Military man: Mohammed bin Zayed, the secret ruler of the United Arab Emirates
Photo: ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFPOn January 4th, around 9 p.m., all hell breaks loose in the military academy in the south of Tripoli: around 50 cadets are holding an exercise when a rocket hits the premises. A surveillance video recorded how the explosion shook the academy. The young men's bodies are torn to shreds. 26 cadets die.
Libya is divided into two parts: in the west, in the capital Tripoli, Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj has power. The warlord Khalifa Haftar controls the east . For years, both sides have been struggling for power, supported by a number of states such as Russia , Turkey , France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Thousands of people have already died in the civil war and hundreds of thousands have been evicted from their homes.
The attack on the military academy in January marked a low point: the cadets were unarmed, many of them were still teenagers. To date, no one has confessed to the crime.
BBC Africa Eye and BBC Arabic have reconstructed the incident. The researchers evaluated satellite data, examined crime scene traces, and spoke to witnesses. They come to the conclusion that the United Arab Emirates were instrumental in the attack.
The UAE are officially in favor of the arms embargo for Libya, which various states agreed on at a conference in Berlin in January on the initiative of the German government. In fact, according to observers, the Gulf state remains one of the main supporters of warlord Haftar.
Without the participation of the Emirates, experts like Wolfram Lacher from the Berlin Foundation for Science and Politics (SWP) believe that the war in Libya might already have ended. Neither Germany nor any other EU country has so far been able to bring itself to take a clear position against Abu Dhabi.
The UAE helped Haftar to conquer large parts of Libya. It was only when Turkey increasingly interfered in the conflict at the beginning of the year that the balance of power turned. With the support of Turkey, Sarraj's troops succeeded in driving Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) from Tripoli. Now both sides are fighting a position war. Ceasefire has so far only allowed the civilian population to take short breaks.
World's largest drone war in Libya
Both Sarraj and the Haftar camp rely primarily on the use of threats in the conflict. Sarraj obtains its weapons mainly from Turkey, Haftar from the Emirates. Ghassan Salamé, the former UN special envoy for Libya, speaks of the world's largest drone war.
more on the subject
Civil War in Libya: Another Syria By Mirco Keilberth and Maximilian Popp
Turkish armaments projects: The new drone powerBy Anna-Sophie Schneider
Proxy War in Libya: When to Cross the Red Line, An Analysis by Raniah Salloum
The BBC research shows how brutally this war is being waged. The drone that was used in the attack on the military academy was therefore a Wing Loong II, the Chinese counterpart to the US Predator drone. The UAE are the only state actor to use these drones in Libya in January.
It seems as if they accepted the death of the Cadets with approval. The research also showed that the Emirates use Egyptian military bases for their engagement in Libya. The UAE and Egypt did not want to comment on the allegations.
Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Zayed, is keen to establish his country as a diplomatic power. The UAE has only just signed a much-noticed peace deal with Israel. Reports referring to the devastating role the Gulf State played in the Libya conflict are just a nuisance to the prince.
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