Haftar’s forces pull out of parts of Tripoli
TUNIS: Eastern Libyan forces pulled out of parts of Tripoli overnight, they said, after losing one of their main strongholds in western Libya on Monday, in a major blow to their year-long campaign to seize the capital.
Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari said the force had carried out a “redistribution and repositioning in the battle fronts, disengaging from some crowded residential areas”.
It has been fighting for more than a year to capture Tripoli, seat of the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is recognised by the United Nations and has moved onto the front foot in the war since January with military help from Turkey.
The LNA, under Khalifa Haftar, is supported by the United Arab Emirates,
Russia and Egypt. On Monday, pro-GNA forces took the Watiya airbase west of the capital after weeks of attempts, their biggest advance in a year that deprives the LNA of its only airfield near Tripoli.
After taking the base, they paraded what they said was a captured Russian-made Pantsir air defence system mounted on a truck, along with an Arabic manual.
Mr Mismari said the base had been abandoned as part of a long-planned strategic decision and that only old, obsolete equipment was left there.
GNA Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha said on Twitter that “Haftar’s chance of success is now effectively zero” following his loss of Watiya.
The capture of Al-Watiya comes after a weeks-long siege by pro-GNA forces of the base, where Mr Haftar had stationed aircraft for bombing runs.
Wolfram Lacher, a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, said the airbase had been Mr Haftar’s “last foothold on the [western] coastal plain”.
Mr Haftar’s LNA and its allies still control eastern and southern Libya, including most of the country’s oil facilities, which they have been blockading since January. They also hold Sirte, a city at the centrepoint of Libya’s Mediterranean coastline, which they took at the start of the year.
The LNA has been unable to make significant progress from the outskirts of Tripoli since early on in its campaign. It lost Gharyan, its main forward base south of Tripoli in June 2019, but continues to control Tarhouna, southeast of the capital.