Frederic Wehrey
The hasty departure of Assad, who like the Libyan field marshal portrayed himself as a bulwark against Islamism and smeared his opponents as terrorists and jihadists, puts a dent in the narrative of strongman permanence—though Haftar’s other autocratic backers in the Arab world, Presidents Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo and Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi, remain solidly in place.
Still, the upset in Syria could spur Haftar to reconstitute the logistical underpinnings of his criminal network, possibly working with exiled remnants of the Assad regime and affiliated gangsters, or double down on other streams of funding. It could also prompt him to pursue political realignments at home and abroad, especially as the position of one of his main foreign backers is coming under strain as well. Indeed, a second major consequence that Assad’s ouster could have in Libya relates to that backer, Russia.
The Russians played a major role in abetting Haftar’s rise to power starting in early 2014, supporting his military campaign in eastern Libya with technicians, advisors, intelligence support, propaganda, and by printing currency for his unrecognized government—even as it engaged with other Libyan players. With Haftar’s attack against the Tripoli government in 2019, Russia increased its footprint in Libya with the deployment of thousands of mercenaries from the Wagner Group (which has since been reconfigured), regular military personnel, aircraft, and air defense systems.
While Haftar’s bid for power failed due to Türkiye’s military intervention, Moscow quickly adapted, keeping much of its personnel and weaponry at key airbases near oil installations. And in recent years, in addition to its continuing support for Haftar, Russia has used Libya as a vital waystation for the shipment of personnel and hardware into the African states of the Sahel and beyond.
The fall of the Assad regime could jeopardize, or at the very least complicate, this supply route into Africa and, critically for Haftar, into eastern Libya. That is because much of it passed through Syria, especially through the Russian naval facility at Tartous and the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia.
The Kremlin has already taken steps to engage Syria’s new leadership on continued access to these facilities, yet the outcome of these negotiations is uncertain. Without the centralized, authoritarian Assad regime in place, maintaining Tartous and Hmeimim could prove costlier and more cumbersome for Moscow, especially as it contends with local opposition or fragilized logistics—all which could be felt by Haftar.
Faced with such uncertainties, Russia could decide to pressure Haftar for more permanent naval access to the eastern Libyan port of Tobruq, which has already served as a maritime node for flowing Russian materiel and personnel into Africa. But that is likely to incur even more pushback from NATO and the United States, making Haftar’s dilemma of balancing the demands of his patrons even starker.
Alternately, Russia could route its aerial shipments into Libyan bases it already controls. However, this option, too, is costly and, more importantly, requires overflight permission from Türkiye. Given the tensions between the two countries on several issues and, especially, the current understanding that exists between them in Libya, such goodwill from Ankara will almost certainly come with strings attached.
Indeed, whether and how Türkiye’s behavior in Libya changes because of the shift in the regional balance of power in its favor occasioned by Assad’s downfall is a third potential effect, and one that carries even more ambiguity.
After consolidating its entrenchment in northwestern Libya in 2020, the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not confine itself to maintaining the flawed peace in and around the capital. Instead, it pursued economic objectives increasingly linked to eastern Libya—territory controlled by the very Haftar faction Ankara once fought during the war for Tripoli.
Since 2021, however, Türkiye has gone to great lengths to woo the Haftar family and its allies, opening a consulate on Haftar’s territory and securing numerous contracts for Turkish companies in cities such as Benghazi and Derna, where reconstruction unfolds under the family’s opaque oversight.
This trajectory underscores Türkiye’s unwavering focus on expanding its influence in eastern Libya. As demonstrated in Syria earlier this month, when Türkiye perceives an opportunity to enlarge its footprint, it moves swiftly and decisively—even if it means turning against Russia.
One possible scenario is that the erosion or obstruction of Russia’s once-smooth corridor of aid to Haftar could embolden Libyan factions in the west who are aligned with Türkiye to challenge the eastern warlord’s position, since his ability to impose oil blockades and dictate terms to Tripoli’s government has rested partly on the deterrent effect of the Russian military apparatus.
If that backing is perceived to have slackened because of Moscow’s post-Assad recalibrations or redeployments, anti-Haftar groups might contemplate reclaiming critical oil infrastructure, calculating that the cost of confrontation is now lower.
Alternately, and more realistically, Türkiye could be encouraged to intensify its political and economic outreach to Haftar, seizing on the window of opportunity afforded by Russia’s preoccupation with the aftermath of Assad’s exit.
In pursuing such a path, Erdoğan would likely endeavor to keep Russia on the Libyan playing field, albeit in a diminished state, which would increase the Turkish leader’s value to NATO as an interlocutor and counterweight. For his part, Haftar could prove receptive to such overtures from Ankara.
This is especially true if he feels vulnerable domestically from the attenuation of the Syrian-Russian channel, and as he comes under pressure from the United States and European states not to grant more permanent basing to a Russia that is trying to regroup after the Syria debacle.
It is crucial not to frame Libya as wholly beholden to external dynamics, or to the policies of intervening foreign states. These have long included not only Russia and Türkiye but also the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar, the United States, and France. Still, the events unfolding this month in Syria, coming on top of the year-long war in Gaza, will likely resonate within Libyan society, where domestic political and armed group actors retain their own agency and matter significantly.
Although the revolutionary fervor that fueled the 2011 uprisings may appear dormant, it has not disappeared. Relatedly, the currents of political Islamism and jihadism, despite suffering a marked decline in recent years, still operate in the background—though political and armed mobilization in Libya has often occurred independently from these hazily-demarcated and often-misused categories.
It is important to recall the precedent of the hundreds of young Libyan men who went to Syria to fight at the height of the civil war, often mobilized by Islamist or jihadist networks, but inspired more deeply by sympathy for a revolutionary struggle against a brutal despot like the one they had overthrown at home. “We’d suffered, and we knew the Syrians were suffering too,” one of these militant volunteers told me.
It remains to be seen what sort of more substantial forms of solidarity or mobilization the remarkable victory of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and associated groups in Syria inspires in Libya, and how this will reverberate across Libya’s political landscape.
What is very possible is that Libya’s political standoff, which has prevented the country from moving beyond an unelected transitional executive and from bridging deep institutional divides, could in the not-to-distant future relapse into conflict.
This would happen not through sudden shifts in the regional balance of power alone, but through a confluence of these changes and a significant shock at home, such as a macroeconomic downturn, which could unravel the elite bargains that have ensured a tenuous stability over the past few years.
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Frederic Wehrey – Senior Fellow, Middle East Program
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