According to the Reuters news agency, eastern Libya's military leader Khalifa Haftar may have acquired Chinese and Turkish combat drones, despite a United Nations weapons embargo. The agency released commercial satellite images from between April and December 2023 showing at least three drones at the Al Khadim desert airbase, located about 100 kilometers east of the city of Benghazi.
Three weapons experts who reviewed the images confirmed that what appeared to be ground control equipment for the aircraft was still visible this year. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) played a significant role during the civil war in Libya from 2014 to 2020. Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) attempted to overthrow the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, accusing it of harboring armed gangs and “terrorists,” which the government denied.
UN investigators stated that the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Russia, and other countries provided vital backing to Haftar. Turkey supported the Tripoli-based administration, while China avoided taking sides. Libya's warring factions agreed to a ceasefire in 2020, but the country remains divided between Haftar's administration in the east and the Tripoli-based government in the west led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.
Anas El Gomati, head of the Libyan think tank Sadeq Institute, told Reuters that the arrival of new combat drones at Al Khadim “would be a huge symbolic win” for Haftar. He added that the drones reinforced Haftar's hold over the east and much of the south, including major oilfields, and strengthened his hand in negotiations to form a unified Libyan government. However, Gomati noted that Haftar's LNA is not known to have the technical expertise to pilot such drones, raising the question: “Who's operating them?”
The experts who reviewed the satellite images said one drone was most likely a Chinese-made Feilong-1 (FL-1), an advanced surveillance and attack drone, while the others appear to be less powerful Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones. All three agreed they could not rule out other types. Reuters said it could not determine who supplied the drones or when, or whether China, Turkey, or any other UN member states applied for exemptions to the embargo to send drones to eastern Libya.
Source: www.aljazeera.com