The Libyan National Army has decided to send 300 mercenaries and foreign fighters active in areas controlled by the strongman camp in eastern Libya.
The camp of the strongman of the East Libyan Khalifa Haftar announced Thursday that it will repatriate 300 “mercenaries and foreign fighters“Areas under its control,”at the request of France», Friday host of a conference on Libya.
«The command of the Libyan National Army (ANL, loyal to Marshal Haftar) has decided to send a first group of 300 mercenaries and foreign fighters“, Said representatives of the ANL in a statement, adding to have taken this decision to”France’s request».
Read also10 years after the death of Gaddafi, where is the situation in Libya?
The press release, of which AFP has obtained a copy, comes from representatives of the Haftar camp in the “Libyan Joint Military Committee (5 + 5)», A structure bringing together five members of the Libyan government based in Tripoli and five members representing the East, and responsible for the implementation of the ceasefire agreement signed between the two parties in October 2020. During the war between the rival powers in the West and the East in 2019 and 2020, Turkey had supported the government based in Tripoli while Marshal Haftar had received the support of the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Egypt .
Unilateral gesture
Among the external actors were also mercenaries of the Russian private group Wagner, supports of the camp of the East, as well as Chadians, Sudanese, Nigeriens and Syrians. The October 2020 ceasefire agreement called for the simultaneous departure of foreign fighters within 90 days, but no significant withdrawals have been reported since. In Thursday’s statement, the eastern military said the departure of 300 mercenaries and foreign fighters would be a unilateral move not involving a reciprocal measure on the part of the government in Tripoli.
ANL representatives further asserted that the departure of these fighters “will be coordinated with their countries and with the UN Support Mission in Libya»(Manul). The nationalities of the combatants called to leave have not been specified. This announcement was made on the eve of an international conference on Libya that French President Emmanuel Macron is meeting in Paris to give a final “impulseIn the elections scheduled for December (presidential) and January (legislative), which remain very uncertain against the backdrop of renewed tensions between rival camps.
“Gradual, balanced and sequenced” withdrawal
These polls, the culmination of a laborious political process sponsored by the UN, are supposed to turn the page on a decade of chaos since the fall of Muammar Gadhafi’s regime in 2011 and put an end to divisions and fratricidal struggles between rival factions in Libya. On October 8 in Geneva, the Joint Military Committee agreed on a Comprehensive Plan of Action for the withdrawal “progressive, balanced and sequenced mercenaries, foreign fighters and foreign forces from Libyan territory», According to the UN which organized this meeting.
At the end of October, representatives of Chad, Niger and Sudan were invited by Manul to a meeting with the Joint Military Committee in Cairo to prepare for the withdrawal of mercenaries and combatants from their countries. France said it wished to see it endorsed at the conference on Friday “the Libyan plan for the departure of foreign forces and mercenaries».
Several thousand Russian mercenaries – in particular from the private group Wagner – Turkish or Syrian pro-Turks, Chadians and Sudanese are still present in Libya, according to the Elysee. Turkey is in no hurry to initiate a withdrawal of its forces and the Kremlin denies any sending of soldiers or mercenaries to Libya as well as any link with the Wagner group.
.