Libyan military leader may have combat drones despite UN embargo

Reuters news agency says satellite images show ⁠at least three drones at Al Khadim airbase between April and December 2025.

Chinese and Turkish combat drones may have been acquired by eastern Libya’s military leader, Khalifa Haftar – despite a United Nations weapons embargo, says the Reuters news agency.

Reuters said commercial satellite images between April and December last year show ⁠at least three drones at Al Khadim desert airbase, about 100 ⁠kilometres (62 miles) east of the city of Benghazi.

What appeared to be ground control equipment for the aircraft was still visible this year, according to three weapons experts who reviewed the images.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) played a significant role during the civil war in Libya between 2014-2020. Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) tried to overthrow the UN-recognised government in Tripoli accusing it of harbouring armed gangs and “terrorists”. The government denied that.

UN investigators said the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Russia and other countries provided vital backing to Haftar. Turkiye supported ⁠the Tripoli-based administration. China avoided taking sides.

Libya’s warring factions agreed a ceasefire in 2020, but the country remains divided between Haftar’s administration in the east and the Tripoli-based government in the west led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

The arrival of new combat drones at Al Khadim “would be a huge symbolic win” for Haftar, said Anas El Gomati, head of the Libyan think tank the Sadeq Institute. He told Reuters that the drones reinforced Haftar’s hold over the east and much of the south, including major oilfields, and strengthened his hand in negotiations to form a unified Libyan government.

But Gomati added that Haftar’s LNA is not known to have the technical expertise to pilot ⁠those kinds of drones.

“The question remains: who’s operating them?”

The experts who reviewed the satellite images said one was most likely a Chinese-made Feilong-1 (FL-1), an advanced surveillance and attack drone. The others appear to be less powerful, Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones. All three experts agreed they could not rule out other types.

Reuters said it could not determine who supplied the drones or when, or whether China, Turkiye or any other UN member states applied for exemptions to the embargo to send drones to eastern Libya.

New drones spotted

Satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters shows a type of drone not previously seen in Libya parked outside a hangar at the Al Khadim base between late April and July last year.

The same type of drone also appeared on Al Khadim’s runway in a May 3 image from US satellite imaging company Vantor.

Wim Zwijnenburg, a military technology expert at the Dutch peace organisation PAX says the photo suggests the drone was being flown. He added that the dimensions and body shape are similar to a Wing Loong II, but the wing design makes it more likely to ⁠be a Feilong-1.

Agreeing with his assessment were Jeremy Binnie, a Middle East specialist at defence intelligence company Janes and Joseph Dempsey, a military analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank in London.

Few photographs have been released of the drone type. Reuters could not find any previous satellite imagery, making it difficult to identify with certainty.

A new shelter was completed in November over the spot where the drone had been parked. Binnie said that might explain why it wasn’t visible in subsequent imagery. A truck carrying satellite equipment, which he said was likely used to ⁠pilot the aircraft, was standing near the apron as recently as January 12.

Smaller drones

Two smaller drones appeared on the same apron at Al Khadim in a Vantor image on December 17. Their length, wingspan and twin-boom tail design are consistent with Turkish TB2 drones, said Dempsey, who alerted Reuters to the image.

Those drones gained ‌renown when Ukraine deployed them against invading Russian forces and have been exported widely, including to the UAE.

Manufacturers in countries including China, the UAE and Belarus have also produced similar-looking models. All three experts said two ground control units with distinctive double-antenna, spotted by satellite imagery between July and March, strongly suggest that TB2s were operating in the area.

Satellite images from California-based Planet Labs show Al Khadim has undergone extensive renovations since early last year. They include at least three new hangars where the drones were spotted.

Russian forces, which use Libya ‌as ‌a springboard for their own operations in West and Central Africa, have been based at Al Khadim. But the experts speaking to Reuters did not think Russians were operating the drones in the imagery. Russia’s defence and foreign ministries did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Neither did the LNA, the Tripoli-based government, the governments of China and Turkiye nor the drones’ manufacturers, Xi’an-based defence company Zhongtian Feilong and Baykar based in Istanbul.

The UN Security Council committee handling requests did not answer questions about the drones. The UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) referred Reuters to a Security Council resolution last year expressing “grave concern” over continued violations of the arms embargo. It requires UN approval for weapons shipments to Libya.

The UN embargo has been imposed since 2011 when a NATO-backed uprising toppled Libya’s longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. But a UN panel of experts monitoring the embargo said high-tech weaponry flowed ‌into the country during the war that followed, turning Libya into Africa’s first major theatre for drone combat.