Haftar's forces go on "high alert" for the first incidents on Sirte

The spokesman for the National Liberation Army (LNA), Ahmed al-Mismari, said this week that the military units have entered a state of "maximum alert" in view of the latest developments in the geostrategic enclave of Sirte, located on the northern coast of the country. As he explained, the General Command has "restructured its operations room and the front lines", and the troops deployed there have been sent "modern weapons, radars and air defenses - model S-300 - to thwart any attempt to capture the city". The head of the LNA's Naval Operations Cabinet, Major General Faraj Al-Mahdawi, also stated that the Haftar Army now has "the capacity to destroy any ship up to 100 kilometres from the Libyan coast", according to Al-Arabiya, in an implicit reference to Turkish warships, which have become the LNA's main target. All these movements have taken place with the intention of "freeing the country from militias, terrorists and foreign interference", stressed Al-Mismari.

It should be recalled at this point that the Libyan civil war has moved in the last month to Sirte, firstly, and Al-Jufra, in the centre of the territory where the largest Libyan air base is located, secondly. Both enclaves are under the control of the LNA, but the rival faction, the Government of National Unity (GNA), led by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, has announced its intention to conquer them. To do so, it has the support of its invaluable ally, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey, which has sent both arms and military equipment and tens of thousands of Syrian, Yemeni, Tunisian, Sudanese and Moroccan mercenaries to Libya over the last year to swell the ranks of the GNA. Similarly, it has deployed personnel of its Army in the North African nation, mainly officers and engineers to prepare the offensive against Sirte and Al-Jufra. In the face of Turkish determination, one of Marshal Haftar's main strongholds, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's Egypt has threatened to intervene militarily in Libya to defend the enclaves, something that has already been authorised both by the Libyan Parliament in Tobruk - the LNA's affiliate - and by the Egyptian Parliament itself. The high tone of Egyptian rhetoric, together with the conduct of massive military exercises on the border with Libya had managed to open up a period of dead time, in which neither Ankara nor Cairo had dared to take the first step.

But the first skirmishes between the two sides began to take place. On Thursday the LNA reported that they had shot down a Turkish drone that was carrying out a reconnaissance mission over Sirte. However, Al-Marsad analyst Mohamed Mansour believes this was planned by Turkey, which would be "trying to measure the LNA's air defences". Hours earlier, Haftar's army was conducting naval military manoeuvres off the coast of the town, Mansour revealed, involving patrol boats and rigid-hulled inflatable boats, among other units. 

Turkey has also deployed at least two frigates to the Libyan coast, specifically off Misrata, about 250 kilometres from Sirte, where Ankara has set up its operations centre for the offensive against this enclave.

Moreover, the Eurasian nation has again insisted that if the LNA does not withdraw from its positions, "the military option will have to be used". It should be recalled that earlier this week Turkey and Russia agreed "to continue to press for a ceasefire in Libya" and the creation of a working group aimed at establishing a cessation of hostilities, but with an immovable condition imposed by Ankara: that Haftar's forces leave Sirte and Al-Jufra, and return to their front lines by 2015, limited to the east of the territory, something that neither the marshal nor his allies, like Egypt, seem willing to accept.

Faced with this scenario, in which neither of the two sides will give up their positions, Turkey has already prepared "a military and diplomatic plan", according to anonymous sources in the daily Zaman. Similarly, Ankara "is ready to respond to any attack against its forces present in Libya, whichever party carried out the attack," the newspaper reported. The sources also referred to the possible deployment of troops by Egypt to strengthen the LNA's defences in Sirte, an operation that was approved by both the country's parliament and its counterpart in Tobruk, which is close to Haftar. "If Egypt sends military forces to Libya, Turkey has a plan to increase its forces and military equipment in Libya to deal with Egyptian forces," they said.