Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Scoop: Turkish Intelligence Chief Visits Libya


Fri 08 May 2020 | 11:57 PM
Nawal Sayed

Turkish Intelligence Chief Hakan Fidan and officials of the foreign missions of Turkish Intelligence visited Libya nearly a week ago to check on the developments there, according to sources.

The sources told al-Arabiya News website that Fidan himself is following the field developments in Libya, and that Ankara sent groups of its special forces to Tripoli and arrived ten days ago.

The sources pointed out that elements of the Turkish Air Force were wounded in Libya and transferred to Turkey for treatment, some of them are in dangerous conditions.

Turkey resorted to the method of intimidation and threats to push the Syrian mercenaries to join Libya in order to fight battles alongside the Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Faye al-Sarraj, forces against the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, after the widening circle of those who refused to travel and participate in the fighting in Libya.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) clarified, last Thursday, that the process of transferring the Syrian fighters carried out by Turkey from the Syrian territories to the Libyan territories, has recently shifted "from carrot to stick”.

[caption id="attachment_100035" align="aligncenter" width="780"]National Army in Libya (Archive) National Army in Libya (Archive)[/caption]

 Moreover, it is taking place under great Turkish pressure on the leaders of the Syrian "national army" factions to send fighters from Syria to Libya.

SOHR added that most of the factions no longer have a desire to send fighters to the battles taking place in Libya, especially in light of the extremely difficult conditions for the fighters there, and the failure of Turkey to fulfill the temptations that it claimed to provide at the beginning, so that the matter turns into great pressures and threats by the Turkish intelligence to the leaders of the factions about sending fighters.

Since October last year, Turkey started sending Syrian mercenaries to Libya to fight alongside the GNA forces in the face of the Libyan National Army.

The Syrian Observatory revealed that the Syrian mercenaries backed by Turkey number exceeded 8,000 fighters, in addition to thousands who are currently receiving training and waiting to join Tripoli’s battles in the various fighting fronts in Libya.

Turkish Suspicious Role In Libya

Last April, a military official in the General Command of the LNA said that his intelligence and information apparatus monitored suspicious and unprecedented Turkish air activity off the Libyan coast during the past few days, according to a report published by Al-Arabiya website.

The director of the Libyan Army’s Monitoring and Follow-up Agency, Ghaith Esbak, told Al-Arabiya.Net that “F-16” fighter planes loaded with missiles and “Boeing 135-C” and “A7” planes were detected on the Libyan coasts.

He pointed out that Turkish war fighters carried out missions targeting Libyan army sites, and returned to a Turkish warship stationed off the Libyan coast east of the city of Sabratah.

On April 9, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Libyan interim government called on the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Turkey after targeting Libyan civilian sites.

[caption id="attachment_120521" align="aligncenter" width="838"]Libya Turkish The Libyan government's Foreign Minister Abdulhadi al-Huweij[/caption]

The ministry said, in a statement, that “The Turkish aggression targeted fuel tanks, commodity stores and medical materials in the cities of Asabe, Tarhouna and Bani Walid.”

“This shift in the Turkish aggression and the GNA, highlights its ugliness and brutality,” the statement added. 

The Libyan government’s Foreign Minister Abdulhadi al-Huweij also called on the Security Council to stand firm to stop that aggression, in order to protect the civilian people, especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

The statement stressed that the Security Council is concerned with the maintenance of international peace and security, and it is concerned with responding to violations committed by the GNA’s and Sarraj forces and its Turkish ally.