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Libya's Eastern Forces Say Plan Agreed to Withdraw Mercenaries

Mercenaries brought by the foreign powers involved in Libya, including Russia and Turkey, remain entrenched on both sides despite the ceasefire. (Reuters)
Mercenaries brought by the foreign powers involved in Libya, including Russia and Turkey, remain entrenched on both sides despite the ceasefire. (Reuters)
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Libya's Eastern Forces Say Plan Agreed to Withdraw Mercenaries

Mercenaries brought by the foreign powers involved in Libya, including Russia and Turkey, remain entrenched on both sides despite the ceasefire. (Reuters)
Mercenaries brought by the foreign powers involved in Libya, including Russia and Turkey, remain entrenched on both sides despite the ceasefire. (Reuters)

The eastern side in Libya's conflict said on Friday it had agreed with its opponents on a plan for a phased withdrawal of foreign forces and mercenaries, but gave no details or timeline for a move seen as crucial to cementing a year-old ceasefire.

Mercenaries brought by the foreign powers involved in Libya, including Russia and Turkey, remain entrenched on both sides despite the ceasefire and a parallel political process aimed at resolving the decade-long crisis through elections.

Both those UN-backed efforts are seen as highly fragile, however, with a constant risk that the process could unravel.

An eastern military official said the joint committee meeting in Geneva had agreed on a "an action plan for the withdrawal of mercenaries and foreign forces in a gradual, balanced and simultaneous way."

The official added that international monitors and a monitoring mechanism were needed before any withdrawal could begin. Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush said on Sunday that a very modest number of mercenaries had already left.

Forces from western Libya involved in the talks were not immediately available to comment.

The committee was formed through a UN-backed ceasefire agreed last year that followed the collapse of eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar's 14-month offensive against Tripoli.

In 2014, Libya split between western and eastern factions with rival administrations, but the latest UN-backed peace push led to the installation of a unity government in March.

Turkey supported the previous Tripoli-based government, which was recognized by the United Nations.

Foreign mercenaries from Russia's Wagner Group as well as from Syria, Chad and Sudan have been deployed on front lines. This week, UN human rights investigators linked mercenaries to possible war crimes.

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Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah Was Killed Last Year inside the War Operations Room, Aide Says

People look through the rubble of buildings which were leveled on September 27 by Israeli strikes that targeted and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Beirut's southern suburbs, on September 29, 2024. (AFP)
People look through the rubble of buildings which were leveled on September 27 by Israeli strikes that targeted and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Beirut's southern suburbs, on September 29, 2024. (AFP)
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Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah Was Killed Last Year inside the War Operations Room, Aide Says

People look through the rubble of buildings which were leveled on September 27 by Israeli strikes that targeted and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Beirut's southern suburbs, on September 29, 2024. (AFP)
People look through the rubble of buildings which were leveled on September 27 by Israeli strikes that targeted and killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Beirut's southern suburbs, on September 29, 2024. (AFP)

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike last year while inside the group's war operations room, according to new details Sunday disclosed by a senior Hezbollah official.

A series of Israeli airstrikes flattened several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sept. 27, 2023, killing Nasrallah. The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people died. According to news reports, Nasrallah and other senior officials were meeting underground.

The assassination of Nasrallah, who had led Hezbollah for 32 years, turned months of low-level strikes between Israel and the fighters into all-out war that battered much of southern and eastern Lebanon for two months until a US-brokered ceasefire took effect Nov. 27.

Nasrallah “used to lead the battle and war from this location,” top Hezbollah security official Wafiq Safa told a news conference Sunday near the site where Nasrallah was killed. He said Nasrallah died in the war operations room. He did not offer other details.

Lebanese media had reported that Safa was a target of Israeli airstrikes in central Beirut before the ceasefire but appeared unscathed.

During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to move its fighters, weapons and infrastructure away from southern Lebanon north of the Litani River, while Israeli troops that invaded southern Lebanon need to withdraw all within 60 days. Lebanese army soldiers are to deploy in large numbers and alongside United Nations peacekeepers be the sole armed presence in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon and Hezbollah have been critical of ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights across the country and for only withdrawing from two of dozens of Lebanese villages it controls. Israel says that the Lebanese military has not done its share in dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure.

Hezbollah’s current leader Naim Qassem in a televised address Saturday warned that its fighters could strike Israel if its troops don’t leave the south by the end of the month.

Safa said that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who negotiated the ceasefire deal with Washington, told Hezbollah that the government will meet with US envoy Amos Hochstein soon. “And in light of what happens, then there will be a position,” said Safa.

Hochstein had led the shuttle diplomacy efforts to reach the fragile truce.