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See also: | Other events of 2019 List of years in Libya |
Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Omar Haftar is a Libyan politician, military officer, and the commander of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LNA). On 2 March 2015, he was appointed commander of the Armed forces loyal to the elected legislative body, the Libyan House of Representatives.
The Libyan Armed Forces or the Libyan Arab Armed Forces are, in principle, the state organisation responsible for the military defence of Libya, including ground, air and naval forces.
The Libyan Army is the brand for a number of separate military forces in Libya, which were under the command of the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Government of National Unity (GNU).
The Libyan National Army or the Libyan Arab Army is a component of Libya's military forces which were nominally a unified national force under the command of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar when he was nominated to the role on 2 March 2015 by the House of Representatives, consisting at the time of a ground force, an air force and a navy.
The Libyan civil war (2014–2020), also known as the Second Libyan Civil War, was a multilateral civil war which was fought in Libya among a number of armed groups, but mainly the House of Representatives (HoR) and the Government of National Accord (GNA), for six years from 2014 to 2020.
The following lists events that happened in 2014 in Libya.
This is a detailed timeline of the Libyan civil war (2014–2020) which lasted from 2014 to 2020.
In late January 2019, the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive to take control of the city of Sabha and the rest of southern Libya from the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and local factions. Officially, the LNA announced that the reason for the operation was to remove terrorists, Chadian rebel groups, and to secure the border, but it has expanded Haftar's territorial control and acquired him oil fields near Sabha. It has also restarted some interethnic conflicts as the LNA has allied with local Arab tribes, while the Tuareg and Toubou tribal militias are loyal to the GNA.
The Western Libya campaign was a military campaign initiated on 4 April 2019 by the Operation Flood of Dignity of the Libyan National Army, which represents the Libyan House of Representatives, to capture the western region of Libya and eventually the capital Tripoli held by the United Nations Security Council-recognised Government of National Accord. The Government of National Accord regained control over all of Tripoli in June 2020 and the LNA forces withdrew from the capital, after fourteen months of fighting.
On 2 July 2019 at 23:30, during the 2019–20 Western Libya campaign, an airstrike hit the Tajoura Detention Center outside Tripoli, Libya, while hundreds of people were inside the facility. The detention center was being used as a holding facility for migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe when a storage hangar that it used as a residential facility was destroyed in an aerial bombing. The United Nations Human Rights Council stated that "It was known that there were 600 people living inside" the facility.
In January 2020, Turkey militarily intervened in support of the United Nations-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) of Libya in the 2014–2020 Libyan civil war. Military intervention was approved by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 2 January 2020, which passed a one-year mandate to deploy troops to Libya. Turkish military deployments to Libya began on 5 January.
This is the order of battle for the Western Libya campaign, codenamed "Operation Flood of Dignity" by forces under Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. The forces supporting Haftar and the House of Representatives, mainly the Libyan National Army, are opposed by the armed forces of the forces loyal to the Government of National Accord, including the Libyan Army and the Tripoli Protection Force.
Events in Libya in 2020
The Central Libya offensive, officially known as Operation Paths to Victory, was a military offensive in Libya launched by the forces of the Government of National Accord, to take the city of Sirte and Al Jufra Airbase from the House of Representatives backed by the Libyan National Army. The city of Sirte is considered strategically important because of its close position to oil facilities, which give it control over Libya's oil and gas shipping ports. The Al Jufra Airbase is strategically important for the GNA, due to its central position to Fezzan and denying the Libyan National Army air superiority over Central Libya.
The Egyptian intervention in Libya has been substantial since the beginning of the Libyan civil war. The intervention started after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) released a video of the beheading of 21 Egyptians on 12 February, 2015. In response, Egypt launched airstrikes on 16 February, that same year. After that incident, Egypt became increasingly involved with Libya's internal politics.
On January 4, 2020, the United Arab Emirates aiding the Libyan National Army launched an airstrike on a military school used by the UN-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli, Libya. Twenty-six people were killed and thirty-three were wounded.
Operation Volcano of Anger, alternatively known as Operation Volcano of Rage, was a military resistance campaign launched by the Government of National Accord in Libya to counter the advances of the Libyan National Army led by General Khalifa Haftar. The conflict, which began in April 2019, had witnessed intense fighting around the capital city, Tripoli, and other strategic locations in the country.
The Battle of Gharyan, which unfolded from April 2019 to June 2019, was a significant conflict in the ongoing struggle for control in Libya. The opposing forces were the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by General Khalifa Haftar, and the Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.
The Battle of Al-Watiya Airbase in 2020 marked a crucial turning point in the Second Libyan Civil War, as Government of National Accord (GNA) forces sought to reclaim control from the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by General Khalifa Haftar.