Haftar forged the LAAF through alliances with four networks of actors with overlapping interests, including army officers and their armed groups, initially from the revolutionary camp but later from either side of the revolutionary divide; armed elements of the eastern autonomy movement; armed groups fighting Islamist-leaning groups in Benghazi, drawn from eastern tribes and the Saiqa Special Forces; and armed factions drawn from adherents of the growing ultraconservative Madkhali-Salafi trend.
Haftar was effective in moulding his narrative and positioning himself to align with parochial networks, such as the armed elements of the eastern autonomy movement and those fighting Islamist-leaning groups in Benghazi. These parochial networks possessed strong vertical ties between their leaders and their communities, which allowed them to build and maintain their forces in their locality. However, the leadership of the groups possessed limited horizontal ties to leaders in other areas, inhibiting their ability to form a coherent integrated force or to collaborate effectively. The Madkhali-Salafi groups, while showing the potential to develop vanguard networks (due to strong horizontal ties through their ideological outlook), still overwhelmingly displayed the characteristics of parochial networks. Many of the army officers that have allied with Haftar fit the vanguard profile, with strong horizontal ties among leaders developed through their experiences in the military but in many cases relatively weak vertical ties with local communities.
Haftar has sought to cohere and integrate this unwieldy alliance through a combination of narrative-building, coercion and external support.
Since 2014, Haftar has sought to cohere and integrate this unwieldy alliance through a combination of narrative-building, coercion and external support. The LAAF has displayed considerable ideological dexterity. For example, the framing of Operation Dignity as a project to restore, or resurrect, ‘the army’ to fight against ‘terrorist’ elements was broad enough to resonate with the contradictory interests within the alliance. For the officers, this operation in Benghazi represented a return to state order and the pursuit of a national project. For the former regime loyalists, it presented a chance to avenge their 2011 defeat. For all, it represented a means of assembling forces to combat local foes, most notably Islamist-leaning groups. It also tapped into a desire of these factions to be an official or legitimate element of the state.
As the LAAF emerged from its bloody victories in Benghazi and Derna, it needed a new framing to justify its expansion into southern Libya, known as the Fezzan, in 2019 and then towards Tripoli later that year. Operation Southern Purge in January–March 2019 drew upon the state order narrative once more, but this time with an emphasis on the restoration of order and clamping down on criminality to facilitate the takeover of the region by pro-LAAF elements. The later Tripoli offensive (2019–20) fused all of the narratives above and was framed as a means to liberate the capital from the yoke of the militias. And, when the offensive collapsed, the LAAF was quick to mobilize nationalist fervour and to agitate against Turkey’s support for the Government of National Accord (GNA) by conjuring historical images of Ottoman conquests as if to show that history was repeating itself.
Elements from the Gaddafi-era armed forces
The LAAF has sought to embrace elements of the Gaddafi-era military that fought on both sides of the revolution. Haftar was a career officer in the Libyan military prior to his capture by Chadian forces in 1987, when he defected for an ill-fated stint with an exiled Libyan opposition movement. He participated in the 2011 revolution alongside the rebels in a minor role. Such credentials facilitated the formation of alliances with other prominent commanders who had fought with the rebels, such as Abdul Razzaq al-Nadhouri, who would be appointed chief of staff of the ‘Libyan National Army’ by the House of Representatives in August 2014. Nadhouri previously headed an armed force made up of rebels and officers who defected from Gaddafi’s security brigade in al-Marj, which would come to be known as Brigade 115, one of the strongest units that joined Operation Dignity at its inception. Other key recruits included Saqr al-Jarushi, who had been fired as chief of the Libyan air force in 2013. His status ensured that air force officers placed their aircraft under Haftar’s command. Career officers became leading commanders in the LAAF; for example, Abdul Salam al-Hassi, an officer within Saiqa, who rose to lead its operations room in Gharyan in the initial phase of the Tripoli offensive before being demoted after the operation failed.
Figures such as Nadhouri and Jarushi have made pliant allies for Haftar. Nadhouri has not been central in the decision-making processes since Haftar’s appointment as general commander of the Armed Forces in 2015. Except for his position as military governor of Bin Jawad-Derna from 2016 to 2018, Nadhouri has generally performed subsidiary tasks such as heading the LAAF-led COVID-19 Committee and Benghazi’s Security Committee. The latter position is bolstered by his role on the Benghazi Stabilization Committee, which is intended to oversee the reconstruction of the city of Benghazi. Nadhouri has used his position to rapidly accumulate properties in Benghazi, Tolmeita and al-Marj. The unit he commanded, Battalion 115, is now led by his son, Abdul Fatah, though it is not as prominent as it once was.
From 2016, Haftar sought to integrate Gaddafi loyalist officers into the senior leadership of the LAAF in an attempt to expand his military alliance. Figures such as Mohamed Bin Nayel sought to rally pro-regime elements in the Fezzan, which developed into the 12th Brigade. Belgasim al-Abaj was deployed to his native Kufra in January 2018 and later to engage more broadly in the Fezzan as head of the Southern Operations Group as the LAAF sought expansion. Another former regime loyalist, al-Mabrouk Sahban, ascended to the leadership of the 12th Brigade following Bin Nayel’s death in 2020.
Others emerged to command prominent units within the LAAF, such as Hassan Maatoug al-Zadma (Battalion 128), Masoud Jeddi (Battalion 116) and Omar Morajea (Tariq Bin Ziyad Brigade). More is noted about these formations later in this chapter. Each of these leaders had fought on the side of the regime in 2011. The integration of such figures, and Haftar’s outreach to their social bases, presented the opportunity for expansion of the LAAF’s power base at a time when ties with pro-revolutionary elements of the alliance, such as Osama Juweili’s forces in Zintan, had ended.
Benghazi-based armed groups
Haftar’s accords with armed groups from Benghazi represented a marriage of convenience. Alliances with armed groups drawn from the Awagir tribe – based on the outskirts of Benghazi and represented by leaders such as Faraj Egaim, Ezzedine Wakwak and the brothers Salah and Khalid Bulghib – made up the bulk of Haftar’s fighting force to combat Benghazi’s Islamist groups.
Further fighters were provided by the Saiqa Special Forces. When Operation Dignity launched, Saiqa had more civilian recruits than professional holdovers from the Gaddafi era. Saiqa’s enlarged ranks added to the manpower deployed in the operation but also considerably weakened the ability of senior commanders to control local forces. Expansion led to the fragmentation of the group.
These developments have led to extreme violence and unconstrained behaviour. The late Saiqa officer Mahmoud al-Werfalli was subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant following the conduct of a series of summary executions. Similar dynamics exist within Ayad al-Fsay’s Awliya al-Dam, which is alleged to be responsible for the disappearance of the House of Representatives member Siham Sergiwa, in July 2019, after she made critical remarks about the LAAF.
Haftar subsequently sought to fragment and/or marginalize these local armed groups through a combination of violence, supplying arms to erstwhile allies and the exploitation of rifts among their leaders to disrupt horizontal ties among them. These strategies proved effective, in turn constraining the ability of these commanders to build groups that could mobilize horizontally, as a broader constituency. As a result, local Benghazi groups remained functionally independent but weak. This approach enabled Haftar to remove a prominent and oppositional commander from the Barassa tribe, Faraj al-Barassi, in June 2015.
Senior members of the Awagir tribe subsequently challenged Haftar by accepting leading positions in the GNA, which was formed in December 2015. Mehdi al-Bargathi, a prominent Awagir commander who had supported Operation Dignity, was appointed GNA defence minister but was sidelined following his alleged connection to a massacre of LAAF-affiliated fighters in Brak al-Shati in 2017. A further attempt by the GNA to court Awagir support was made in September 2017 when Faraj Egaim was appointed GNA deputy interior minister. However, following his return to Benghazi, multiple attempts were made on his life and forces loyal to Haftar detained him in November the same year. Following a thawing of relations with Haftar, Egaim re-emerged in July 2019 as the head of a counterterrorism force affiliated with the LAAF.
However, while it has been able to marginalize the leaders of such groups and prevent them from obtaining heavy weaponry, the LAAF must retain a modus vivendi. The careful treatment of Egaim sought to head off his threat without causing more Awagir factions to break away from the LAAF. Similarly, the LAAF response to the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for the Saiqa officer Werfalli was to detain him and to provide assurances to international actors about an investigation, only to release him later.
As the LAAF’s fortunes deteriorated on Tripoli’s frontlines in 2019, Haftar attempted a rapprochement with Awagir actors. This included outreach to Khalid Bulghib, one of those marginalized in previous years, to re-form his Military Intelligence Support Forces as an auxiliary force to support the offensive. Bulghib refused. Haftar also leaned on Werfalli to muster further forces for the LAAF, appearing in Bani Walid in April 2020 with cash to aid recruitment.
The inability of the LAAF to provide security in its stronghold of Benghazi has been exposed as elements of the LAAF alliance compete against one another operating outside of the law without any accountability from civilian or LAAF police and prosecutors. While the impunity of such groups has long been a source of tension, a series of high-profile events from November 2020 onwards illustrated the scale of the problem. On 10 November 2020, Hanan al-Barassi – a prominent lawyer and critic of the LAAF who had threatened to share evidence implicating Saddam Haftar (Khalifa Haftar’s son) in crimes – was gunned down in Benghazi in broad daylight. On 2 March 2021, a video went viral of Mahmoud al-Werfalli sacking the offices of the Benghazi branch of Toyota.
Over the subsequent two weeks, there were several local meetings of social constituencies demanding investigations into extrajudicial killings, openly challenging Haftar in a way not seen in previous years. On 18 March, the bodies of a number of men were discovered in Benghazi’s Hawari district. Their hands were bound and each reportedly had been shot in the head. The spiral continued the following week when Werfalli was murdered by unknown masked gunmen in Benghazi. Reflecting the complex relationship of Werfalli to the LAAF, General Command issued a statement mourning Werfalli’s death while speculation reigned over potential LAAF involvement in the killing. Benghazi’s military prosecutor was reportedly fired for stating that Werfalli was undergoing psychiatric treatment.
These fast-paced developments illustrate that LAAF partners in Benghazi are far from integrated into the LAAF’s structure, remaining a confluence of parochial and increasingly fragmented groups. Some loyalties are extremely weak. The selection (February 2021) and approval (March 2021) of a new national government was unfolding at the same time as the situation in Benghazi deteriorated. These dynamics will be analysed in the next chapter, but it should be noted that they are already impacting the security dynamic. On 25 April 2021, the GNU appointed Egaim to the same position in the Ministry of Interior he held previously, seemingly another attempt to dilute Haftar’s hold on power.
The Madkhalis
The launch of Operation Dignity in May 2014 created a self-fulfilling prophecy by providing a threat that would unite Benghazi’s Islamist-leaning armed groups under the aegis of the Benghazi Revolutionary Shura Council (BRSC). The BRSC seized control over much of Benghazi in July and August 2014, in turn helping to exacerbate the common threat to the groups aligned with Operation Dignity and mobilizing popular support for Haftar. The assassination of a number of Salafi figures in Benghazi in this period, combined with a hostile relationship towards the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist-leaning groups provided the rationale for Madkhali-Salafi adherents to join with Operation Dignity. Some Madkhali elements were interspersed among Haftar’s forces fighting in Benghazi, as was the case within subunits of the Saiqa Special Forces, while others were part of specific Madkhali formations, such as the Salafi Battalion and the Tawhid Brigade. Madkhali formations, including Tawhid (now restructured and renamed LAAF Battalion 210) and the Salafi Battalion (now incorporated into the Tariq Bin Ziyad Battalion) remain critical elements of the LAAF structure. Yet, the nature of their integration illustrates that this is not a broad vanguard constituency that has strong horizontal links across the country. The Madkhali fighters in groups such as Battalion 210 are appointed due to tribal affiliation, although some groups are concentrated due to geographical location. Other groups with a significant Madkhali component include Kufra-based Subul al-Salam and several units drawn from the northwestern coastal cities.
Madkhali-dominated groups have established ties with counterparts across the country, and even across the LAAF–GNA divide. One example of this was when the GNA-affiliated Special Deterrence Force (SDF) sent three ambulances to LAAF-affiliated Subul al-Salam in Kufra in 2017. In the pivotal city of Sirte, Madkhali-dominated forces – Battalion 604 and Battalion 110 – that were trained by the GNA-aligned and Madkhali-led SDF switched allegiance to the LAAF. The LAAF was reported in February 2021 to be preparing to establish Tariq Bin Ziyad brigade’s headquarters in the city, presumably to capitalize on the Madkhali ideological ties in the city with the 604 and 110 battalions.
While the networks of Madkhali armed actors are developing, they predominantly remain manifested in localized groups, reflecting their parochial nature. There are indications that, given time and shared experience, these groups could develop into a national vanguard network based on ideological kinship. The presence of a well-resourced and externally backed cadre of Madkhali clerics, which has come to dominate the religious authorities in eastern Libya and is seemingly growing in influence in other areas of the country, is strengthening vertical ties between the leaders and the social base of these groups. Madkhali fighters have been a critical asset in the LAAF’s campaigns since mid-2014 and look set to grow in influence over social and military affairs.
