Libya: Reports Emerge About Security Cooperation between Haftar, Dbeibeh

The head of the interim unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, in Tripoli (Unity Government)
The head of the interim unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, in Tripoli (Unity Government)
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Libya: Reports Emerge About Security Cooperation between Haftar, Dbeibeh

The head of the interim unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, in Tripoli (Unity Government)
The head of the interim unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, in Tripoli (Unity Government)

The Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and the head of the interim unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, are having "undisclosed" understandings to coordinate security and military cooperation ahead of the postponed presidential and parliamentary elections, according to informed sources.

The sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the understandings resulted from undeclared meetings held outside Libya between representatives of Haftar and Dbeibeh.

They explained that based on these understandings, the Dbeibeh government would accelerate the dismantling and integrating of armed groups and militias within its security and military apparatus under army conditions.

The sources refused to disclose the place and timing of these meetings or who participated in them.

Based on the agreements, the LNA would allow the Interior Ministry to gradually assume security work under the army's control in the eastern and southern regions, as the government prevents any weapon outside the state's legitimacy.

Last week, interim Interior Minister Imad Trabelsi implicitly indicated his intention to extend the work of his affiliated agencies in the eastern and southern regions, but without going into details.

A source close to Haftar told Asharq Al-Awsat, on condition of anonymity, that the National Army was committed to its pledge to secure the elections and employ its capabilities in this context in cooperation with all local and international parties.

The source refused to disclose specific details and noted that lifting the ban on rearming the Libyan army would be necessary.

Other sources told the Italian agency Nova about forming a joint force from the National Army and the parties affiliated with the Dbeibeh government, which would be sent to the south as a first step towards reunifying the Libyan army.

They said that three battalions representing Tripoli, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan would be merged into this joint force to intervene in the southern regions, provided that its commander is responsible to the chiefs of staff of both parties.

The suggestion was discussed during a meeting of the Security Working Group on Libya, in the presence of members of the Libyan Joint Military Committee (5 + 5), the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, Western ambassadors, and African Union representatives.

Dbeibeh considered that some were trying to plunge Libya into chaos.

He pledged that his government would continue to support everything related to serving the Book of God, calling on the youth to adhere to moderate Islam and to distance themselves from extremism.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives is preparing to choose the members of the joint committee (6 + 6), which would, together with the High Council of State, would develop the electoral laws.

Speaker Aguila Saleh’s political aide, Faisal Bualraika, reported that the session scheduled for the following Monday in Benghazi would witness the selection of committee members for the House of Representatives.

He told local media that Saleh would meet with Assistant Secretary Barbara Leaf and the British ambassador to Libya, Caroline Hurndall.

Saleh invited the House of Representatives members to an official session to discuss the general budget for the current year and name members of the joint committee to prepare draft election laws, according to Article 30 of the 13th constitutional amendment.



US Envoy: Syria’s Government and Kurds Still at Odds over Merging Forces after Latest Talks

Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa (R) receives US Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack, at the presidential palace in Damascus on July 9, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALkasem / AFP)
Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa (R) receives US Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack, at the presidential palace in Damascus on July 9, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALkasem / AFP)
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US Envoy: Syria’s Government and Kurds Still at Odds over Merging Forces after Latest Talks

Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa (R) receives US Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack, at the presidential palace in Damascus on July 9, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALkasem / AFP)
Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa (R) receives US Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack, at the presidential palace in Damascus on July 9, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALkasem / AFP)

A US envoy said Wednesday that Syria’s central government and the Kurds remain at odds over plans on merging their forces after the latest round of talks, a persistent obstacle as the new authorities in Damascus struggle to consolidate control after the country's yearslong civil war.

US Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack, who is also a special envoy to Syria, told The Associated Press after meetings in Damascus, the Syrian capital, that there are still significant differences between the sides. Barrack held talks with Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led and US backed Syrian Democratic Forces, and Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

The development comes after a move by the Trump administration took effect this week, revoking a terrorism designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham organization, which was behind a lightning offensive last December that ousted Syria's longtime autocrat Bashar Assad.

Revoking the designation was part of a broader US engagement with al-Sharaa's new, transitional government.

In early March, the HTS signed a landmark deal with the SDF, a Kurdish-led force that had fought alongside US troops against the militant ISIS group and which controls much of northeastern Syria.

Under that deal, the SDF forces would merge with the new Syrian national army. The agreement, which is supposed be implemented by the end of the year, would also bring all border crossings with Iraq and Türkiye, airports and oil fields in the northeast under the central government’s control. They are now controlled by the SDF.

Detention centers housing thousands of ISIS militants, now guarded by the SDF, would also come under government control.

However, the agreement left the details vague, and progress on implementation has been slow. A major sticking point has been whether the SDF would remain as a cohesive unit in the new army — which the Syrian Kurds are pushing for — or whether the force would be dissolved and its members individually absorbed into the new military.

Barrack said that is still “a big issue” between the two sides.

‘Baby steps’

“I don’t think there’s a breakthrough,” Barrack said after Wednesday’s meetings. “I think these things happen in baby steps, because it’s built on trust, commitment and understanding."

He added that "for two parties that have been apart for a while and maybe an adversarial relationship for a while, they have to build that trust step by step.”

Also, Turkish-backed factions affiliated with the new Syrian government have over the years clashed with the SDF, which Türkiye considers a terrorist group because of its association with the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which had waged a decades-long insurgency within Türkiye before recently announcing it would lay down its weapons.

The United States also considers the PKK a terrorist group but is allied with the SDF.

Barrack said that though “we’re not there” yet, Damascus had “done a great job" in presenting options for the SDF to consider.

"I hope they will and I hope they’ll do it quickly,” he said.

From skepticism to trust

A key turning point for Syria came when US President Donald Trump met with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May and announced that Washington would lift decades of sanctions, imposed over Assad's government.

Trump took steps to do so after their meeting and subsequently, the US moved to remove the terrorist designation from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The US played a key role in brokering the deal announced in March between al-Sharaa's government and the SDF and has urged the Syrian Kurdish authorities to integrate with Damascus.

Barrack said Washington has “complete confidence in the Syrian government and the new Syrian government’s military,” while the SDF has been a “valuable partner” in the fight against ISIS and that the US “wants to make sure that they have an opportunity ... to integrate into the new government in a respectful way.”

The US has begun scaling down the number of troops it has stationed in Syria — there are about 1,300 US forces now — but Barrack said Washington is in “no hurry” to pull out completely.

Prospects of Syria-Israel ties

In the interview with the AP, Barrack also downplayed reports of possible breakthroughs in talks on normalizing ties between Syria and Israel.

“My feeling of what’s happening in the neighborhood is that it should happen, and it’ll happen like unwrapping an onion, slowly ... as the region builds trust with each other,” he said without elaborating.

Since Assad’s fall, Israel has seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone in Syria bordering the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and has launched hundreds of airstrikes on military sites in Syria. Israeli soldiers have also raided Syrian towns outside of the border zone and detained people who they said were militants, sometimes clashing with locals.

Israeli officials have said they are taking the measures to guard their border against another cross-border attack like the one launched by the Palestinian Hamas group on Oct. 7, 2023 in southern Israel that triggered the latest war in the Gaza Strip.