Libya confirms army chief killed in Turkey plane crash

The Libyan army's chief of staff, ?Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, has died in a plane crash after leaving Turkey's capital Ankara.

Seven other people were on board.

"This followed a tragic and painful incident while they were returning from an official trip from the Turkish city of Ankara. This grave loss is a great loss for the nation, for the military institution, and for all the people," Libyan ?Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah ?said in a statement on Tuesday.

He said the commander of Libya's ground forces, the director of its ?military manufacturing authority, an adviser to the chief of staff, and a photographer from the chief of staff's office were also on the aircraft.

Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X that the plane had taken off from Ankara's Esenboga Airport en route to Tripoli, and that radio contact was lost. He said authorities found the plane's wreckage near ?the Kesikkavak village in Ankara's Haymana district.

He added that the Dassault Falcon 50-type jet had made a request for an emergency landing while ?over Haymana, but that no contact was established.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

The crash occurred a day after Turkey's parliament ?passed ?a decision to extend the mandate of Turkish ?soldiers' deployment in Libya by two more years.

NATO member Turkey ?has militarily and politically supported Libya's Tripoli-based, internationally recognised government. In 2020, it sent military personnel there to train and support its government and later reached a maritime demarcation accord, which has been disputed by Egypt and Greece.

In 2022, Ankara and Tripoli also signed a preliminary accord on energy exploration, which Egypt and Greece also oppose.

However, Turkey has recently switched course under its "One Libya" policy, ramping up contacts with Libya's eastern faction as well.