Published on 2 April 2026
Reuters news agency says Chinese and Turkish combat drones may have been acquired by eastern Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar despite a UN arms embargo.
Reuters said commercial satellite images taken between April and December last year showed at least three drones at Al Khadim desert airbase, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of the city of Benghazi.
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What appeared to be ground control equipment for the aircraft was also visible this year, according to three weapons experts who reviewed the images.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) played a key role during the civil war in Libya between 2014–2020. Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) tried to overthrow the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, accusing it of harboring armed gangs and “terrorists”. The government denied this.
UN investigators said the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Russia and other countries provided significant support to Haftar. Turkiye supported the Tripoli-based administration. China avoided taking sides.
Libya’s warring factions agreed to a ceasefire in 2020, but the country remains divided between Haftar’s administration in the east and the Tripoli-based government led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah in the west.
Anas El Gomati, head of the Libyan think tank Sadiq Institute, said the arrival of new combat drones in Al Khadim “will be a huge symbolic victory” for Haftar. He told Reuters the drones had tightened Haftar’s grip on much of the east and south, including key oil fields, and strengthened his hand in negotiations to form a unified Libyan government.
But Gomati said Haftar’s LNA does not have the technical expertise to operate that type of drone.
“The question remains: Who is operating them?”
Experts who reviewed satellite images said it was likely the Chinese-made Feilong-1 (FL-1), an advanced surveillance and attack drone. The other appears to be less powerful, the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone. All three experts agreed that they could not rule out other variants.
Reuters said it could not determine who supplied the drones and when, or whether China, Turkey or any other UN member states had applied for an exemption to sanctions to send drones to eastern Libya.
new drones spotted
Satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters shows a type of drone not previously seen in Libya parked outside a hangar at the Al Khadim base between late April and July last year.
A May 3 image from US satellite imaging company Vantor showed the same type of drone on the runway at Al Khadim.
Wim Zwijnenberg, a military technology expert at the Dutch peace organization PAX, says the photo shows the drone was being flown. He said the dimensions and body shape are similar to the Feilong II, but it is more likely to be a Feilong-1 due to the wing design.
Agreeing with his assessment were Middle East expert Jeremy Binney of the defense intelligence company Jane’s and military analyst Joseph Dempsey of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank in London.
Some drone-like pictures have been released. Reuters could not find any previous satellite imagery, making it difficult to identify with certainty.
In November, a new shelter was completed at the location where the drone was parked. Binney said this could explain why it was not visible in later imagery. A truck carrying satellite equipment, which they said was likely used to propel aircraft, was parked near the apron as recently as January 12.
small drones
The Vantour image on 17 December showed two small drones on the same apron at Al Khadim. Their length, wingspan and twin-boom tail design are consistent with Turkish TB2 drones, said Dempsey, who alerted Reuters to the image.
Those drones gained prominence when Ukraine deployed them against invading Russian forces and were widely exported, including to the United Arab Emirates.
Manufacturers in countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Belarus have also produced similar-looking models. All three experts said that two ground control units with distinctive double-antennas spotted by satellite imagery between July and March strongly suggest that TB2s were operating in the area.
Satellite images from California-based Planet Labs show that Al Khadim has undergone extensive renovation since early last year. These include at least three new hangars where the drones were seen.
Russian forces, which use Libya as a springboard for their operations in West and Central Africa, are based at Al Khadim. But experts who spoke to Reuters did not think the Russians were operating the drones in the imagery. Russia’s defense and foreign ministries did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Neither did the LNA, the Tripoli-based government, the governments of China and Turkey, nor the drone’s manufacturers, Xi’an-based defense company Zhongtian Feilong and Istanbul-based Baykar.
The UN Security Council committee that handles requests did not respond to questions about drones. The UN Department of Political and Peacekeeping Affairs (DPPA) told Reuters it expressed “grave concern” over continued violations of the arms embargo, citing a Security Council resolution last year. UN approval is required for arms shipments to Libya.
The UN sanctions have been in place since 2011 when a NATO-backed rebellion ousted Libya’s longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. But a panel of UN experts monitoring the embargo said high-tech weapons flowed into the country during the war, making Libya Africa’s first major theater for drone warfare.
