Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 paid Syrian fighters to Libya over the first three months of the year, the U.S. Defense Department’s inspector general concluded in a new report, its first to detail Turkish deployments that helped change the course of Libya’s war.
“The use of air power and precision technology, including precision-guided artillery, has become a dominant feature of an otherwise low-intensity conflict."
The remotely piloted aircraft may have been brought down by Russian mercenaries or troops with Khalifa Hifter’s Libyan National Army operating a Russian air defense system.
Officials in Libya’s U.N.-supported government say they plan to confront Moscow over the alleged deployment of Russian mercenaries fighting alongside their opponents in the country’s civil war.
France’s Defense Ministry acknowledged Wednesday that U.S.-made missiles captured from the self-styled Libyan National Army belonged to the French military.
President Donald Trump has spoken by phone with Libya's Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, who is leading an offensive to take over the capital of Tripoli — the seat of the U.N.-supported government.
The United States said Sunday it has temporarily withdrawn some of its forces from Libya due to “security conditions on the ground,” as a Libyan military commander’s forces advanced toward the capital, Tripoli, clashing with rival militias.
Activists on Wednesday asked the United States to suspend a diplomatic visa for a Bahrain prince over allegations that he tortured prisoners during the island kingdom’s 2011 Arab Spring protests.