Dabaiba confirms: Haftar and Spanish contractors behind the terrorist cell

Two days ago in Misrata, Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dabaiba held a meeting with the city’s clan leaders and dignitaries. On this occasion he acknowledged the presence of a terrorist cell in Tripoli, explicitly accused Saddam Haftar of being behind it, mentioned the involvement of Spanish contractors, and confirmed that negotiations were underway with eastern Libya to hush the entire matter up. Six different sources who attended the meeting have confirmed the content of Dabaiba’s speech, which had remained secret until now. The Libyan Prime Minister’s words corroborate the information already published by Il Foglio last Tuesday regarding the origins of the terrorist attacks that, since last August, have targeted Zawiya – the country’s main oil hub – and Tripoli. 

Dabaiba reported that the direct instigator of the terrorist attacks against the oil infrastructure in Zawiya, those against military positions in Tripoli and – above all – against certain leaders in the west is Saddam Haftar. According to Il Foglio, two names in particular feature amongst the targets: Tripoli’s Deputy Minister of Defence, Abdulsalam Zoubi, and member of the Presidential Council, Abdullah al Lafi. Saddam’s aim was to eliminate the last pockets of resistance in the west to the American project for the unification of Libya – a project which, according to the plans of its architect, Massad Boulos, Donald Trump’s special envoy for Africa, would assign the presidency of a unified Libya to Saddam himself. However, Tripoli’s ability to dismantle the cell scuppered the plan, which has backfired on Haftar, whose image as a leader of Libyan unity could now be compromised.

This issue then raises another matter: the involvement of Western contractors in the planning and execution of a series of terrorist attacks. Although the international community has for years been calling for foreign military forces – in particular Russian and Turkish ones – to leave Libya, Dabaiba has confirmed what Il Foglio revealed a few days ago: a team of mercenaries and technical experts in weapons systems, hired by Haftar to carry out terrorist attacks in western Libya, set off from a major European country such as Spain. Furthermore, Libyan media report that the cell also availed itself of the cover provided by a senior executive of a global oil giant, the Spanish company Repsol.

To understand how the Spanish contractors became involved, we need to go back three years. In 2023, whilst he was still commander-in-chief of the Eastern Libyan Armed Forces, Saddam Haftar purchased 44 drones and thermal cameras from three Spanish companies – Shadow Lynx, Aeronáutica Dts and Duma Engineering – for just over 14 million euros. Some of the drones departed from Madrid in July 2023, bound for Valencia. There, they were loaded onto a flight to Barcelona and then set off for Benghazi, in Libya. Before reaching their destination, they stopped over in Malta to evade tracking. Only a small number, however, failed to reach their final destination thanks to the intervention of the Spanish Civil Guard. All this information—including the details that follow regarding this transaction—is known precisely because of the investigations carried out at the time by the Spanish gendarmerie, the details of which were reported in a number of press articles. The agreement was brokered by Yusef al Ubeidi – a young man with dual Spanish and Libyan nationality who goes by the name of Saad Fonte in Spain – with Ahmed Gadalla, a businessman from Benghazi considered to be very close to Haftar and accused of trafficking arms and diesel in the latest report by the United Nations Panel of Experts on Libya. In November of that year, as part of the investigation, al Ubeidi was detained and questioned by the Civil Guard, who found on his mobile phone the signed contract between Shadow Lynx and al Mored Oasis General Trading, the company which is still owned by Gadalla and based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. A few months later, in February 2024, Haftar decided to shut down the al Sharara oil field – Libya’s largest and the one in which Spain has the greatest stake, as Repsol controls a significant share of it. Saddam’s move was an act of retaliation against Madrid, which he accused of having intercepted his arms trafficking operations. The shutdown lasts only a few days, but in August another one is ordered, which will last until October. The trigger is Saddam’s own arrest on 2 August of that year at Capodichino Airport in Naples. It remains unclear whether the Italian police acted in response to an arrest warrant issued by Spain or simply to question him in connection with the Spanish investigations into arms trafficking. What is certain is that as soon as Haftar was released and returned to Benghazi, he was furious with the Madrid government and ordered a new and prolonged shutdown of the al Sharara oil field. For Repsol, the losses were enormous: in 2024, the Spanish company revised its guidance for operating cash flow down to 6 billion euros, compared with the initial forecast of between 6.5 and 7 billion euros. This reduction was largely caused by the collapse in oil refining capacity in Libya, which fell by 70 per cent in the last four months of 2024.

Faced with blackmail, Pedro Sánchez’s Spanish government makes some conciliatory gestures towards Haftar. A series of strange coincidences then unfolds. To begin with, once released by the Civil Guard, Al-Ubeidi resumes his role as an intermediary between Haftar and Spain. Meanwhile, the Civil Guard’s investigation into the sale of the drones fizzles out until it comes to nothing, as the charges of arms trafficking are dropped: the drones are reclassified from military equipment to civilian-use equipment, thanks to the ‘dual-use’ clause, thereby circumventing the UN arms embargo. Finally, the newspaper article in L’Independiente, which reported many details of the Guardia Civil’s investigation and was the only one to mention the company Al Mored linked to Haftar’s entourage, inexplicably disappears from the internet. Meanwhile, operations at Sharara resumed (despite some occasional interruptions that continue to this day, though for reasons unrelated to relations between Haftar and Sánchez).

The affair seemed to be a thing of the past until, a few days ago, men loyal to Tripoli’s Deputy Defence Minister, Abdulsalam Zoubi, foiled an attack on Ain al Zara, south of the capital, against their own military positions. Sources at Il Foglio report that the offensive was repelled only thanks to the help of some Ukrainian mercenaries, who were secretly supporting the Tripoli forces. The origin of the attacks, however, remains a mystery. An investigation was launched, and Zoubi arrested five men believed to be part of the terrorist cell – two Spaniards and three Libyans, some of whom belonged to the Tariq bin Ziyad Brigade, which is close to Haftar. It was then that Saddam was first identified as the direct instigator of the operation, acting through General Younes Sharaf al Din. During the meeting in Misrata, Dabaiba reportedly confirmed that, during a search of a flat in Tripoli, a laptop had been found containing documents proving not only Saddam’s involvement in the attacks on Zawiya and Tripoli, but also that of the Spanish contractors. This led to the discovery of the involvement of another man, also Spanish: Mikel Aguirre, a senior executive at Repsol. According to reports from some Libyan media outlets, such as the journalist Taha Hadeed, Aguirre is said to have served as a cover for the terrorist cell, enabling members of the group to pass themselves off as technicians and engineers in his entourage, moving about freely even outside Tripoli. The manager is still on the run and attempted to cross the border into Tunisia, but failed. Repsol contacted Il Foglio and was keen to clarify that the information regarding Aguirre’s involvement in the affair “is completely false”. When asked where the manager was at that moment, the Spanish company replied that “it cannot comment on the whereabouts of its directors”.

Ahmed Khalifa, a Libyan journalist, has stated that documents found on the computer also appear to indicate the terrorist cell’s involvement in certain military operations in Sudan. This account has been corroborated by other local sources consulted by Il Foglio and admitted by Dabaiba himself during his meeting three days ago with the leaders of Misrata. Since the existence of this computer came to light, intense and secret negotiations have been underway between Tripoli and Benghazi, with the latter pressing for Dabaiba to maintain discretion over the entire affair. Saddam and Zoubi met in person in the United Arab Emirates to negotiate. The meeting lasted a full two days, demonstrating just how problematic the negotiations are. “The direct intervention by the United Arab Emirates to find a compromise and hush the whole matter up is precisely due to the section concerning the terrorist cell’s involvement in targeted attacks in Sudan, where Abu Dhabi has a stake,” a well-informed Libyan source explains to Il Foglio. According to the UN, the UAE supports the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces with weapons and money, an accusation which the Gulf state, however, denies. On Wednesday, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Boulos himself made efforts to try to hush up the whole affair by meeting with Mohamed Menfi, President of the Libyan Presidential Council. Just a few days earlier, Menfi had sent a letter to the International Criminal Court requesting the launch of an investigation in Tripoli into the involvement of foreign mercenaries in the terrorist cell.

It is unclear what will happen next. Zoubi has denied that any negotiations are taking place and has said that once the interrogations of the five detainees have concluded, he will make all the material public. Dabaiba’s remarks in Misrata, however, confirm that negotiations are indeed taking place and that the Prime Minister in Tripoli intends to make others pay dearly for their silence – for example, to secure the most precious thing Haftar possesses: time. Buying time would be vital for Dabaiba in order to delay the implementation of the Boulos plan and prevent him from being forced out of the Libyan political scene.