The armed forces of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the strongman of eastern Libya, announced on Friday a vast military operation in the south of the country, aimed at dislodging Chadian rebels. Airstrikes were carried out near the border with Chad.
The armed forces of the strongman of eastern Libya, Marshal Khalifa Haftar, announced on Friday August 25 a vast “military and security” operation in the south of the country to dislodge Chadian opposition factions, after that fighting has pitted Chadian forces against these rebel factions. Airstrikes were carried out near the border with Chad, followed by the sending of paratroopers on the ground, according to the media office.
“The armed forces will no longer allow factions or armed groups to use Libyan territory to launch offensives against neighboring countries,” Ahmad al-Mesmari, spokesman for Marshal Haftar, said in a statement, without specifying how. armed group it was.
Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby said on Sunday that fighting had resumed between the army and the Front pour l’Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (FACT), after the latter withdrew last week from a ceasefire agreement.
According to Khalifa al-Obeidi, head of the media office of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (FAAL) commanded by Khalifa Haftar, they are preparing to carry out “several security operations aimed at evicting more than 2,000 homes in the area of Umm al- Araneb (southwest) Chadian opposition fighters and their families”. The unfinished homes, forcibly occupied four years ago by Chadian rebels, were originally intended to house Libyan families.
Libya plunged into chaos since 2011
General Saddam Haftar, son of the marshal and commander of the land forces, “is on the border with Chad (…) to supervise operations” in order to “cleanse” southern Libya of “armed gangs”, according to Khalifa al – Obedi.
“These operations aim to secure the area and reassure the inhabitants against terrorism, organized crime, trafficking in human beings and drug trafficking,” the Ministry of Defense of the eastern Libyan government said in a statement.
Libya has been plunged into chaos since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi ‘s regime in 2011. For the past year, the country has been ruled by two rival governments: one in the West led by Abdelhamid Dbeibah and the other in the East. supported by Khalifa Haftar .
Libya and Chad share a border of more than 1,000 kilometers from which Chadian rebels operate on both sides.
These rebel groups, which have been present for a long time in southern Libya, regularly carry out attacks against Chadian troops. In the spring of 2021, they launched an offensive in which President Idriss Déby Itno , father of current leader Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, was killed.
On August 17, Chad’s transitional president traveled to the north to “galvanize” troops after an “attack” on army positions led by a rebel group.
