On Dec. 7, US Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of the United States Africa Command, said that an American drone reported lost near Libya’s capital, Tripoli, last month was in fact shot down by Russian air defenses. Townsend said the operators of the air defenses at the time “didn’t know it was a US remotely …

The spokesman for the Libyan Army under the command of Presidential Council’s government Mohammed Gununu said Khalifa Haftar’s forces had lost 15 warplanes since the start of their offensive against Tripoli In last April.

Commander of the Joint Operations Room, Major General Osama Juwaili has said that the pilot of the aircraft shot down yesterday near Zawiya city west of Tripoli, identified as “Amer al-Juqam”, is accused of committing war crimes in Tripoli and will be held accountable according to the law.

Forces loyal to the internationally-recognised Libyan government announced on Saturday evening that they had shot down a MiG-23 fighter plane belonging to rogue General Khalifa Haftar over Tripoli.

The US military believes that an unarmed American drone reported lost near Libya’s capital last month was in fact shot down by Russian air defenses and it is demanding the return of the aircraft’s wreckage, US Africa Command says, Reuters reports.

Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar has been secretly meeting with Israeli intelligence officials, resulting in the Israeli military training militias loyal to Haftar in “street warfare”, Libyan and Egyptian sources have revealed to The New Arab’s Arabic-language service.

Libya’s UN-backed government has been collecting evidence of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group fighting alongside rogue General Khalifa Haftar.

Rogue General Khalifa Haftar has discussed plans to form an all-Berber “infantry brigade” to partake in his offensive to seize Tripoli, according to local media.

In a general interview in Rome today by journalists Orietta Moscatelli and Cristina Giuliano of Askanews.it, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said on Libya:

Ostensibly undertaken to rid the capital of militias, the campaign by Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army was in fact a baldfaced grab for power and wealth.