The Syria-Libya express

The sudden fall of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria has reshuffled the cards in the Middle East, with ramifications extending well beyond and reaching the troubled shores of North Africa. While temporarily diverting the attention from the ongoing conflict in Gaza, the collapse of the brutal dictatorship has inevitably led to structural readjustments and realignments in line with the rise of Hay’ath Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group led by Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa that surprisingly took control of Damascus on the 8^th of December following a rapid offensive.

With privileged ties to Turkey, HTS is now maintaining an ambivalent stance towards Russia, which has tried to prop up the house of Assads through the last turbulent years. Despite the visible hostility towards Moscow, where now resides the fleeing dictator, Sharaa has taken a pragmatic approach in order to cement its power in a fractured country. The new Syrian leader is said to be open to negotiations with Russia about its military presence, whose crown jewels are the Tartus naval base and the Hmeimim airbase along the eastern Mediterranean coastline.

Nevertheless, fearing the worst, Moscow is already moving military equipment and personnel out of Syria, relocating to a nearby location: Libya. Open sources have revealed an air bridge between the Hmeimim and the al-Khadim airbase near Benghazi, where radar system for S-400 and S-300 SAM have possibly been transferred. According to flight tracking data, air traffic has also intensified between Belarus, Russia and Libya, while Russian ships (including the landing ships Ivan Gren and Alexander Otrakovsky, as well as cargo ships Sparta I and II) were making their way to Tartus.

Considering the proximity between Russia and authorities in eastern Libya, these developments come hardly as a surprise. For years Russian mercenaries have been moving in and out of the country, backing the ambitions of Gen. Khalifa Haftar and sustaining his failed assault on Tripoli in 2019-2020. The recent rebranding of the Wagner Group into Africa Corps has hardly changed anything in the military posture. Instead, Moscow was already reinforcing its positions in Libya well before the collapse of Assad, by renovating for example airbases such as Ghardabiya, Jufra and Brak al-Shati.

For all these reasons, Libya represents more than a fallback option to rely upon in case of emergency. From Moscow’s viewpoint, it is a gateway to Africa, whose importance has considerably increased following the latest military coups in the Sahel that have tilted the region towards Russia. Libya’s fragmented political landscape and high volatility provide a fertile ground for hybrid activity on NATO’s southern flank, while its porous borders ease arms trafficking and illicit activities (including fuel smuggling) that help circumvent sanctions against Russia imposed following its brazen aggression against Ukraine.

Notwithstanding long-term plans to establish a naval base in Tobruk, Russia is already an actor to contend with in Libya. Just like Turkey, entrenched in Tripolitania ever since its military intervention to protect the capital from the assault of the Libyan National Army, but now more open to cultivate relations with the Haftars. If this is part of a grand bargain between Ankara and Moscow that included Syria is yet to be seen, but the opening of Turkish airspace to Russian flights running the Libyan Express raises indeed some interesting questions.