Two thousand Syrian fighters have travelled from Turkey or will arrive imminently to fight on the battlefields of Libya, Syrian sources in all three countries have said, in an unprecedented development that threatens to further complicate the north African state’s intractable civil war. Hantar?”The footage was questioned by many who wondered how and why Syrian men – nominally still fighting in the nine-year-old war against Assad – had ended up so far from home. Both Ankara and Tripoli have repeatedly denied the presence of Syrian fighters in Libya, as has the SNA. The Guardian understands that Syrian fighters in the country have since been banned from posting any evidence of their whereabouts to social media. The GNA was reportedly initially reluctant to accept Syrian fighters instead of Turkish troops but accepted the idea when Haftar’s forces drew closer to the capital.

Source: The Guardian January 15, 2020 04:52 UTC