Despite high cost, Libyan war is Turkey’s last hope for spreading political Islam

Ahram Online,by Bassem Aly (Excerpt from Despite high cost, Libyan war is Turkey's last hope for spreading political Islam)

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a symposium in Ankara, Turkey, January 2, 2020. REUTERS

After its operations in Syria, Turkey is preparing for a second foreign intervention in the Middle East.

This time it will be in Libya, a move which many regional and international governments oppose.

This is, for Turkey's Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one of few remaining hopes to back other Islamist groups in the Middle East, regardless of the high cost of war, analysts argue.

Mohamed Abdelkader, Turkey expert at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, pointed out that the Turks are thinking about "saving their Middle Eastern project to support Islamist movements."

"If Turkey loses Libya, it will lose North Africa as a whole. This is the case in light of the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Omar Al-Bashir in Sudan and the military gains made by the Libyan National Army in Libya in its Tripoli campaign," he explained.

Libya has been divided between two forces since the 2011 uprising that led to the collapse of Muammar Al-Gaddafi's regime. The first is General Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army, which controls Benghazi and Libya's eastern regions, while the second is the Tripoli-based, UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).

Haftar, who is increasingly receiving more international support, including that of Egypt, the UAE and Russia, launched a "decisive battle" to take Tripoli on 12 December. The main objective of Haftar’s operations in Tripoli is to capture the capital from the GNA. An earlier phase of the operations began last April.

The GNA, which is mainly backed by Turkey and Qatar, said "we are ready to push back" against Haftar's campaign, activating an agreement with Turkey on 20 December that entails sending Turkish troops to Libya whenever requested by the GNA.

The defence agreement was signed in November by both sides. They also then signed a memorandum of understanding on maritime demarcation, which ignores the territorial waters of some Greek islands such as Crete and Rhodes.

This escalatory move came following a meeting between the GNA's Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj with Turkish foreign and defence officials in the Qatari capital Doha.

Erdogan, on 22 December, warned that Turkey "will evaluate all kinds of military support including ground, marine and air options if necessary."

The Turkish parliament voted 325-184 on Thursday in favour of a year-long mandate that facilitates the deployment of troops in the North African country to back the Tripoli-based government of Al-Sarraj.