Posted on 12/06/2019 12:42:36 PM PST by Texas Fossil
Turkey's AKP government has over the past year shipped drones, armored vehicles, "laser weapons," and other arms and ammunition to Libya's Tripoli-based pro-Islamist Government of National Accord (GNA), which is led by Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj and which the UN recognizes as Libya's legitimate government.[1] The AKP government has also trained GNA military and police personnel.
While this military support has been reported since as early as 2015, it appears to have expanded in 2019. The policy represents Turkey's role in the ongoing Second Libyan Civil War, which began in 2014 and is now characterized largely by fighting between the GNA and the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar, which is loyal to the Tobruk-based House Of Representatives (HoR).
The AKP government has reportedly shipped to Libya, among other weapons and military equipment, 100 Kirpi ("Hedgehog") mine-resistant armored vehicles made by Turkish defense firm BMC and reportedly paid for by the government of Qatar. Baykar, a Turkish firm headed by Selçuk Bayraktar, a son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, produces the Turkish drones being used in Libya. In November, the director of Turkey's Directorate of Security said in a speech that "with 50 personnel attending each program, in total 200 members of the Libyan Police Organization are being given the four-week 'Basic Special Operations Training.'"
By supporting the GNA, Turkey is also supporting some enemies of the United States, including Mohamed Ben Dardaf, who was reported killed fighting in the GNA's Somoud Brigade on May 26 and was accused of taking part in the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghaz that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. diplomatic staff in September 2012.[2]
This report will review information about the weapons the AKP government is shipping to Libya,..
(Excerpt) Read more at memri.org ...
This article sounds very credible. But I will not judge the accuracy from my initial read.
If you are interested in the region, it is a long worthwhile read.
Syria Ping.
(article relates to Syria indirectly, because of use of Turkish drones to attack civilians in N. Syria.)
The Ottoman Empire was ended after WWI. It truly deserved to die.
But does Eredogan see Turkey as the new center of Islamic power?
Yes. He does. It is his Neo-Ottoman wet dream. Fascist.
Turkey has some major defense industry capability, by global standards,
They (and Qatar) are actively arming and supporting the jihadis that we and Egypt are opposing in Libya.
ISIS at one point was actively cultivating their folks in Libya as their alternate command post,as their territory in Iraq and Syria shrank, because Libya included lucrative oil revenue.
Good counter-terrorism policy, supported on the ground by Egypt and our Libyan allies (General Haftar), forced them to concentrate into Afghanistan instead, where they have suffered very heavy losses since the Baghdadi raid.
It’s likely that the main remnants of ISIS leadership exist under Turkish protection, and Turkey would like to cultivate a safe haven for them in Libya.
It is important for us, the International community, and especially Egypt, that Libya is consolidated under a Government that opposes terrorism and radical Islam.
Thanks.
All you stated rings true as I see it. We have bad choices, not good choices, dealing with Turkey. It is clear they are unreliable partners and have no loyalty to the West or NATO.
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