Get out of our country: Libyan army confronts Erdogan's militias in south

At a time when Ankara is trying to infiltrate southern Libya and take control as much as possible over the whole country by deploying and supporting mercenaries, the Libyan National Army (LNA) is confronting those attempts by force to prevent the Turkish concentration and incursion, blocking the way to those attempts in support of the Brotherhood.
Countering Turkish attempts
At the beginning of this year, the LNA responded to the
attempts to station forces loyal to the regime of Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan in Sabha, the capital of the Fezzan region, and the LNA General
Command announced that its units in the Sabha military region had monitored
“subversive” movements of elements affiliated with the Government of National
Accord (GNA) Presidential Council, operating under orders from Turkey.
The LNA said in a statement that these moves came under
orders from the Turkish intelligence, which leads operations to support the
Brotherhood and takfirist gangs, warning “everyone who is tempted to compromise
security and stability in Sabha and its surroundings.”
It added that it was confirmed that those elements had
received funds to destabilize security and stability in southern Libya,
especially the city of Sabha, and were recruiting foreign mercenaries.
The commander of the Sabha military region confirmed that
units from the region had confronted these rifts and remnants of extremism and
crime, and had taken control of its headquarters in one of the city's sports
clubs.
Brigadier General Khaled al-Mahjoub, director of the LNA’s
Moral Guidance Department, stated that the Turkish regime has an interest in
the continued state of instability in Libya, confirming that there are attempts
to move mercenaries in the southern Libyan region. “We will work to fully
secure the areas of southern Libya,” he added; however, strong strikes were
directed at the armed cells in the city of Sabha.
Meanwhile, Libyan MP Saeed Mughib confirmed that the LNA
forces took control of Sabha after the militias retreated, adding that the
Turkish-backed Brotherhood organization was behind the militia movement in
Sabha and dragged the safe city to the scourge of the armed confrontation,
indicating that the GNA militias loyal to the Turkish regime tried to move in
an attempt to control the city of Sabha before they were confronted and
expelled after the army thwarted their plan to control the city with the aim of
turning it into a center for attracting mercenaries from the countries of the
Sahara by the Turkish intelligence.
LNA spokesman Major General Ahmed al-Mesmari said that Sabha
is under the eyes of the armed forces since they entered the city in 2019, and
that what happened at the beginning of this year in the city was due to the
presence of groups that declare their affiliation to the GNA forces, which in
fact consist of a group of mercenaries and smugglers who help terrorist
organizations exploit smuggling outlets.
Mesmari explained that these groups are trying to declare
Sabha a city under GNA control, within the framework of a Brotherhood plan
aimed at thwarting the ceasefire signed in the Geneva Agreement and preventing
the success of the political dialogue currently established to reach a solution.
The Brotherhood's media channels rely on misinformation,
making allegations and making calls to raise the morale of terrorist supporters
inside and outside the country, as they first shoot a video clip or take
photographs from a certain place, then publish it to the illusion that that
area is under their control, Mesmari noted.
Playing on discord
In the same context, the head of the office of the Supreme
Council of Tribal Sheikhs and Elders, Mohammed al-Mesbahi, explained that the
Brotherhood is carrying out conspiracies to break up the role of the tribes to
weaken the social role, and this is what subsequently led to the use of
foreigners and mercenaries.
Observers unanimously agree that the Sabha events reveal a
catastrophic failure of the Turkish plans in the country, as well as the
Brotherhood’s loss of any societal legitimacy, unlike the LNA, which enjoys a
popular rallying around its project.
Observers believe that the Turkish intelligence is playing
on the strings of ethnic and tribal strife to penetrate the resource-rich
Libyan south, which has an important strategic location as the gateway to the
Sahara Desert and is open to countries historically linked to France, whose
relations with Turkey are experiencing severe tensions. Observers note that the
Erdogan regime relies on pushing transnational terrorist groups to infiltrate
social circles in cities and villages, especially those of ethnic and tribal
diversity.
On September 15, 2020, the LNA announced the elimination of
a cell belonging to ISIS in the Abd al-Kafi neighborhood in Sabha after
confrontations that lasted for more than six hours, and it became clear that
most of the cell members were non-Libyans and had moved from northern Syria to
western Libya before their infiltration into the south to form a terrorist
force from local elements and others from neighboring countries. The LNA said
that its forces carried out a qualitative operation in the Tarqin and Sharb
neighborhoods in the city of Ubari, targeting one of the hideouts of al-Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and through which they managed to arrest
terrorists of different nationalities, headed by Hassan Washi, who returned
from Mali a few days ago after transporting weapons, ammunition and money to
the organization’s wing there, and he was a personal companion to Mukhtar bin
Mukhtar, the leader of al-Qaeda's "Signed in Blood" organization.
This order comes at a time when the Turkish regime has
pushed terrorist groups, whether from northern Syria or the countries of the
Greater Sahara, such as Mali and Niger, towards southern Libya to form
immediate settlements and take up positions in them, with the aim of polarizing,
recruiting, and preparing for operations against the LNA. The goal of Erdogan
and his allies is to drive the LNA out of the south, especially the Fezzan
region, and to obstruct the implementation of the provisions of the Geneva
Agreement signed on October 23, 2020.
Sources added that the LNA leadership has confirmed
information about the Turkish plan, which is part of a prospective war not only
in Libya, but in the region as a whole, where Erdogan is betting on using
terrorism to penetrate Libya's neighboring countries in order to implement his
expansionist plan and to put pressure on the major countries with strategic
interests in the region, especially France, Russia and China.
Meanwhile, the Africa Intelligence website revealed Turkey’s
attempts to establish contact with the tribes that control the Fezzan region in
southern Libya through a non-governmental organization, pointing out that, with
the stability of the Eastern Western Front now on both sides of the Sirte
Al-Jufra axis, Turkey is placing its pawns in the south, which it threatens to
become the next stage for clashes in the Libyan conflict. The website noted
that a delegation made up of the chiefs of the main tribes in southern Libya
was invited to Ankara on November 4, 2020, by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief
Foundation, which was attended by prominent representatives, including the
supreme leader of the Tuareg tribes, Moulay Qadidi; the head of the Unified
Council of the Tebu Tribes, Mohamed Wardougoul the former Undersecretary of the
Ministry of Families of Victims and Missing Persons, Mohamed Sidi Ibrahim, who
is the second man in the Tabu Council; President of the Amazigh Supreme
Council, Muhammad bin Talib; and Hassan Musa Kelly, the military commander of
the Tebu, who is allied with the GNA and a member of the Petroleum Facilities
Guard.
According to the Africa Intelligence report, Turkey will
continue to claim that it is performing the historic mission that falls upon it
to establish security and peace in Libya and preserve its territorial
integrity. However, army sources confirmed that everyone knows that there are
tribal parties linked with the Brotherhood and the GNA. Thus, with the
Turkish-Qatari axis, it does not represent a real social weight in the region,
and it moves on the basis of personal interests, not national interests.