Foreign “Boots on the Ground”: The 2019 Battle for Tripoli and Beyond

In early April, weeks away from the UN-brokered national conference, Haftar launched a surprise assault on Tripoli, starting on the town of Gharyan on Tripoli’s outskirts.¹ The shock of the advance was such that Libyans in Tripoli and some outside analysts still believed that this was just muscle-flexing to bolster Haftar’s negotiating position ahead of the conference.² Haftar’s disregard for that meeting and contempt for the UN’s authority more generally became fully apparent when he intensified his assault on April 5, the very same day the UN Secretary General had flown to Benghazi to meet the Libyan commander in a futile attempt to prevent a war.

Longstanding Emirati support to Haftar’s campaigns in the east and the south was a crucial precursor to the attack, though the Emirates maintained to diplomats and stated publicly that they had not sanctioned the actual assault on the capital. At the very least, they may have given Haftar mixed signals or Haftar may have misinterpreted the signals. Once the attack started, however, the Emirati—and Saudi—hand became starkly apparent with the mobilization of pro-Haftar Twitter hashtags, amplified by bots and traditional media outlets, in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign by Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, with participation from Cairo.³ Egypt had initially opposed the Tripoli campaign but had reportedly been pressured by the Emirates into backing it diplomatically, militarily, and in the informational realm. ⁴ And, as noted, France’s longtime accommodation of and clandestine support for Haftar’s ambitions was a key enabler as well.

Aside from these states’ varying degrees of backing, the explicit approval that Haftar received from Washington, D.C. was perhaps the most significant boost. A day before the attack, Haftar spoke on the phone with then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton who reportedly urged the Libyan commander to “do it quickly.”⁵ This was followed weeks later by President Trump’s phone call to Haftar, which praised the Tripoli attack as a counterterrorism operation.

It is important to note that this was not the first time Haftar had sought American approval for a seizure of power in Tripoli: In late 2016, the final months of the Obama presidency, he’d dispatched a delegation to Washington announcing his willingness to implement military rule. The response was a firm rebuke from senior State Department officials.⁶ U.S. resolve and diplomatic leadership also proved crucial in preventing Haftar from illegally exporting oil and establishing a parallel oil administration in the east. But under the Trump administration, this pressure was exerted not necessarily to protect the GNA or prevent a Libyan conflict, but out of concern for the effect of Libya’s turmoil on global oil production.⁷ And, by late 2018 and 2019, the thinking in Washington toward Libya changed considerably, not only in the Trump administration, but among professional diplomats within the State Department, who evinced a cooler stance toward the GNA, while welcoming Haftar’s participation in a political process.

After the Trump phone call, which reportedly occurred at the encouragement of the Emirates and the Egyptians, Haftar received further support at the UN Security Council, where the United States joined Russia and France in blocking a British-sponsored resolution for a ceasefire.⁸ It would be nearly a year before the United States finally singled out Haftar by name in its pronouncements on the conflict. These dynamics all played to Haftar’s favor in the initial stages of his assault, offering a clear illustration of how much the global order had split since the last phase of Libya’s civil war in 2014 and especially since the relative diplomatic consensus which underpinned the NATO-led intervention in 2011.

On the ground, the conflict quickly internationalized, with great powers, regional powers, and poorer neighboring states all contributing militarily.⁹ This was initially evident in the air with the widespread use of combat drones.¹⁰ Soon after, ground-based foreign mercenaries played a major role. Importantly, because European states and America did not deploy military assets or fighters of their own in support of Libya’s warring protagonists, they effectively ceded political leverage to those outside states that did. Reflecting on this reluctance to play by the rules of this new game, a European diplomat lamented, “we are relying on words, just words. These other countries have arms and fighters.”¹¹

The United Arab Emirates was the most significant foreign intervener early on, especially in the air. Chinese-made Wing Loong drones, piloted by Emirati personnel and stationed at LAAF bases in western and eastern Libya (and possibly in the United Arab Emirates itself), struck GNA artillery, ammunition depots, and vehicles.¹² The Emirates also conducted fixed-wing strikes using French Mirages. These strikes, along with those carried out by drones, incurred mounting civilian casualties in and around Tripoli, exemplified most notably by the July 2 bombing by an Emirati Mirage of a migrant detention center in Tajura, which killed 53 people.¹³ Yet international condemnation of this and other incidents has been stymied by international divisions and especially diplomatic protection of the Emirates by the United States and France; UN reports on the strikes rarely singled out the Emirates by name.¹⁴

Yet the provision of Emirati aerial support, along with Emirati-supplied Tiger armored vehicles, still wasn’t enough for Hafar’s forces to break the stalemate or compensate for the LAAF’s lack of manpower. Compounding this shortcoming, Haftar and his foreign backers, namely the Emirates, had hoped to flip GNA-aligned militias in and around Tripoli to his side though financial inducements.¹⁵ But the defections failed to materialize and rival armed groups in and around the capital shelved their differences and offered up stiff resistance.¹⁶

By May, Turkey joined the war on the side of the GNA, though its military support in this phase was unannounced and clandestine. It principally consisted of armed drones—“Bayraktar” TB2s, manufactured by a company belonging to Turkish President Erdoğan’s son-in-law—along with “Kirpi” mine-resistant armored personnel carriers.¹⁷ The net effect of this equipment on the battle was limited. To be sure, the Turkish-piloted drones did prove useful in some close-air-support engagements, against infantry and armored vehicles.¹⁸ And Turkish support helped the GNA seize a strategic LAAF base at Gharyan in June. But overall, Turkish aid was not as decisive nor as substantial as the GNA might’ve hoped. Emirati drones outclassed the Turkish Bayraktars in performance and lethality, and by the late summer of 2019 they had destroyed most of the Turkish craft on the ground.¹⁹ Similarly, the Turkish Kirpi vehicles did not have an appreciable effect on battlefield outcomes; their value was mostly a “morale booster,” according to one senior GNA official.²⁰

Aside from this muted impact on the battlefield, Turkish support also opened up rifts within the GNA’s political coalition. The initial GNA outreach to Turkey was stymied by competition among Libyan intermediaries who jostled for access and influence. The more dominant of these networks had previously channeled Turkish—and Qatari—assistance to Libya during past rounds of conflict and were affiliated with or sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.²¹ Their outreach stirred resentment among anti-Brotherhood elements within the GNA coalition, especially from Misrata and also, reportedly, opposition from Turkish intelligence itself. By late 2019, these Libyan individuals had been removed from their roles as intermediaries.²² The task of procuring Turkish support then fell to the increasingly powerful GNA interior minister, Fathi Bashagha, though the perception that Turkish assistance was buoying the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood remained.²³

By the fall of 2019, diminishing Turkish support—mostly the result of battlefield attrition of Turkish drones—had shifted the momentum to the LAAF. Much of this was due to a redoubling of Emirati support after the fall of Gharyan, but also the arrival of yet another foreign meddler to the frontlines. In September, hundreds of Russian paramilitary fighters from the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group, arrived at the LAAF frontlines outside Tripoli, soon joined by a stream of hundreds of others.²⁴

A notionally private paramilitary group tied to Russian businessman Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Wagner Group is in fact a clandestine arm of Russian "gray zone" power projection.²⁵ It has deployed to conflict-wracked states in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe with mixed results.²⁶ In Libya, the Wagner Group fighters took on an increasingly active role in the LAAF advance on the capital, abetted by the United Arab Emirates, which reportedly paid the salaries of their fighters and put its drones and logistics assets at their disposal.²⁷ But pushing Haftar into power through a brute-force military victory in Tripoli was probably not Moscow’s ultimate goal.

Mindful of Haftar’s advancing age and poor health, contemptuous of his military competence, and suspicious about his historical ties to Washington via the CIA in the 1980s, Russia sought to use his assault on Tripoli as a means to an end. By nudging Haftar into a stronger battlefield position, Russia would be able to mediate a diplomatic outcome that played to its favor and that would cement a prominent political role for the Qadhafists, who would re-open trade, infrastructure, and arms links between Russia and Libya.²⁸ Here, Qadhafi’s son Saif al-Islam, wanted by the International Criminal Court and reportedly in hiding in Zintan, was an object of Russian attention. In the summer of 2019, GNA intelligence personnel captured two Prigozhin-linked Russian operatives in Tripoli who were trying to liaise with Saif al-Qadhafi and, according to the GNA interior minister, also reconnoitering targets in Tripoli for LAAF airstrikes and seeking to influence the Libyan municipal council elections.²⁹ Russian interest in both Saif and Haftar was evident in a broadcast and online media campaign run in support of the two Libyan figures by Prigozhin media firms, which used local content creators to obscure the Russian hand—part of a broader Prigozhin strategy of propaganda franchising that is evident across Africa.³⁰

Economic considerations were also important in Russia’s diversified portfolio of pursuing channels of influence with multiple Libyan actors.³¹ Even as it was sending Wagner personnel to assist LAAF forces, it continued to engage GNA. In late 2019, for example, the Russian oil company Tatneft conducted exploration activities in the GNA-controlled Ghadames Basin.³² Wagner Group fighters were thus a cheap, flimsily deniable, and flexible means to accomplish these goals, without completely sacrificing Moscow’s ties with the GNA.³³

The Wagner intervention in Libya, while hardly an exemplar of expeditionary warfare, was enough to make a difference in the context of Libya’s rudimentary militia fighting. Wagner personnel conducted frontline reconnaissance for mortars, artillery, and Emirati drones, as well as sniping. By December, they seemed to be moving from a purely advising and assisting role to exerting a degree of command over LAAF fighters. They reportedly directed the LAAF’s frontline forces in flanking maneuvers, hitherto unseen on the Libyan battlefield, but a hallmark of Wagner’s Syrian engagement.³⁴ And, according to Western diplomats, they tried to change the composition of LAAF units by requesting that Haftar send more fighters from eastern Libya to the Tripoli front—reportedly because they were displeased with the performance of the LAAF’s Tarhuna-based combatants.³⁵

Buoyed by this support, the LAAF steadily gained territory in late 2019, especially on the disputed Salahaddin front. But the more profound effect of the Wagner Group’s arrival on the battlefield was a sharp decline in GNA morale. Sniper shots from the LAAF side became far more lethal, with one GNA commander reporting that they now accounted for up to thirty percent of the losses in his unit. The volleys of LAAF mortars became more intense and precise, aided by drones.³⁶ GNA commanders also reported that the Russians had brought in laser-guided artillery munitions, which struck their field headquarters with a newfound accuracy.³⁷ Bereft of their own armed drones, or even surveillance variants, the GNA was left increasingly blind and exposed to LAAF airstrikes and mortars. Crucially, GNA commanders could no longer count on artillery support of their own. Young GNA fighters, already incensed at the government’s uneven payment of salaries and medical care, started leaving the front. For the first time since the start of the 2019 war, the prospect of an LAAF push into central Tripoli, while still remote and complicated by the capital’s dense urban terrain and the LAAF’s lack of sufficient manpower, appeared as a possibility.³⁸

But in facilitating these advances, the Wagner Group had inadvertently spurred another round of foreign military intervention, arguably the most consequential and far-reaching since 2011.

Fearing a potential collapse of its cordon outside Tripoli, the GNA in the late fall of 2019 turned again to Turkey, its only substantive military patron. On November 27, the GNA and the Turkish government signed a deal on an exclusive economic zone in the eastern Mediterranean that would grant Turkish exploration and drilling rights to offshore hydrocarbon resources. In return, President Erdoğan promised to send military support to the GNA, subject to Turkish parliamentary approval.³⁹

With a stroke of a pen, the agreement irrevocably transformed the Libyan war. Turkish military support to the GNA, always ambivalent and clandestine, suddenly became overt and more robust.⁴⁰ Geopolitically, the maritime deal worsened tensions with the European Union and infringed on the hydrocarbon and territorial claims of Turkey’s longtime rival Greece and other Mediterranean states.⁴¹ Erdoğan's agreement with Libya was thus a major power play, part of a broader pattern of adventurism and militarization in Turkish foreign policy whose roots are partially domestic. It also aligned with Turkish strategic aspirations in the Mediterranean—the so-called “Blue Homeland” doctrine—as well as Turkey’s economic penetration into Africa. In Libya, Ankara hoped to secure infrastructure projects, contracts for arms and training, access to banking, a market for Turkish goods, and, especially, to recoup economic losses incurred by the 2011 revolution.⁴²

Outside of geopolitics and economics, the arrival of Turkish forces to Libyan soil had a resounding effect on the Libyan war of narratives and disinformation. Erdoğan’s speeches and propaganda were tinged with evocations of Turkey’s Ottoman heritage and historical ties to Libya—and Ankara’s duty to protect the Turkish diaspora in Libya.⁴³ While not the primary drivers of Turkey’s deployment, these linkages were nonetheless seized upon and exaggerated by Haftar’s camp and his regional backers. On satellite television, in press conferences, and on social media, Haftar and his foreign supporters in Cairo, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh painted Erdoğan’s intervention as a redux of Turkey’s imperial Ottoman ambitions, opposed by a phalanx of Arab states.⁴⁴

The propaganda war further escalated when Turkey took the far-reaching step of dispatching proxy infantry forces to Libyan soil in December 2019. These forces comprised an initial tranche of two thousand fighters drawn from Turkish-backed Syrian militias, some of whose members had fought in Syria’s civil war and in Turkey’s subsequent intervention in the largely Kurdish province of Afrin.⁴⁵ Delivered by civilian aircraft and ships into Tripoli and Misrata, the Syrian fighters, many of whom were ethnic Turkmen with close familial ties to Turkey, were offered lavish salaries and the promise of Turkish citizenship. While these factors certainly played a determining role, interviews with these fighters in January 2020 suggest they weren’t the only drivers: Fresh from battles in Idlib and northwest Syria, some arrived in Libya eager for payback against Russian forces or motivated by a genuine desire to prevent a military dictatorship under Haftar.⁴⁶

The Syrians’ deployment was shepherded by dozens of trainers from the Erdoğan-linked private military contractor, SADAT, hundreds of uniformed Turkish military officers, intelligence advisors from the Turkish national intelligence service (MIT), and technicians.⁴⁷ Turkish drones, artillery, air defense systems, intelligence assets, and electronic warfare equipment also arrived. In the coming weeks and months, this intervention would have a decisive effect on the course of the battlefield—and deal a devastating blow to Haftar’s ambitions. Turkey’s layered air defense systems, which targeted drones and fixed-wing aircraft, negated Haftar’s air advantage over Tripoli and Misrata.⁴⁸ Free from this threat from the sky, GNA forces in Tripoli were suddenly afforded greater mobility. Turkish self-propelled artillery provided much-needed fire support and bolstered the GNA fighters’ morale. And the dispersal of thousands of Syrian fighters around Tripoli, intermixed with militias from Tripoli, Misrata, and other towns, helped stabilize the front and thrust into sharper relief the LAAF’s manpower shortage.⁴⁹

Yet the Syrians also stirred controversy and dissent. Some GNA commanders resented the intrusion of foreign infantry on the front, arguing that it was an insult to Libyan sovereignty and fighting prowess, and that what was really needed was advanced weapons and equipment, not manpower.⁵⁰ Politically, the Syrian-Turkish presence created the impression with the GNA and especially Misratan circles that the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Libyan faction was again ascendant.⁵¹ Among Haftar and his foreign backers, the Turkish intervention was a propaganda windfall—pro-Haftar media outlets portrayed the Syrians as al-Qaida and ISIS members. This was false of course, though a minority of the Syrians probably evinced jihadist proclivities and some had committed abuses in the past.⁵²

By creating a newfound equilibrium on the frontline, the Turkish-Syrian deployment, following on the heels of Putin’s gambit of the Wagner fighters, dramatically altered global diplomacy on Libya. Specifically, it enabled a push by Moscow and Ankara to try and mediate an end to the conflict, or at least shape its course to their interests.⁵³ On January 12, Vladimir Putin, in coordination with Erdoğan, hosted a summit in Moscow attended by GNA prime minister al-Sarraj and Haftar, where the warring leaders held eight hours of talks, resulting in a commitment to a truce.⁵⁴ Al-Sraj signed but Haftar only gave a verbal commitment, walking out of the meeting—reportedly at the behest of the Emirates. It was yet more proof that even the strongest outside powers cannot fully control their local Libyan proxies, especially when there is a multiplicity of patrons.

On the ground, the meeting produced an uneasy lull in the fighting, with the Wagner personnel pulling back from the front, save for some desultory sniping.⁵⁵ According to a Western diplomat, the GNA had reportedly gone to the meeting after Erdoğan had “twisted its arm.”⁵⁶ Meanwhile, some frontline GNA militia commanders were suspicious that a backroom deal was being struck in foreign capitals that would reward Haftar for his aggression on Tripoli. “Is this what our martyrs died for?” one of these GNA commanders angrily asked the author in early 2020.⁵⁷

Partially spurred by the Turkish and Russian summitry and the opening occasioned by Haftar’s walkout, the EU and Britain finally mobilized a consensus on talks of their own. A long-planned international conference hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel convened on January 18 but in the shadow of the Moscow summit. In the final 55-point communique, the international parties committed to enforcing the arms embargo and working toward a truce.⁵⁸ Yet almost as soon as the conference ended, aerial and maritime shipments into Libya resumed, especially by the Emirates. In subsequent weeks, the Emirates’ spoiler role proved crucial in the resumption of hostilities and in fueling Haftar’s determination to continue his military assault.⁵⁹

The months of January and February 2020 thus constituted a build-up and regrouping of the two sides, abetted by their foreign sponsors, despite their pledges at Berlin. As it had in the past, hypocrisy and recklessness by regional and great powers was plunging the county toward a new phase of war. Wrangling by these powers at the UN Security Council produced a watered-down resolution that endorsed the Berlin Conference’s communique but lacked any effective enforcement mechanism.⁶⁰

America’s backseat role was instrumental in all of this. In testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 20, 2020, Assistant Secretary of State David Schenker provided the first public mention by a senior administration official of the Emiratis’ negative impact in Libya. Though the secretary offered assurances that the United States was engaging Abu Dhabi behind the scenes, other U.S. officials privately admitted to the author that other U.S. priorities in the Middle East—namely Israel/Palestine peace efforts and countering Iran—in which Emirati partnership is deemed to be indispensable militates against more forceful pressure on Abu Dhabi from Washington.⁶¹

With this reticence as a backdrop, U.S. diplomacy during this period focused on efforts to entice the Emiratis into a negotiating process by placating their fears about Islamist control over Libya’s financial institutions—a rubric known as the “3M,” or “Money, Militias, and Muslim Brotherhood.” Multiple U.S. officials believed that these factors constituted the primary drivers of Libya’s endemic instability—downplaying the malevolent role of meddling by U.S. Middle Eastern allies. The goal of the 3M, according to one U.S. official in Washington, was to cleave the Muslim Brotherhood away from the GNA “to bring the Emirates into the negotiating process.”⁶² Yet on the ground, such an initiative did not lessen the Emiratis’ buildup or the ferocity of the assault on Tripoli, mainly because the Emiratis’ 2019 intervention in Libya was not solely driven by a concern over Islamist influence in Tripolitania—an influence which had at any rate receded since 2017, but ironically increased since Haftar’s attack on Tripoli.⁶³

As a corollary to this strategy, the United States pressured GNA Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha to accelerate his efforts at dismantling Tripoli’s more predatory militias and prying them loose from Libya’s state institutions. These efforts had actually started before Haftar’s attack but were placed on hold because of the GNA’s priority of defending Tripoli.⁶⁴ Importantly, Turkish political and military backing and plans for security sector assistance bolstered Bashagha’s anti-militia program, especially against the Tripoli-based Nawasi Battalion and the Tripoli Revolutionaries’ Brigade, and, to a lesser extent, the Abu Slim Central Security Force led by Abd al-Ghani al-Kikli (a.k.a. “Gheneiwa”).⁶⁵ Yet Bashagha’s policies and the prospect of incorporation into the formal security sector opened up fissures and competition for appointments, and also spurred anti-Turkish sentiment among the Tripoli-based armed groups targeted by the interior minister.

As the United States focused on this largely technical approach, regional powers were shaping the Libyan battlefield in ways that gave them increased leverage in the political sphere.⁶⁶ In the weeks and months following the Berlin conference, the Emirates tried to compensate for the Turkish gambit by flying in equipment in heavy aircraft to eastern Libya.⁶⁷ Turkey sent hundreds of advisors and officers, self-propelled artillery, tanks, trucks, counter-battery radars, surveillance and armed drones, and naval frigates with helicopters. This materiel would eventually be used in a counterattack on Haftar’s forces, dubbed Operation Peace Storm. In many respects, the military template followed a previous Turkish advance in Idlib, Syria in late February.⁶⁸ The Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries were thrown into the battle en masse, suffering mounting casualties. Turkish air and drone strikes dealt a psychological blow to the LAAF by hitting its operations centers in Tarhuna, including Pantsir air defense systems supplied by the UAE, and in Sirte, which Haftar had earlier seized. Turkish air forces were also able to hold at risk Emirati drones in Haftar’s rear areas, especially at the Jufra airbase, forcing the Emirates to re-deploy them further east, to the Emirati-refurbished al-Khadim airbase and to western Egypt.⁶⁹ Increasingly, Turkish commanders based on a frigate off the coast of Tripoli reportedly took a more active role in selecting targets for airstrikes; in many cases, they cut out elements of the GNA’s military leadership in this targeting process.⁷⁰ Eventually, by mid-April, the Turkish-led offensive succeeded in ousting the LAAF from its bases on Tripoli’s western flank, in the towns of Sabratha and Surman.⁷¹

As this was happening, the Emiratis and their LAAF allies pressed on the attack in Tripoli, with indiscriminate targeting that produced mounting civilian casualties.⁷² They also sought to counterbalance Erdoğan’s Syrian deployment with foreign manpower of their own. The Emiratis and the Wagner Group had already channeled Chadian and Sudanese fighters into the LAAF’s ranks—the latter under false pretenses of work in the Gulf.⁷³ But these were no match in skill or numbers for the Syrians—and, like other LAAF soldiers, were increasingly vulnerable to Turkish airstrikes.⁷⁴ To compensate, the LAAF turned to a new foreign supplier of manpower. Following their rapprochement with the Assad government, Abu Dhabi (along with Cairo) brokered a defense pact between Haftar’s camp and Damascus. This resulted in the reported deployment of two thousand pro-Assad Syrian militiamen to support Haftar’s forces.⁷⁵

By early summer 2020, the two sides had squared off over the Jufra-Sirte axis. Russia has continued its aerial shipments of weaponry, dispatched advanced combat aircraft to eastern Libya, and repositioned Wagner Group fighters in the Sirte environs, strategic air bases across Fezzan, and key oil fields—but not before seeding Tripoli homes with deadly mines and booby traps.⁷⁶

For his part, Egyptian president Sisi issued bellicose statements that Sirte was a redline and threatened a military intervention to halt Turkey’s advance—a warning that was endorsed by the Egyptian parliament.⁷⁷ But the scale of such a move, if it happens at all, would likely be modest given the Egyptian military’s limitations and Cairo’s competing strategic priorities.⁷⁸

Meanwhile, Turkey has been streaming materiel of its own into Libya and repositioning its arsenal for an assault on Sirte.⁷⁹ Yet it too faces risks: A further push eastward might dilute its political, security and economic gains in Tripolitania and fracture the already fissiparous GNA coalition.⁸⁰ Even so, Turkish military commanders in Libya are reportedly distrustful of Russia designs given Turkey’s recent experience with Russia’s support for a Syrian regime attack on Aleppo, Syria, which occurred in the midst of Turkish-Russian talks.⁸¹ A Turkish advance on Sirte would likely be accompanied by a deal with Russia on the redeployment of Wagner forces away from the central coastal city—a concession that Ankara hopes might be tied to Russian advances in Syria’s Idlib province and that would come at the expense of Egypt.⁸²

As the fragmentation in Libya and in the global order is worsening, it is unlikely that any one foreign state can win Libya, especially given the multiplicity of outside actors on the landscape. Turkey is poised to build significant influence over Tripolitania’s economic sphere and security institutions, to include fortifying its presence at key western military bases and training and equipping new security forces, with involvement by a Turkish private military contractor linked to President Erdoğan and projected assistance from Qatar.⁸³ Yet despite this growing entrenchment, Ankara would not necessarily benefit from a formal partition of Libya, which would be invariably marked by conflict: Its long-term economic interests hinge on political stability and trade access to the east. For its part, Russia is spreading its forces across eastern and southern Libya and has been willing to cultivate ties to a broader swathe of Libyan actors, to include elements of the GNA and the Qadhafists. Similarly, the Egyptians, who’ve also soured on Haftar and have sought to bolster alternative Libyan military commanders and anti-Islamist figures, are eager to re-establish political and economic ties to Tripolitania, especially given the importance of the western region for Egyptian migrant labor and some elements in Cairo are also open to negotiating with Turkey over the eastern Mediterranean gas dispute.⁸⁴ Yet at the same time Cairo strives to preserve the LAAF (without Haftar) as the nucleus of a future security architecture in Libya. Consequently, the Egyptians, along with the Russians, have been trying shape a post-Haftar Libya in the wake of the general’s battlefield setbacks: Cairo and Moscow are both engaging Qadhafists and both have endorsed a political roadmap by Aguila Saleh, the speaker of the eastern-based legislature, the House of Representatives (HOR), which effectively sidelines Haftar.⁸⁵

Yet the most consequential outside power in the Libyan imbroglio remains the least talked about, especially in Washington and Paris: the United Arab Emirates.⁸⁶ Reeling from Haftar’s losses in Tripolitania and bereft of appealing military options, Abu Dhabi started to diversify its outreach to eastern-based Libyan actors, though not to the same extent as Egypt and Russia. It is also deploying a range of spoiling and stalling tactics, designed to stymie Turkish consolidation in Tripolitania and thwart a potential Turkish-Russian entente: encouraging Egyptian belligerence, and reportedly persuading Haftar to refuse a foreign-backed deal to lift his blockade of oil facilities. ⁸⁷

All of this diplomatic maneuvering is taking place against a backdrop of profound crises and disarray in Europe and America. European policy on Libya in particular has been marked by paralysis and deep divisions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in France’s vocal and obsessive demonization of Turkish intervention in Libya—part of a broader French antipathy toward Turkey that has domestic and ideological roots—at the expense of Emirati and Russian support to Haftar, France’s longtime ally in Libya.⁸⁸ Operationally, Europe’s marginalization is evident in its attempt to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya with an EU maritime interdiction operation, the so-called Operation Irini, which started on April 1, 2020. Because the EU’s interdiction efforts were focused almost entirely on the maritime front, GNA supporters and outside critics charged, correctly, that Irini was biased against Turkey, since its shipments went by sea. In contrast, Haftar received foreign arms from the air or overland from Egypt. Yet even with this focus, the actual disruptions of Turkish seaborne supplies has been spotty to non-existent.⁸⁹ On top of this, key European countries—France, Italy, and Germany—are threatening EU sanctions on Libya’s foreign meddlers, but given their divergent approaches toward Libya—and, in the case of France, blatant partisanship toward the UAE—their list is unlikely to cover the most serious violators.⁹⁰

In the summer of 2020, the ineffectiveness of European policy on Libya elicited a public rebuke from David Schenker, not just on Operation Irini but on Europe’s one-sided stance. "They could at least, if they were serious, I think, call them out—call out all parties of the conflict when they violate the arms embargo," the American diplomat told a reporter.⁹¹ Yet American diplomacy on Libya has hardly been a paragon of effectiveness and even-handedness. Indeed, in its reluctance to formulate a clear policy on Libya and its reticence to exert diplomatic leadership, the Trump administration has in many respects followed the Obama administration’s paradigm of “no ownership”—what State Department officials have recently reframed as “active neutrality.”⁹² As noted earlier, part of this is structural and geo-strategic: Libya is just too peripheral for Washington to warrant significant commitment of U.S. resources or pushback against American allies who’ve long been intervening—especially when those allies’ help is deemed to be essential on other regional priorities. But under the Trump administration, authoritarian ideological preferences and a pronounced tilt toward the United Emirates and Turkey have factored in as well. Having first backed the Emirates in their support of Haftar, the Trump presidency subsequently sent positive signals to Turkey, once Haftar’s advance stalled and after the Russian presence widened. As a result, U.S. policy under Trump has been muddled and anything but neutral. Moreover, by imposing a false moral equivalence Libya’s warring factions and issuing toothless expressions of regret on repeated violations and abuses, Washington contributed to a prolongation and intensification of the war.

By the summer of 2020, there were modestly encouraging signs that this reticence was changing. The United States took the positive and long overdue step of threatening U.S. Treasury sanctions on Haftar, a U.S. citizen in conjunction with its application of sanctions on Wagner financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin (for his involvement in Sudan, rather than Libya).⁹³ In tandem, the U.S. Africa Command began waging a concerted public information campaign to highlight and criticize Russia’s buildup of military infrastructure in Libya—though such measures, by themselves, won’t deter Moscow’s meddling .⁹⁴ Diplomatically, the United States, along with Germany, the United Kingdom and the UN, started pressing for a demilitarization zone in Sirte as a means of securing a return to a political process. The U.S ambassador to Libya engaged in robust shuttle talks with Ankara and Cairo, resulting in their support to a ceasefire agreement announced on August 21, 2020 by GNA Prime Minister al-Sarraj and the speaker of the eastern HOR, Aguila Saleh.⁹⁵

Though the agreement, which endorsed the demilitarization of the Sirte region, called for a resumption of oil production, and included a provision to place oil revenues in Libya’s foreign, rather than central bank, was lauded by the UN and in Western capitals, it remains fraught with pitfalls. Most significantly, the signatories have a limited span of control over armed and political actors on the ground, illustrated in the case of Aguila Saleh by Haftar’s rejection of the deal and threats to restart fighting. For its part, al-Sarraj and the GNA coalition have been shaken by widespread protests over poor administration and corruption and a surge in coronavirus infections and deaths—which are also present in the east.⁹⁶ The GNA has also been riven by a worsening power struggle, which saw al-Sarraj suspend and then reinstate the powerful interior minister Fathi Bashagha for allegedly encouraging the protests.⁹⁷ These widening and deeply rooted fissures extend well beyond political elites, to armed groups and towns in and around Tripoli—and to the Tripoli-based Central Bank, whose militia-aligned governor has emerged as a key obstructionist, along with Haftar, according to a senior Western diplomat.⁹⁸ On top of these internal dynamics, the prospect for a durable peace is offset by the calculations of outside interveners, who are jockeying to secure their political and economic interests in the wake of the deal. Most notable of these is the Emirates, which, even if it has not militarily thwarted the deal, has not altered its ideologically-driven position on Libya and seems committed to stoking the GNA’s collapse.⁹⁹ Moreover, Turkey’s commitment to the agreement should not be assumed to be interminable, given its distrust of the Emirates. In short, unless there is more sustained diplomatic follow-up, especially from Washington, toward Libyans and toward regional states, the al-Serraj-Saleh ceasefire, like so many other truces before it, could presage a reconfiguration of the conflict rather than its lasting cessation.