Egypt’s director of military intelligence meets with Haftar at Libyan National Army headquarters
Libya's LNA and Egypt plan joint strategy to deal with Turkey and Qatar's moves in favour of rival GNA
According to the LNA’s Media Office, Haftar received a relevant message from the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, through the Director of Egyptian Military Intelligence, who may be in tune to develop a joint strategy in view of the dynamics that Turkey and Qatar are taking in favor of the National Accord Government (GNA) of Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj.
Libyan National Army (LNA) Marshal Khalifa Haftar received the director of Egypt’s Military Intelligence Department, Major General Khaled Megawer, at his headquarters.
Libya’s civil war, which has been going on since 2014, pits the LNA, which is associated with the other eastern executive in Tobruk and supported externally by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, France and Russia, against the GNA, which is supported by Qatar and Turkey, as well as Italy and the United Nations (UN) since 2016.
This confrontation was being dominated by the armies of Khalifa Haftar since the last military operation launched in April 2019 on the capital of Tripoli, headquarters of the GNA; but the military intervention of Turkey, which has assigned paid mercenaries from Syria (attached to groups linked in the past to terrorist entities such as Daesh and Al-Qaeda, as various sources have pointed out), has caused a turn of events in favour of militias similar to Sarraj, which have taken over important nuclei such as Sorman Sabratha or the Al-Watiya airbase. A support of the Eurasian nation that counts on the support of the financial muscle of Qatar.
The axis formed by the GNA, Turkey and Qatar could be planning to take the Libyan enclaves of Sirte and Jufra, considered as a red line that should not be crossed by neighboring Egypt. In fact, Cairo threatened to use its army if an operation was launched against these targets.
Also, there are reports about the Misurata area. An Egyptian source announced on Tuesday, according to the Al-Arabiya media, that rumors of a pact between the Gulf monarchy and the Ottoman nation to turn the port of Misurata into a hub serving Ankara is an infringement and a threat to the region. The option of Misurata being a Turkish military base, which is being speculated on following the recent visit of the Turkish and Qatari defence ministers to Tripoli, is giving rise to considerable concern.
All this comes after various sources indicated to Al-Arabiya TV that Turkey, Qatar and the GNA had agreed to grant Libyan passports to the mercenaries sent by Ankara and Doha to support the military forces aligned with the Tripolitan government. The Turkish-Qatari pact with Fayez Sarraj decided to integrate these mercenaries into the forces of the National Accord Government, under the supervision of Turkey. The agreement sealed at the end of last year by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey, with Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj ensured precisely this military support and also the distribution of economic areas attractive to Ottoman interests, which are very focused on the geostrategic position of North Africa and on gas and oil exploitation.
These Syrian, Somali and Tunisian mercenaries, according to our sources, will be assigned various tasks such as protecting Tripoli, the headquarters of the GNA.
