Soon after the Russian Wagner mercenaries appeared on the front lines near Tripoli, United States officials warned Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the man who recruited them, that he was making a Faustian bargain.
Haftar, who was bent on seizing the capital and anointing himself dictator of Libya, may very well end up as their servant. The mercenaries, who answer only to the Russian defence ministry and the Kremlin, are in charge. They no longer pretend to work for Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA). His senior officers want them out.
However, an estimated 2,000-strong Wagner force, spread across eastern and southern Libya and backed by fighter jets dispatched by Russia, are digging in. They, and Turkish forces on the other side, were meant to