Libya became a testing ground on UAV warfare.

Last year Chinese Wing Loon II drones operated by the UAE bombed civilian targets in the city, a direct consequence of recent and rapid purchases of Chinese UAVS by countries in the Middle East region.
During the Libyan conflict, various strategic targets were bombed by combat aircraft.
Libya has been embroiled in a civil war. The conflict began to escalate in April 2019 in Lybia, when field Marshal Khalifa Haftar launched his campaign to capture the capital, Tripoli. With the support of foreign forces, including Egypt, France, and others, he felt quite confident opposing the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, supported by Turkey, Italy, and Qatar.


Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar is a Libyan-American soldier and the commander of the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army. On 2 March 2015, he was appointed commander of the armed forces.
Erdogan, the Turkey President, as per usual made the situation worse. While a member NATO, Turkey was an exception in terms of UAV sales. Around May of 2019, Ankara demonstrated on the battlefield in Libya, its own unmanned aerial vehicle Vayraktar TV2 (“standard Bearer”) — a strike operational and tactical medium-altitude UAV with a long flight duration.

UAVS of this type attacked the troops and forces of Khalifa Haftar. Destroying their supporting Russian anti-aircraft gun missile systems “Pantsir”.

Meanwhile, the African command of the US Armed Forces (USAFRICOM) reported at the end of May, that satellite images of detailed photo reconnaissance showed that Russian aircraft were arriving in Libya to support the formations of Khalifa Haftar.

During the Libyan conflict, aircraft on airfields, civilian objects and persons, positions of armed formations, warehouses with material assets of the warring parties were bombed by combat aircraft. Military transport aircraft C-130 and Turkish A400M continue to supply new weapons and military equipment, as well as carry out the transfer of personnel to the combat zone.

Thereby, putting an end to the field Marshal’s ambitions to capture Tripoli. The Defense News stated that “Turkey specializes in the development and production of UAVS and probably partially used Libya as a test and correction combat laboratory, and now these systems are tested in combat conditions. Among other things, the Turkish industry, in particular, the roketsan enterprise, develops small high-precision ammunition for UAVS,.”

Hence, Libya became a testing ground on UAV using both state and non state players. It seems the civil war in Libya, that the majority of it is done in the air.

Last year Chinese Wing Loon II drones operated by the UAE bombed civilian targets in the city, a direct consequence of recent and rapid purchases of Chinese UAVS by countries in the Middle East region.

Russian air defense systems have repeatedly shot down UAVS of field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s opponents during the fighting. According to the Defense News “The Chinese are able to sell unmanned aerial vehicles in the middle East, including to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Iraq. Since the United States was previously limited in sales of military equipment of this type”. Therefore, US lost out on the market sales, due to policy.

Nevertheless, what is a little surprising that Israel, which is number 1 in the world in the drone sector, allowed China to even have any stake of the market share in this segment.