Ceremony for western Libya’s top general and four officers underscores strategic ties amid UN unification efforts; black box analysis requested from Germany.
ANKARA — In a solemn display of diplomatic solidarity, Turkiye held a state military funeral on Sunday for five Libyan military officers killed in a plane crash last week, including the senior commander of western Libya’s forces.
The ceremony at Murted Airfield near Ankara honored General Muhammad Ali Ahmad Al-Haddad and four of his colleagues, whose coffins were draped in the Libyan flag before being repatriated. Turkey’s Defense Minister and Chief of General Staff presided over the services.
The delegation, which also included three crew members who were memorialized separately, died on Tuesday when their private jet crashed shortly after departing Ankara. Libyan authorities have preliminarily attributed the disaster to a technical malfunction.
General Al-Haddad was a central figure in United Nations-mediated talks to unify Libya’s fractured military institutions. His delegation was returning to Tripoli after holding strategic defense consultations in Ankara aimed at enhancing Turkish-Libyan security cooperation.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc provided updates on the investigation, confirming that DNA analysis was used for identification with the assistance of family members who flew from Libya. Notably, Tunc stated that Germany has been invited as a neutral third party to examine the aircraft’s flight recorders.
The tragedy strikes at a sensitive moment for Libya, which has been divided since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Rival administrations in east and west, supported by foreign patrons and local militias, have struggled to achieve lasting stability.
Turkiye, the primary international ally of the UN-recognized Government of National Accord in Tripoli, has recently pursued diplomatic outreach to eastern-based factions. The high-level meetings attended by the deceased officers were part of this delicate political and military engagement.
