![Libya’s UN-recognised GNA forces have confronted Khalifa Haftar’s forces since 2014 [File: Hazem Turkia/Anadolu Agency]](https://www.military.africa/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/drone-attacks-against-Wagner-group-in-libya.jpeg)
Middle Eastern reports suggests that the air raids were launched from aircraft belonging to the UN-recognised government in divided Libya.
Libya’s government denied reports it is responsible for drone attacks that hit an airbase in the east used by mercenaries of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.
The origin of the early Friday attack on the Al-Kharruba airbase, 150km (90 miles) southwest of Benghazi, was unclear but it caused no casualties.
Army Chief of Staff General Mohamad al-Haddad denied the Tripoli-based authorities had anything to do with the raid.
Fighters from the Wagner group, alongside others from Chad, Sudan, Niger and Syria, helped Haftar in the battle for Tripoli.
Libya has been torn by more than a decade of stop-start conflict since a 2011 revolt toppled strongman Muammar Gaddafi, which has also drawn in multiple foreign powers.
The North African country remains split between the interim government based in Tripoli in the west, and another in the east backed by Haftar.
Hundreds of Wagner members have remained active in the east, in the area of the oil terminals, and in the south of Libya after some of their troops left for Mali or Ukraine to fight alongside the Russian army.
This is not the first time Wagner group’s presence in Africa has been targeted. Last year November, an airstrike which targeted a base housing troops of the Central african republic (CAR) and their Russian paramilitary ally Wagner PMC.
The airstrike carried out in the middle of the night targeted a military base in Contenaf Base in Bossangoa region, housing both government and contractors from Russian private military company Wagner Group. The unknown aircraft flew out of CAR after the raid around three in the morning.
Recently, Wagner has been under some political pressure after it’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, declared all-out war on the Russian state on June 23, 2023. Leading a convoy of mercenaries, he marched straight toward Moscow.
The mutiny caught the Russian military and security services completely off guard.
