https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/r...ftar-29lzk6jnv
Russian arms and mercenaries pour in for rebel Libyan general Khalifa Haftar
Russia and other backers of Libya’s rebel movement are pouring arms and mercenary fighters into the country in advance of what is expected to be a key battle over oil facilities with Turkish-backed government forces.
On Sunday jets allied to the rebel general, Khalifa Haftar, struck a military base in Libya’s west being used by Turkey to aid the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA). The attack on the al-Wattiya base, which had just taken delivery of an air defence system and housed other Turkish-supplied equipment, brings a proxy war between Russia and Turkey, along with their allies, to a head.
The GNA inflicted a humiliating defeat on Marshal Haftar’s forces in Tripoli in May, and went on to drive them out of the west of the country thanks to renewed Turkish military assistance, including the provision of Syrian mercenaries.
Russia was at the time rumoured to have become disillusioned with Marshal Haftar’s leadership. However, flight tracking websites have since picked up scores of military flights into the eastern half of the country, which is still controlled by the rebels. Tupolev and Ilyushin supply planes have been landing at the al-Khadim air base, east of Benghazi, which was developed by the United Arab Emirates, another Haftar backer.
President Assad of Syria has agreed to co-operate with Marshal Haftar, but more importantly Russia has itself begun recruiting fighters for him from pro-regime militias in the country......
The military build-up on either side is now focused on what could be the decisive battle of the civil war. Gaddafi’s birthplace Sirte, the major coastal city of central Libya, fell to Marshal Haftar’s forces in January as they besieged Tripoli, but the GNA and its Turkish backers are now determined to retake it. Sirte is the gateway to a string of major oil refineries and ports to the east, and their loss would be a possibly fatal blow to the rebels.
Anas el-Gomati, a Libyan analyst, said the Russians were flying in Syrian mercenaries, training them with the UAE, and inserting them in oil installations as a last line of defence. The rebels are holding out the possibility of demanding a separate state in the east of the country as an alternative to a stake in government of the whole of Libya, he said, and that would be impossible without control of some of the country’s oil.
“The mercenaries are being used as a force to secure the most sensitive infrastructure, so that it can be used as leverage in future negotiations,” Mr Gomati said.....