Libya’s Civil War
On a front line of the new Libyan civil war, one military commander drives between military encampments in a sleek silver Range Rover
Commander goes to battle in a Range Rover
Just four years after the start of the NATO-backed revolution that deposed former dictator Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has crumbled into a fragmented civil war, where rival powers battle for control on three major front lines. The westernmost front is where Commander Muftah Abuleafa’s sleek silver Range Rover now spends most of its time, on the fringes of an ongoing battle for control of a large military airbase called Al-Wattiyah.
He leads the El-Khoudorat El-Moujahida Brigade – one of 56 armed units fighting for the Tripoli-based government, set up in opposition to the official powers now based in the east of the country. Spanning a stretch of almost 62 miles, to the Tunisian border, the Wattiyah frontline runs along an expanse of barren desert that is best navigated by four wheel drives.
The new Libyan civil war is being fought with fleets of improvised fighting vehicles known as 'technicals', equipped with heavy weaponry – usually anti-aircraft guns – fixed to the rear of Toyota pick-ups.
Amongst the battered and sand-daubed technicals armed with Soviet-era weaponry that define the country’s front lines, Commander Muftah’s 2006 Range Rover is a rare and striking sight. He had two Toyotas after the 2011 uprising but then, in early 2014, he bought the Range Rover from a friend.
“When I discovered what this Range Rover was like to drive, I abandoned the Toyotas,” Commander Muftah says, with a dismissive gesture at a small sand-coloured truck he overtakes on one of Libya’s main stretches of coastal highway. “Once you have driven a vehicle like this, you just can’t go back to driving other cars.”
Filling up at a petrol station controlled by military forces, Commander Muftah explains that the troops are part of a move to prevent petrol from being transported in canisters up into the mountains, where rival forces are based. With all civilian vehicles searched at military checkpoints for any petrol-filled containers – even water bottles, the other side reportedly acquire petrol by syphoning out recently-filled fuel tanks of civilian cars, which are then driven back to the coast almost empty.
This demand for fuel gives the conflict a sense of being straight out of the 1980s Mad Max films, where battles were fought for control of the limited resource. Although the opposition is apparently desperate for petrol, there are no shortages for Commander Muftah’s troops.
Fuel subsidies in the oil-rich state keep petrol at a price that makes it cheaper than bottled water, meaning the Range Rover’s 125 litre tank costs just ten Libyan dinars – the equivalent of five pounds sterling – to fill.
From the petrol station, Commander Muftah heads inland, driving through the barren landscape, to check on his troops. They occupy small encampments beside sandy ridges from where periscope binoculars and night vision units ripped from tanks are positioned to peer down into no man’s land.
Range Rovers are a rare sight in Libya. Sanctions imposed until 2003 meant Western countries did not do business with the country. Even after the sanctions were lifted, strict regulations on vehicle imports meant only very modern vehicles were brought in.
The cost of new Land Rovers were out of the price range of most average citizens, and those who wanted a four wheel drive mostly opted for the cheaper and more readily available Toyota trucks. Since the 2011 revolution, regulations have been relaxed and cars have become one of Libya’s principal imports.
“For me, this is like a king’s car, but not everyone
understands about Land Rovers,” he says. “It is full of little luxuries and it makes any drive a relaxing one.” He praises its smooth handling of challenging terrains, its comfortable seats and its consistent reliability, despite strong winds which blow sand in from the Sahara Desert towards the coast.
This is not the first frontline where Commander Muftah’s Range Rover has seen action. “Yes, I’ve taken it to other battles, including a battle at Sabha,” he explains. Sabha is deep in the south of Libya, some 500 miles from Tripoli, and this was the first time he drove the Range Rover to a frontline, shortly after he purchased the vehicle. “It’s exciting to drive the Land Rover in the desert,” he says, with a big grin. It has also seen action at another coastal frontline, in an ongoing battle between the rival governments for control of one of the country’s largest oil export terminals.
For the last four months he has driven it, almost daily, between the different encampments where his troops are stationed, part of the 55 mile frontline that forms an arc north of the Wattiyah airbase. Sometimes it is parked up on the fringes of the frontline while Commander Muftah is fighting.
One of the things that commands him respect among his forces, he says, is his commitment to leading from the front. “These guys respect me because, when the fighting starts, I’m the first man at the front.”
It also transports personnel and, more frequently, military supplies from Tripoli, including batches of new uniforms and balaclavas – increasingly employed by forces manning checkpoints on both the main and side roads that snake along the outskirts of the frontline.
His vehicle is a familiar sight at the checkpoints and everyone recognises the Range Rover. While civilian cars queue to get through, he drives off the road and bumps along the sandy verges, bypassing the traffic and the armed men in a fanfare of hooting and shouts.
Before forming his brigade to fight against the forces of Muammar Qaddafi during the 2011 Revolution, Muftah was a businessman in Libya’s third largest city of Misrata, which saw some of the fiercest battles between Qaddafi’s forces and the NATO-backed rebels.
The country has not been at peace long enough yet for him to down arms and return to the peaceful life of a businessman, he says. And, since mid-2014, as the situation in Libya has spiralled further out of control, he has been fighting in its new civil war.
Even on the now rare occasions he's not on the battlefield, Muftah still spends plenty of time behind the wheel. He explains that, in his hometown of Misrata there is a special place where he goes to enjoy a good bit off-roading, more often in peace-time rather than times of war.
“Range Rovers are a rare sight in Libya"