The Libyan army’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, has been killed in a plane crash in Turkiye while returning from an official visit to Ankara.
Turkish officials said the private aircraft, which was heading back to Tripoli on Tuesday, requested an emergency landing due to an electrical failure just minutes after takeoff, but then lost contact.
The crash, which also killed four senior Libyan military officials and three crew members, has sent shockwaves across Libya, where General al-Haddad was seen as a unifying figure amid deep political divisions. The Libyan government has announced three days of national mourning.
General al-Haddad was Libya’s chief of the General Staff, the highest-ranking military officer in the country’s armed forces.
General al-Haddad worked within the United Nations-recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli to bring together competing armed factions.
Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina said people in Libya were mourning al-Haddad, whom he said was a key figure in efforts to unify the country’s fractured military. “He really was someone who tried to build up the military institutions, especially in western Libya, a place that is divided with powerful armed groups and militias controlling vast areas of land,” Traina, reporting from Tripoli, said.
“You have powerful armed groups, militias controlling different parts of land. They hold a huge influence on the government. He refused to let these militias hold sway on the government,” Traina added, and was seen as “someone that people could rally behind and support to try to bring some kind of unity to Libya.”
General al-Haddad had served in that post since 2020 and was seen as a key figure in efforts to unify Libya’s divided military structures, a crucial element of broader attempts to stabilise the country, which descended into chaos following the toppling of its long-term leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Al Jazeera’s Traina said General al-Haddad was one of the first military officials who joined the rebel forces in the revolution that toppled Gaddafi.
Libya is currently divided between the internationally recognised government based in Tripoli and the rival administration in the east led by military commander Khalifa Haftar.
“He was a very charismatic and strong leader. General Mohammed was someone who was respected by all sides,” Al Jazeera’s Traina said. “He was someone who believed in the rule of law, always talked about values of democracy, and wanted to transition Libya into civilian rule.”
Al-Haddad’s death is being mourned in the eastern part of Libya governed by a rival administration, including Haftar, who expressed sorrow and offered his condolences.
During his Turkiye trip, al-Haddad held talks in Ankara with Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler, and his Turkish military counterpart, Selcuk Bayraktaroglu. Ankara has cultivated close military and economic ties with the Tripoli-based administration, but recently, Ankara has moved to strengthen relations with the eastern administration led by Haftar.
