Libyan Gen. Khalifa Haftar announced on Tuesday that he is officially a candidate for the presidency of the government he tried to overthrow by force less than two years ago.
Hundreds of bodies have been discovered in mass graves in Tarhuna, Libya, following the liberation of the city from the militias of General Khalifa Haftar, the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper announced Wednesday.
The Libyan National Army (LNA), the military force loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar, reported losing two helicopters on Sunday during a military operation against their former allies, the front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT).
Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, who laid siege to the capital city of Tripoli for 14 months until Turkish military intervention pushed his forces back in June 2020, has hired former Bill Clinton senior aide Lanny Davis and former Republican congressman Bob Livingston of Louisiana as lobbyists. Haftar is apparently trying to exert some influence over the next Libyan election, or possibly run for the presidency himself.
Over 1,000 Russian and Syrian mercenary fighters in Libya retreated from Tripoli’s frontlines to a town south of the capital on Sunday following a Turkish-backed military intervention, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that two Turkish soldiers have been killed in Libya, where Turkish forces were deployed to support the Government of National Accord (GNA) against the forces of the Libyan National Army (LNA) under Gen. Khalifa Haftar.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wasted little time sending troops to Libya after his parliament approved military intervention on January 2.
President Donald Trump spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi by telephone on Thursday and agreed to oppose “foreign exploitation” of the situation in Libya, where terrorists, warlords, and rival governments have been fighting ever since the fall of dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The United Nations-brokered Government of National Accord (GNA) over the weekend accused forces loyal to rogue Gen. Khalifa Haftar of airstrikes against a field hospital in southern Tripoli on Saturday, killing five doctors and injuring eight other health workers.
Paris on Wednesday admitted that U.S.-made missiles found on a base operated by forces loyal to Gen. Khalifa Haftar belonged to the French military, but it denied breaching a United Nations arms embargo, claiming that the weapons were “unusable” and never intended to end up with the warlord’s troops, who have been accused of war crimes.
Libyan guards at a detention center in Tripoli’s Tajoura neighborhood this week shot at refugees and migrants trying to flee airstrikes that the internationally recognized government has blamed on forces loyal to renegade Gen. Khalifa Haftar, the United Nations revealed.
Pope Francis has appealed for the evacuation of refugees detained in Libya as the rebel Libyan National Army launches airstrikes in Tripoli in an attempt to seize the capital.
