured and around 200,000 have been forced to leave their homes and become internally displaced.