In the middle of the desert, a demonstration of force by the Libyan National Army commanded by Haftar: News – Orange

The Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar who controls the east and south of Libya, is carrying out a show of force during military exercises, presented by its officials as “the most important in the history” of the country.

The wind raises the dust of the desert, masking a column of armored vehicles of the special forces which are advancing at high speed on a road more than 100 km from Derna (east).

At the entrance to a vast encampment made up of prefabricated buildings and gas stations, a giant portrait of the marshal dominates the site.

These maneuvers, which an AFP team was able to follow on Saturday during a trip organized and supervised by the ANL, must culminate on May 19 in front of Khalifa Haftar, 82, and his sons, first and foremost his designated successor, Saddam. Several foreign guests, notably ambassadors stationed in Tripoli, are expected.

They coincide with the anniversary of the “Battle of Karama”, an offensive by pro-Haftar forces launched on May 16, 2014 to drive out jihadist groups from Benghazi, including the Islamic State (IS) group, in a context of security chaos.

This campaign allowed the Haftar camp to gradually extend its control over the whole of eastern Libya.

Columns of tanks, Russian-made Pantsir air defense systems, coast guard speedboats: the maneuvers have mobilized “more than 25,000 soldiers” from all units for two weeks, General Omar Mrajah el-Jedid, responsible for the exercises which he describes as “the most important of all, told AFP.” Libyan history.

General Abdallah Noureddine, operational leader of the ANL who came to supervise the exercises near the village of El Ezzeiat, for his part sees it as a “message for our friends and our enemies”, without further details.

They are standing while several media outlets report that the United States, via its envoy for Africa, Massad Boulos, is trying to promote rapprochement between the eastern and western Libyan authorities, in a context of discussions on a possible reconfiguration of power.

– “Pas l’armée du maréchal Haftar” –

Libya remains divided since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with two parallel executives: one in Tripoli (west), led by Abdelhamid Dbeibah and recognized by the UN, and the other based in Benghazi (east), under the rule of the Haftar clan.

After the failure of Marshal Haftar’s offensive against Tripoli in June 2020, at the end of a year of deadly fighting, a change of approach seems to have taken place.

The control of the east and south by the ANL has brought “security and stability” to the inhabitants of several cities, who “benefit from reconstruction and development projects”, assures General Noureddine, saying “wish the same thing for the rest of Libya”.

In recent years, NGOs have accused forces affiliated with the Haftar camp of arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances and a concentration of power around the marshal’s family clan.

For General el-Jedid, the current exercises, prepared “for six months”, are “a message to show that we can safeguard the interests of all Libyans”, and that the army can “protect the borders from all attacks”, whether they come “from smugglers or terrorist groups who are currently moving around Mali, Niger or other countries and trying to enter Libya.”

Faced with criticism contesting the national vocation of the ANL, the general, himself originally from Tripoli and who enlisted under Gaddafi in 2001, retorts: “It is not a private army, nor the army of Marshal Haftar, nor an army for the east, the west or the south It is the army of all Libyans, tribes and families.