Libyan National Army

Overview

The Libyan National Army (LNA) is an eastern-based coalition of military units and armed groups commanded by Khalifa Haftar. Its principal power base is Benghazi, and it has exercised authority across parts of eastern and southern Libya. The elected House of Representatives in Tobruk backed Haftar’s command during the Libyan civil war (2014–2020). It was one of Libya’s rival military and political power centers, rather than a force under the authority of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. The LNA fought the Islamic State and other jihadi groups, conducted a prolonged offensive against Tripoli, and retained control of eastern Libya after a nationwide ceasefire in October 2020. Its campaigns caused civilian casualties, while United Nations investigators and human rights reports identified serious abuses by LNA forces and aligned groups.

Founding and ideology

The coalition emerged during the fragmentation that followed the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. In 2014, Haftar launched Operation Dignity against armed opponents in eastern Libya. Dignity subsequently fought the Dawn coalition, composed chiefly of groups around Misrata and Tripoli, during the 2014–2015 phase of the civil war. Haftar’s forces presented their campaign as a fight against Islamist and jihadi armed groups. Their record also includes attacks affecting civilians and a struggle for control of Libya’s national institutions. The LNA was a coalition under Haftar’s command, not the uncontested military of a unified Libyan state.

The 2015 Libyan Political Agreement sought to end the war and establish a shared political framework. It assigned legislative functions to the House of Representatives in Tobruk, created a consultative High State Council in Tripoli and provided for a Government of National Accord led by Fayez al-Sarraj. Haftar refused the agreement’s requirement that the military come under civilian control. The Tobruk parliament continued to back his forces, while the GNA held international recognition and governed separately from Tripoli. That division shaped the LNA’s political position and the subsequent contest for national authority.

History

Operation Dignity’s fighting with the Dawn coalition entrenched the east–west split during 2014 and 2015. The eastern government backed by the House of Representatives aligned itself with Haftar’s forces. In the east, the LNA fought armed opponents in and around Benghazi and Derna, including Islamic State members and affiliates. Ground and air attacks formed part of its Derna campaign. Civilian harm accompanied the wider fighting: estimates cited in a 2018 human rights report placed deaths from LNA campaigns since 2014 in the hundreds and injuries in the thousands, including civilians.

International meetings in France in 2017 and 2018 and Italy in 2018 brought Haftar into negotiations with Prime Minister Sarraj. They produced no agreement to implement the Libyan Political Agreement or hold elections. Haftar’s authority also prompted disputes with neighboring Algeria. On December 18, 2016, Algeria barred him from entering in military uniform because it did not recognize him as commander of Libya’s armed forces. In a later confrontation, Haftar accused the Algerian army of entering Libya during the war and threatened to carry the conflict into Algeria. Libyan officials disavowed the threat.

In April 2019, Haftar launched an offensive against Tripoli, seat of the GNA. What he had presented as a short campaign became a months-long siege. LNA forces fought GNA-aligned units around the capital while parallel eastern institutions challenged the Tripoli government’s authority. Confrontations in Tripoli between April and August 2019 killed an estimated 1,100 people. The campaign drew foreign military involvement on both sides. Wagner Group personnel fought alongside LNA-aligned forces, provided command-and-control support, and used sniper fire that caused casualties. The United Arab Emirates backed Haftar and conducted airstrikes against his opponents.

Turkey intervened militarily in support of the GNA in 2020. Turkish-backed forces recaptured western towns and military bases held by the LNA. In June 2020, Haftar’s forces and allied Russian mercenaries abandoned their offensive against Tripoli and other western cities and withdrew to central Libya. Foreign fighters and mercenaries continued to reinforce LNA-aligned units after the retreat. A nationwide ceasefire in October 2020 followed the fighting between the LNA and GNA-aligned forces. Haftar retained control of eastern Libya after the ceasefire and the later formation of the Government of National Unity.

Structure and leadership

Haftar commanded the eastern-based LNA and remained its central political and military figure through the civil war. The force brought together regular military personnel and aligned armed groups under varying degrees of central control. Its relationship with the House of Representatives gave it a parliamentary backer in Tobruk, but did not place it under the internationally recognized Tripoli government. Haftar’s refusal to accept civilian military control under the Libyan Political Agreement was a central obstacle to unifying Libya’s security institutions.

The LNA’s territorial reach varied with the course of the war. In 2020, it exercised differing levels of control over much of Libya’s territory, though its offensive failed to take Tripoli. Benghazi remained its eastern base; Haftar’s forces controlled the city when an American drone was shot down over it on August 22, 2022. The coalition also maintained influence in the south. Its later campaign against Chadian rebel groups took place amid worsening repression in areas under LNA control. Critics described that 2023 campaign as a pretext for targeting members of the marginalized Tebu community.

Funding and sponsors

Foreign support strengthened the LNA and reinforced Libya’s rival power centers. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia backed Haftar and the eastern government. Egypt shipped weapons to his forces despite the international arms embargo. The UAE conducted airstrikes against Haftar’s opponents in the Turkish-backed GNA. Russia supplied arms and experts to Haftar’s forces; he subsequently purchased services from Russia’s Wagner Group. Russian fighter jets also assisted his forces during the 2020 fighting. Turkey’s intervention on the GNA side helped reverse the LNA’s advance. Both principal Libyan camps thus benefited from foreign military support.

The LNA also made public accusations about foreign involvement on the opposing side. At a June 8 press conference, it accused a Qatari intelligence general of financing Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood through a bank transfer, and issued a list of 75 Libyan individuals and nine organizations it tied to Qatar. That accusation was part of the political struggle surrounding the war; it should not be treated as proof that the stated transfer occurred.

Attacks and operations

The LNA’s operations against jihadi groups were a significant part of its military record. Haftar’s forces fought Islamic State members and affiliates in the east, including during ground and air operations in Derna. In October 2018, LNA personnel raided a residential property there and captured Hisham al-Ashmawy, an Egyptian armed-group leader associated with Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and Al-Mourabitoun. Egypt sought his extradition after the capture. In September 2020, an LNA spokesman announced that an operation in Sabha had killed the Islamic State’s leader in North Africa and eight other commanders. These operations occurred alongside campaigns against other armed opponents and the failed attempt to seize Tripoli.

Human rights abuses formed another part of the LNA’s record. An International Criminal Court arrest warrant targeted an LNA field commander filmed executing ten people without trial. Armed groups aligned with both the GNA and LNA committed arbitrary or unlawful killings during the 2020 conflict. Witness testimony documented at least 16 detainee deaths from torture or medical neglect at Benghazi’s LNA-controlled al-Kwaifiya prison between 2017 and 2022. Reports in 2023 recorded killings, arbitrary detention, torture and unlawful recruitment or use of children among abuses involving the LNA and other armed actors. The LNA’s operations against the Islamic State do not diminish responsibility for violence against civilians and detainees.

Designations and international status

The House of Representatives elected in 2014 backed the LNA, while the GNA created under the 2015 political agreement held international recognition. The LNA operated outside GNA authority and sustained eastern institutions that challenged it. Foreign governments dealt with Haftar as an influential participant in Libya’s conflict, including during negotiations with Sarraj, without resolving the dispute over command of the armed forces. Algeria’s refusal to receive Haftar in military uniform in 2016 illustrated that dispute. The LNA’s name did not make it the military of a single, internationally recognized Libyan government.

Current status

After the October 2020 ceasefire, Haftar’s coalition remained entrenched in eastern Libya and influential in the south. The end of its Tripoli offensive did not end the country’s division or the presence of foreign fighters with LNA-aligned units. A United Nations fact-finding mission that concluded in 2023 identified the Benghazi-based LNA and its aligned armed groups among perpetrators of abuses against Libyans and migrants. It also identified institutions and armed groups associated with the Tripoli-based government. Repression worsened in eastern and southern areas under LNA control during 2023.

Reports for 2024 continued to record killings, arbitrary detention and torture involving LNA-aligned groups and other armed actors. The U.S. country report documented numerous accounts of arbitrary or unlawful killings by LNA-aligned groups. United Nations reporting also found that migrants faced severe abuses in official and unofficial detention facilities across Libya, including facilities operated by elements of the LNA. Haftar’s continued eastern control left the coalition central to Libya’s unresolved political and security divide, while its treatment of civilians, detainees and migrants remained a major human rights concern.