"There is a geopolitical duplication in the Libyan theater of what happened in Syria"

Text by: Franck Alexandre

Russia recently dispatched fighter jets to Libya to support the fighters of Marshal Haftar, the strongman from eastern Libya, who has been waging an offensive to capture Tripoli for more than a year. West, seat of the GNA, the Government of National Union recognized by the UN. While in recent weeks, the Haftar camp has accumulated military setbacks, David Rigoulet-Roze, associate researcher at IRIS, the strategic research institute and editor-in-chief of the review Strategic Orients, deciphers what is at stake in Libya.

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RFI : After months of sinking south of Tripoli, is Russia trying to tip the scales in its favor in Libya, is there an acceleration of the conflict ?

David Rigoulet-Roze :  Yes, there is certainly an acceleration of the respective positioning. Obviously this is not official, it is the head of US Africom, Stephen Townsend, who from his HQ in Stuttgart passed on information indicating that six Mig-29 and two Sukhoi-35 would have been prepositioned on the base from Al-Joufra to the south-east of Tripoli. It is a way of showing that the Americans know what is happening on the ground and at the same time it clarifies Washington's positions a little, because there was an ambiguity, which was linked, moreover, to a coup de Donald Trump's phone in April 2019, and which suggested Washington's tacit support for Marshal Haftar's military operation.

There, there is a repositioning, a form of readjustment of potential alliances. What is certain is that the Russians wanted to show that the recent defeats of Marshal Haftar, in particular the fact that his troops lost the base of Al-Watiya, a hundred kilometers south-west of Tripoli, a GNA victory made possible by the use of Turkish drones and which involved the withdrawal of Marshal Haftar's forces, were only momentary. The Russians want to indicate that this withdrawal will remain limited. The engagement of Moscow is obviously unofficial since the Russian planes were repainted with the colors of the Libyan national army, even if everyone knows that the Russian engagement is more and more marked. Moreover, a UN report of April 24, 2020 confirmed the presence of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner company, a presence which presumably results from the recent difficulties on the ground of Marshal Haftar.

What is the state of Marshal Haftar's forces ?

At the start of military operations, Marshal Haftar, well anchored in Cyrenaica, first of all benefited from a good dynamic. Then, a few months ago, he decided to launch an assault on Tripoli, but this offensive is stalling and it is stalling all the more since Turkish engagement has officially strengthened . Indeed, President Erdogan relies on the legality of the so-called National Union government, embodied by Fayez el-Sarraj, to justify a military agreement which was signed in November 2019. This defense agreement allows, to a certain way, to establish the influence of Turkey in Tripolitania.

And there, we find a dangerous game that already existed in Syria, with the same actors. This is not trivial, there is a geopolitical duplication in the Libyan theater of what happened in Syria, with Turkey on one side and Russia on the other. It remains to be seen if this will lead to a direct confrontation or if the situation will be limited to the establishment of red lines for the respective opponents.

Is the Turkish presence also intended to get hold of the Libyan oil fields ?

In the defense agreement signed in November 2019, there was a section that specifically concerned offshore drilling. While in the eastern Mediterranean the exclusive economic zones are disputed, this agreement allowed Turkey to assert its interests to the detriment of Greece and Cyprus. In this context, there is undoubtedly also an economic logic on the part of Turkey but which is not only oil. Ankara does not lose sight of the rest of the African continent. It may be recalled that before the fall of Gaddafi, Turkey's trade with the continent amounted to several tens of billions of dollars. The Turks, like the Russians for that matter, keep in mind that Tripoli is also a gateway to the rest of Africa. So we end up with a clash of interests. There is clearly a geopolitics of the big players. What is very striking is the almost total absence of Europeans. The European Union has no control over its southern border, which is nevertheless strategic.

What is the role of Egypt in this crisis ?

President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi's Egypt clearly supported Marshal Haftar. And this, for two essential reasons: one ideological and the other geopolitical. Ideological, because President al-Sissi, who overthrew former President Morsi, is in open conflict with Erdogan's Turkey who also comes from the same movement of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which there is strong support for Marshal Haftar , presented as a bulwark against Islamism. As early as December 17, 2019, President al-Sissi also said that he would not allow anyone to control Libya, that it was under the national security of Egypt. After the recent military setbacks of Marshal Haftar, the Egyptian president renewed these declarations, affirming that if by chance the strong man of eastern Libya found himself in difficulty in his fight against terrorist groups, he would be supported by Egyptian army. So things are very clear, two blocks are being formed: with a Tripolitania which is more and more "Turkish" and a "Russified" Cyrenaica with the support of Egypt and in the background that also of the Emirates united arabs.

How do you view the UN, whose decisions are not respected, in particular the arms embargo ?

Yes, this is what had desolated the former UN special representative for Libya, Ghassam Salamé who resigned in a resounding fashion last April. He actually noted the impotence of the United Nations in the face of the repeated violations of the arms embargo which had been voted, it should be recalled in 2011, in favor of the sanctions taken against the Gaddafi regime. Since then, there has been an acceleration of these violations, which are almost in the open. This has been documented in great detail in various UN reports. I mentioned the last report of April 24, 2020 concerning Russian mercenaries, but this question of mercenaries also concerns Turkey, which dispatched several thousand to support the GNA forces in Tripoli.

So we can see that today the political and geopolitical fate of Libya is outside the strictly Libyan framework. Moreover, during a recent telephone exchange between President Trump and President Erdogan, the Turkish President did not hesitate to say that now there was no longer room in Libya for small players but that the the presence of major players would be decisive for the rest of the events.

Are there no alternatives to the use of arms ?

Despite the various declarations, following on from the Berlin conference earlier this year, it was the choice of weapons that prevailed. Besides, this choice has always been favored by Marshal Haftar, he has never hidden it. Simply a rebalancing is taking place. The question now is whether the intervention of major players is likely to lead to a direct confrontation. We are not there yet ... A scenario as we have known in Syria with the Astana process, could prevail and lead to the establishment of zones of influence in Libya.

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• Libya
• Defense
• Khalifa Haftar
• Fayez el-Sarraj
• Russia
• Turkey

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