By : Africa News Nation Reports, Nigeria.
TRIPOLI, Libya — Africa News Nation can confirm the Libya’s top military officer, Lt. Gen. Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, was killed when a private aircraft crashed in Turkey while returning from an official visit to Ankara, officials said Tuesday, dealing a major blow to fragile efforts to unify the country’s divided armed forces.
Turkish authorities said the plane requested an emergency landing minutes after takeoff, citing an electrical failure, before losing contact. The crash killed al-Haddad, four senior Libyan military officials and three crew members.
The Libyan government announced three days of national mourning, calling al-Haddad a stabilizing figure at a time of deep political and security divisions.
Al-Haddad served as chief of the General Staff under the United Nations-recognized Government of National Unity in Tripoli, the highest-ranking post in Libya’s military. He was widely viewed as a key architect of efforts to bring rival armed factions under a single national command after years of conflict.
“People here are mourning someone they believed could help rebuild the military institutions,” said Malik Traina of Al Jazeera, reporting from Tripoli. Al-Haddad, he said, pushed back against the influence of powerful militias that control large swaths of territory, particularly in western Libya, and sought to limit their sway over the government.
In a country where armed groups often rival state authority, supporters saw al-Haddad as a figure capable of rallying competing forces toward a common goal. His death, analysts say, risks deepening uncertainty over the future of Libya’s security sector at a critical moment.
Investigations into the cause of the crash are ongoing.
