Libya denies presence of French troops to fight Daesh

Libya’s internationally recognized government has denied media reports that French special forces are engaged in covert military operations against Takfiri Daesh terrorists in the North African state.

Government spokesman Hatem el-Ouraybi said on Thursday the recognized government “didn’t allow and won’t allow any foreign forces to enter Libyan territories.”

“Our brave soldiers in the Arab Libyan Armed Forces are the ones who freed Benghazi from the hand of terror without any support from the international community,” he said.

He was reacting to a report by France’s Le Monde newspaper on Wednesday that French special forces and members of the DGSE external security service were in Libya for “clandestine operations” in cooperation with the US and Britain.

The newspaper also said the French intelligence had “initiated” a previous airstrike last November that killed the top leader of the Daesh Takfiri militant group, Abu Nabil, in Libya.

Wanis Bukhamada, special forces commander in the recognized government army, also denied the Le Monde report and said “only Libyans are the ones who fought terrorism in Benghazi.”

However, the prime minister of the government in Tripoli, Khalifa Ghweil, unrecognized by the international community, confirmed that French special forces “were leading the fight in Benghazi.”

Following the release of the Le Monde report, French officials said they had launched a probe into a possible leak of classified documents.

“The investigation should establish if details covered by defense secrecy rules were revealed in this article,” a source close to French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

‘Discreet or even secret actions’

The French ministry had previously confirmed that French aircraft have conducted reconnaissance flights over Libya.

It has also confirmed that Paris has set up an advance military base in Niger on the border with Libya, but rejected any further role.

According to Le Monde, France’s strategy in Libya consists of “regular, targeted strikes, prepared by discreet or even secret actions.”

“The last thing to do would be to intervene in Libya. We must avoid any overt military engagement, but act discreetly,” the daily quoted a senior French defense official as saying.

Default strategy

Michel Goya, a military strategy consultant and former colonel in the French Marines, told France 24 that “Without legal authorization for direct and open operations in Libya, it is impossible, for political and budgetary reasons, to deploy ground troops to control and occupy territory.”

He said “the choice of a strategy of containment which consists of constraining and eliminating” Daesh leaders “through targeted operations, sometimes secretly, sometimes clandestinely, is, by default, the strategy best adapted to the complexities of Libya’s chaotic theater.”

Libya has been grappling with violence and political uncertainty since former dictator Muammar Gaddafi was deposed and later killed in 2011 amid NATO airstrikes.

Daesh took advantage of the chaos and captured Libya’s northern port city of Sirte in June 2015, almost four months after it announced its presence in the city, and made it the first city to be ruled by the militant group outside of Iraq and Syria.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk