Last week, President Tayyep Erdogan moved to seek parliamentary approval for sending troops to Libya, in order to defend the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli, currently fighting off an attempted ‘regime change’ by US, France and Gulf-backed paramilitary armed brigades led by long-time Washington asset, exiled former Libyan General Khalifa Haftar, whose has also received military support Egypt, United Arab Emirates and even Russia.
Now that Turkey is failing in its attempt to absorb Syrian regions under Ankara’s ‘New Turkey‘ AKP Party umbrella of influence such as Idlib province and Syrian towns along its border with northeastern Syria – Erdogan faces the dilemma of what to do with the tens of thousands of radical jihadist terrorist fighters who have been deputized as new members of the Turkish armed forces. The short-term answer to this appears to be ferrying them across the Mediterranean to the new civil war in Libya. This appears to be the next destination for jihadist tourism, now fully state-sponsored by the Turkish government who are reportedly paying former US-backed ‘Free Syrian Army’ aligned with the militant arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as former ISIS terrorists, and has redeployed them under a new brand, cynically re-named the “Syrian National Army,” now offered roughly $2,000 per month as front-line soldiers on assignment to help “stabilize” Libya.
RELATED: Turkish Intervention in Libya – Has Ankara Split its Militants’ Ranks in Northern Syria?
This month has seen Haftar’s fighters failing to reach the center of Libya’s capital Tripoli, although marginal gains have been made in recent weeks in the city’s southern suburbs with the help of Sudanese fighters and Russian special forces, as well as drones provided by the UAE, according to Reuters.
No doubt Turkey hopes to harvest some of the economic spoils, but more importantly to acquire some geopolitical capital in the process. What are Turkey’s other motivations?
While Erdogan claims it’s to Libya to help “stabilize”, one can’t help but note that it was Turkey’s active role in facilitating the transfer of al-Qaeda affiliate fighters from Libya in late 2011 which helped to turn Syria into an extremist inferno.
Mideast Discourse reports…
The ‘Rat Line’ is now doing a ‘U-Turn’ and taking terrorists, who are working as mercenaries for Turkey, from Syria through the Port of Ceyhanli and arriving in Misrata, Libya. Hilary Clinton, then-Secretary of State under Obama, ordered ‘The Rat Line’, which was a transit line of Al Qaeda terrorists, weapons and machinery from Libya to Turkey. Those terrorists were fresh from the killing fields of Libya, having murdered, raped and looted Libya in their mission to remove Qaddafi, who was the leader of one of the 7 countries to be ‘taken down’, according to General Wesley Clark. This agreement between Erdogan and Clinton resulted in the murder of the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, in a seemingly ‘drug-deal-gone-bad’. The terrorists and their weapons of war were off-loaded at the Port of Ceyhanli, and then transferred by trucks, which had official Turkish Ministry of Transportation bills of lading, then across the border to Idlib, which was the northern headquarters of Al Qaeda in Syria, and remains today the last Al Qaeda controlled area in Syria.
SEE ALSO: Istanbul’s ‘Syrian Gov’t in Exile’, Now Demanding Military Action in Idlib
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has begun shipping out mercenaries in his employ from Ceyhanli to Misrata. They are recruited at a salary of about $ 2,000 per month, with a promise of a raise. Some are Syrian nationals, but many are from various western European, North American, Arab Gulf, and Asian nations. They leave Syria through Idlib, which is still under Al Qaeda control and receives military support from Turkey and Qatar, and humanitarian support from the US and EU charities, as well as the UN. Some are further trained in Turkey, while others are trained in Libya, under a joint Turkish-Libyan military command structure.
Libya is divided, as the Libyan Parliament, and the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by veteran commander Khalifa Haftar are on one side, and the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Fayez al-Sarraj, is on the other. The Muslim Brotherhood ideology divides them, while fellow Brotherhood followers Turkey and Qatar are propping up Sarraj in Tripoli.
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