Cairo – As the war raged in Libya last winter, a dozen world leaders gathered in Berlin to talk peace. The controversy surrounding the conference is no secret: many world leaders who pledged to end foreign intervention in the Libyan conflict were themselves encouraging it.
Still, few expect the pose to be so shameless.
At least five cargo planes loaded with weapons from the United Arab Emirates and Russia flew into the skies after the leaders signed a resolution on January 19 honoring an arms embargo on Libya, presenting a group photo with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Bound to the battlefields of North Africa, Libya.
The secret report, to be presented to a Security Council panel on Friday, includes details of secret, banned-flying flights. Such violations are nothing new in Libya, where even UN officials call the ban a “joke.” But the sharp scale of violations so far this year, which is now linked to the amount of advanced weapons circulating within the country, is a growing cause for international alarm.
Using flight data, ship records and other tools, investigators have shown that gross violations by leaders who are likely to ban abandonment have reached new levels.
On January 19, four cargo planes bound for Libya were sent by the United Arab Emirates, whose leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, had lunch in a bright room with Mrs Merkel shortly before the peace conference. Along with Russia and Egypt, the emirate supports Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter in the war.
The fifth plane was from Russia that day – one of the Russian military’s supply flights in the past nine months, pushing Russian and Syrian mercenaries to a force of more than 1,000 fighters, according to the latest US estimates.
The United Nations report, seen by the New York Times and confirmed in an interview with officials, comes at a time of intense political instability in Libya, with fresh warnings that the country could sink into a more devastating new round of war.
“Libya is at a critical juncture,” Stephen Williams, the acting UN ambassador to Libya, warned the Security Council in a briefing on Wednesday.
Libya was plunged into chaos in 2011 after the ouster and assassination of longtime dictator Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. It has since been divided between the two administrations in the east and west of the country, backed by rival foreign powers.
Mr Hefter’s 14-month campaign to capture Tripoli ended in failure in June, but Russia and Turkey were drawn further into the war. As oil production has stalled, the bedrock economy has sunk further and the lifestyles of Libyans who have endured long periods of electricity in the summer heat are rapidly deteriorating.
Much of what comes next may have been decided by foreign sponsors of the war, who, according to UN investigators, have turned the conflict into a huge proxy war on one cargo plane at a time.
The latest surge began in January when Turkey sent drones, an air defense system and thousands of Syrian mercenaries to support the besieged Tripoli government.
Mr Hifter’s forces were responded to by a flood of military aid from Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, which quickly turned into a huge, undeclared military airspace.
Investigators said Nov. Between 1 and 31 July, 339 Russian military flights were counted, mostly from the Hmimim air base in Syria, with a potential volume of up to 17,200 tons. The flights support mercenaries recruited by the Wagner group, a private military company affiliated with the Kremlin, which has become a crucial element in Mr Hifter’s forces.
Russian President Vladimir V Putin has repeatedly denied any Russian intervention in Libya.
But, even after the collapse of Mr. Hifter’s Tripoli campaign in June, the number of Russian pilots has risen sharply during the year from eight flights in December 2019 to 75 in July 2019 – a sign of Russia’s growing share in the conflict, according to many Western officials.
As fighting in recent months has escalated into a stalemate centered on Surat, Russian mercenaries have been in a position around many of Libya’s largest oil fields.
The report also focuses on the United Arab Emirates, which sent 35 more military cargo flights to Libya 11 days after the Berlin conference in January, and 100 or more in the first half of the year, many of them airlines registered in Kazakhstan using three charters.
Many of those planes turned off their transponders – tracking devices that recognize their position – as if they had entered Egyptian or Libyan airspace. But attempts to disguise military supply flights were largely intrusive.
Investigators said suspiciously vague descriptions of their cargo were made, claiming they were carrying frozen food, men’s clothing or 800 boilers on some flights. Others were named after the UAE Armed Forces’ Fourth Flying Group.
Three of those airlines stopped flying in May when Kazakh authorities suspended their licenses after receiving international complaints. The report said the emirate had taken steps to “maintain the airbridge” using American-built C-17 Globemaster cargo planes by direct direct flights until July 1.
Since September 2019, the emirate has also been recruiting Sudanese mercenaries to fight under Mr. Hifter under suspicious circumstances. Investigators found out that he was recruited by a firm called Black Shield to do private security work, then was forced to undergo military training and was sent to fight in Yemen or Libya.
“These individuals were placed under false pretenses and were forced into military training camps,” the report said.
The UAE government has failed to respond to several letters from investigators seeking information or comment on its activities in Libya.
On the other side of the war, the report also accused Turkey of widespread sanctions violations. In early June, three attempts by Turkish warships to intercept a Turkish cargo ship bound for Libya by European Union ships were rejected by Turkish warships. Turkey claimed that the cargo ship was carrying “humanitarian aid”.
Other Turkish military supplies arrive in western Libya in the morning at civilian airports flying from western Turkey. As reported, it is almost impossible to book a seat on any of these flights. “Flights are not for freight passengers.”
The report also notes Qatar’s return to the war. U.S. officials say Qatar stopped large-scale funding of Islamist groups in Libya during the Obama administration under U.S. pressure.
But at least five Qatari Air Force cargo flights landed in Libya in May and June, the report said. Most recently, Qatar’s defense minister visited Tripoli with his Turkish counterpart at a point show of solidarity.
In an interview, a senior Western diplomat confirmed that Qatar has resumed funding the Tripoli government.
Libyan citizens have suffered especially in the intensity and confusion of the sporadic proxy war.
United Nations investigators have provided evidence that an Emirati warplane carried out an airstrike in front of a refugee center in Tripoli that killed at least 42 people in July 2019, mostly migrants.
Human rights groups and the U.S. military accused Russian mercenaries of planting mind mines and booby-traps when they withdrew from the Tripoli suburb in June. At least 61 people have been killed and 113 injured in the bombings, UN Ambassador Ms. Williams said Wednesday.
A Kremlin spokesman dismissed the American allegations as “crazy talk.”
