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Old 31st Dec 2019, 07:11
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ORAC
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e...lict-w9g8qwm7p

Erdogan poised to send Turkish forces into Libyan conflict

Turkey is fast-tracking a bill to send troops to Libya to prop up the Tripoli government, threatening a new full-blown proxy war in the Middle East. The bill presented to parliament yesterday is expected to pass next week and will open the way for Ankara to give full military backing to Libya’s government of national accord (GNA).

The deployment of troops will pitch Turkey and Qatar against Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, all three of whom oppose the GNA and are backing a rival force in the east of Libya.

The split resembles that which has devastated other countries in the region since the start of the Arab Spring, most notably Syria, where the Russian-backed government of President Assad has now almost fully overwhelmed the opposition, which was supported by Turkey and Qatar, among others. Now President Erdogan of Turkey appears to be using what rebel manpower remains in Syria for his new military adventure. Syrian activists and researchers with contacts in the Libyan capital have confirmed that Syrian rebel forces backed by Turkey have already been sent to fight in the north African country’s civil war.

The secretive Turkish operation to send ethnic Turkmen Syrian fighters to Libya to bolster the GNA ground forces was leaked to the Bloomberg news agency and has been confirmed by a source close to the Syrian opposition. “They get very high salaries and have been promised Turkish nationality,” the source said. It is believed that between 100 and 300 Syrians have already landed in Tripoli, with up to 500 to be sent altogether. They are drawn from a number of the former Free Syrian Army militias who have been recruited into a semi-formal army by Turkey, controlling an area of Syria between the Euphrates and the town of Azaz and acting as a buffer against both the regime and Kurdish forces hostile to Ankara.

The Turkish-backed Syrian opposition “government in exile”, to which the militias are formally aligned, denied it had sent troops to Libya. However, Jalel Harchaoui, a researcher with the Clingendael Institute, who had been in Libya, said that he had independently confirmed the Syrians’ arrival. He said that they were a Turkish response to the Russian decision to send the Wagner Brigade........


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