Page 54 - BNE_magazine_07_2020

54 I Eurasia bne July 2020
US defence officials released satellite imagery and stated: "U.S. Africa Command assesses that Moscow recently deployed military fighter aircraft to Libya."
Is Libya the new Syria?
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Is Libya the new Syria? Such is the fraught, even Gordian state of affairs in the conflict-riven North African state, involving multiple actors with contrary interests, this has become
a rather unsettling question.
So what do we know with any certitude? Well, as things stand, Turkey’s involvement has altered the course of the six-year-old Second Libyan Civil War. In helping the Tripoli- based Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, push back the rebel Libyan National Army (LNA) forces of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, Ankara has usefully showcased its impressive drone warfare capabilities, but it has its eye on far more than drone sales. A share in the oil, contracting work worth billions of dollars and “neo-Ottoman” military prowess and adventurism that might help Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in restoring his fortunes back home with an electorate soured by
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years of economic woe – these might be said to be the three chief objectives of Turkey in chancing its arm in Libya.
Ranged against the UN-recognised GNA and Turkey (which only really has Qatar as a clear ally when it comes to the Middle East) are LNA backers including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Chad and, diplomatically at least, France, Greece and Cyprus (these last two are worried a confirmed, strategic presence in Libya will allow Turkey to project its strength in demanding Mediterranean oil and gas they say it has no geographical right to). And then there is Russia. What exactly is Russia up to?
Moscow’s brazen response
The Libyan conflict has come very much back into the headlines of late not only because of Turkey’s success, but also due to Moscow’s brazen response – as Haftar’s soldiers last week retreated from their last toehold in
western Libya, the Kremlin, according to US Africa Command (AFRICOM) flew 14 MIG-29 and Su-24 fighter jets, stripped of their markings, via Syria and Iran to two remote desert airfields. Though Russia offers no open support to Haftar – based in the port city of Tobruk on Libya’s eastern Mediterranean
coast where a body claiming to be
the country’s legitimate House of Representatives sits – it has long been common knowledge that around 2,000 Russian mercenary soldiers, by now boasting Pantsir air defence systems amid their ranks under Russia’s private military contractor Wagner, are present in Libya to back him.
AFRICOM said the combat aircraft were “likely to provide close air support and offensive fires” for the Wagner fighters, with most of the jets located at the Jufra base deep in the central Libyan desert. Washington, which has said it wants all foreign actors out of Libya, is on edge. Russian President Vladimir Putin now