Turkish involvement in Libya's war

A new report by the US Defense Department revealed that Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 Syrian mercenaries to Libya over the first three months of the year.

The quarterly report on counter-terrorism operations in Africa by the Pentagon's internal watchdog, published on Thursday, is its first to detail Turkish involvement in Libya's war.

It says Turkey paid and offered citizenship to thousands of mercenaries fighting alongside Tripoli-based militias against troops of the Libyan National Army led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.

Despite widespread reports of the fighters' extremist links, the report says the US military found no evidence to suggest the mercenaries were affiliated with ISIS or Al Qaeda. It says they were "very likely" motivated by generous financial packages rather than ideology or politics.

The report quotes the US Africa Command as saying 300 Turkish-supported Syrian rebels landed in Libya in early April. Turkey also sent an "unknown number" of Turkish soldiers during the first months of the year, the report said.

To the consternation of regional rivals and Nato allies such as France, Turkey is staking its hopes for greater influence in the eastern Mediterranean on the government in Tripoli.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) affirmed that Turkey is still keeping about 8,000 Syrian mercenaries in Libya despite the UN-brokered ceasefire agreement signed by the two warring parties in October 2020.