Turkey seeking to use graves in Libya as a trump card for its political games

According to a report by Cameroon Magazine, the Turkish state is planning to use the “mass graves” in multiple Libyan towns as a trump card in its political games.

GRAVE DIGGERS

Turkish forces led by General Ilkay Altindag actively collected data and physical evidence during the exhumation of the dead bodies in the villages Gharian, Tarhuna, and Nasma, sources who wanted to remain anonymous said.

The sources said that Turkey seeks to accuse Commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Khalifa Haftar of war crimes and non-judicial executions.

WEAKENING OPPONENTS

The sources claimed that Turkey attempted to weaken the position of the Turkish state’s opponents, including Haftar and his political alliances.

It is also reported that the Turkish state aims to collect votes in favour of pro-Turkish candidates in the general elections scheduled for December 24, 2021.

The report said that “such interference of the Turkish Republic may exert negative influence on organisation of the voting process and disrupt the peaceful settlement of the Libyan crisis”.

Last year, the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) set out to discover a mass grave in Tarhuna with the support of Turkey. Immediately after dozens of bodies were exhumed, the Tripoli government accused Haftar of non-judicial executions and torture of civilians in areas under his control.

DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN

However, the city of Tarhuna had been ruled for years by al-Kaniyat, a local militia group linked to the Tripoli government. Al-Kaniyat only joined Haftar’s army in April 2019. The residents of Tarhuna revealed that the al-Kaniyat group had participated in criminal activities long before 2019. However, the officials in Tripoli did not take any measures against the group. As a result, it is stated that when the al-Kaniyat sided with Haftar’s troops, the GNA seized the opportunity and blamed the LNA for the crimes committed. Turkey played a key role in this disinformation campaign.

EXHUMATIONS IN AFRIN

In mid-July, the Turkish state exhumed dead bodies from a cemetery in Afrin, which is under its occupation, and presented it as a mass grave. However, the authorities from the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria proved that the cemetery in question was a former Kurdish cemetery where the residents of Afrin killed by the Turkish forces and their proxies in 2018 had been buried. SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi called on the international community to investigate this incident and to step into action to halt crimes against humanity committed by the Turkish state.

Digital investigator Benjamin Strick has also published multiple satellite images of the burial site back from 2018 revealing that the mass grave claim is a lie.