Sánchez asks Haftar for help in freeing a Spanish citizen

During an official meeting held last Monday in Benghazi, representatives of the Spanish government asked the Libyan Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Saddam Haftar, to act as an intermediary to secure the release of a Spanish citizen, Juan Mirales Gomez, who was kidnapped ten days ago in Burkina Faso. Although the Libyan and Spanish media have portrayed the summit as an opportunity to re-establish diplomatic and economic dialogue between Madrid and Benghazi – which had been frozen for three years – sources at Il Foglio report that the real purpose of the meeting between Haftar and Ambassador Javier Soria Quintana was the release of Gomez. News of the Spanish trader’s abduction, which took place in the border area between Burkina Faso and Mali, dates back to 4 September. No armed group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but the area falls within the operational range of JNIM, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda.

For Haftar, the release of the Spanish citizen could provide an opportunity to re-establish political relations with Madrid, which have been dire for years, partly due to the Civil Guard’s repeated seizures of arms and drugs destined for Benghazi. Not to mention the arrest warrant issued by Spanish judges in 2023 specifically against Saddam Haftar as part of an investigation into arms trafficking. The subsequent closure of the Libyan oil field of El Sharara – controlled by the Spanish company Repsol – as a retaliatory measure ordered by Haftar in 2024 highlighted just how vulnerable Pedro Sánchez’s government is to blackmail.

Haftar has close ties with terrorist groups in the region – from al-Qaeda to Islamic State, including Tuareg separatists – who are his indispensable partners in the trafficking of people and raw materials that he conducts between Libya and the Sahel. Recently, the Benghazi general has been relying heavily on these dangerous connections to establish himself in the West as an indispensable leader for securing the release of prisoners who have fallen into the hands of Islamic terrorists. In mid-August, Haftar secured the release of the American missionary Kevin Rideout, who had been kidnapped in Niger by the Islamic State. A few days later, he secured the release of two Russian mercenaries from the Africa Corps who had been captured in Mali by JNIM and the Tuaregs. In all these cases, Haftar did not strictly act as a mediator; that far more delicate role was left to local drug traffickers. Rather, the Libyan general acted as a courier tasked with delivering the money needed to pay the ransom to the kidnappers and then bringing the hostages back to Libya once they had been freed. The money was provided by the United Arab Emirates, which is committed to backing the Libyan general as the region’s leader.

The issue of paying ransoms to Islamic terrorists is controversial. In October last year, the gravity of the situation became fully apparent when Abu Dhabi paid around 50 million dollars to secure the release of a member of the royal family, Sheikh Ahmed bin Maktoum bin Juma al Maktoum, who had been kidnapped by al-Qaeda in Bamako. Among those who oppose this practice is Algeria, which shares hundreds of kilometres of borders with countries such as Mali and Niger, which are plagued by Islamic terrorists. According to many analysts, last week’s decision by the government in Algiers to sever all diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates is at least partly motivated by the flow of money from Abu Dhabi to terrorist groups in the Sahel to secure the release of hostages. Although he has not publicly clarified the reasons behind the diplomatic crisis with the Gulf state, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune views the United Arab Emirates as a threat to national security, but also as an obstacle to the diplomatic efforts that Algiers has undertaken in recent years to preserve stability in the Sahel. According to Geoff Porter, president of North Africa Risk Consulting Inc., the UAE’s involvement in Libya, Morocco and the rest of the region is a threat shared by many: “Algeria boasts a strong international presence. The breakdown in relations with the United Arab Emirates has not significantly affected this aspect,” Porter explains to Il Foglio. “Indeed, according to reports, some leaders have privately expressed their appreciation to Algeria for having issued a much-needed rebuke to the Emirates’ interventionist foreign policy.”