At a meeting with clan leaders and dignitaries in Misrata two days before the article’s publication, Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba accused Saddam Haftar of directing a terrorist cell and said such a cell was present in Tripoli.
The accusation reaches beyond the attacks themselves. Saddam Haftar is deputy commander-in-chief of eastern Libya, and had been under discussion for a leading role in a US-backed plan to unify the country’s institutions.
The drone attacks began in July and have targeted oil refineries in Zawiya with Chinese-made fibre-optic drones. Zawiya, around 45 kilometres west of Tripoli, is home to Libya’s largest operating oil refinery, which has capacity of around 120,000 barrels per day.
The attacks also struck oil storage tanks in Tripoli and Zawiya, as well as the Zawiya power station. On 11 August, Libya’s National Oil Corporation said an explosives-laden drone had hit a diesel tank at the Zawiya oil complex, in what it called the fifth attack on the site.
Earlier strikes set fire to a tank containing around 4.5 million litres of petrol, which then collapsed. An attack on the South Zawiya substation on 12 August caused a complete outage across large areas south of the city. More than 700 megawatts of the Zawiya power station’s 1,300 MW generation capacity became unavailable after that attack.
Libya’s UN-recognised government said on Sunday that a defence ministry security and intelligence operation had led to the arrest of five people. The identities and nationalities of those arrested have not been given in the information available.
Dabaiba told the Misrata gathering that Spanish contractors were involved in the operation. Six sources who attended the meeting confirmed the content of his speech.
In 2023, Saddam Haftar bought 44 drones and thermal cameras from three Spanish companies, Shadow Lynx, Aeronáutica Dts and Duma Engineering, for just over 14 million euros. The agreement was brokered by Yusef al Ubeidi, a young man with dual Spanish and Libyan nationality who uses the name Saad Fonte in Spain. Al Ubeidi was detained and questioned by the Spanish Civil Guard in November 2023.
Tripoli authorities identify Omar al Majarhi, commander of the Tariq bin Zayed Brigade, as the person materially responsible for the attacks on Zawiya. Mohamad al Manfi, president of the Libyan Presidential Council, wrote to the International Criminal Court on Saturday seeking an investigative team in Tripoli to examine the terrorist cell.
Dabaiba said negotiations with eastern Libya were under way to “hush the entire matter up”. He described Saddam Haftar’s aim as eliminating resistance in the west to the American project for Libya’s unification.
That project, according to its architect Massad Boulos, Donald Trump’s special envoy for Africa, would make Saddam Haftar president of a unified Libya. Washington had spent months trying to arrange a deal that would make Haftar’s son and putative heir interim President.
The allegations come after an agreement signed on 30 August resolved disagreements that had disrupted Libya’s electoral process for almost five years. The accusation against Haftar has placed renewed strain on cooperation between the western and eastern authorities, while negotiations over the attacks continue.
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