Libyan National Army bans access to Libya’s western ports

The Libyan National Army (LNA) said it has banned access to all western ports in Libya since Sunday evening, a move that aims to prevent a coalition of forces allied with Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) from receiving arms from Turkey.

The move comes after GNA forces received a shipment of Turkish armored vehicles and arms on Saturday. The shipment arrived amid the GNA’s efforts to stop the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Khalifa Haftar, from advancing toward the capital, Tripoli.

“In accordance with the commander-in-chief’s [Khalifa Haftar] decision to cut off supplies for militias in the western region, the chief of staff of the Libyan naval forces, Maj. Gen. Faraj al-Mahdawi, announced the mobilization of all naval forces and announced a complete naval ban on all sea ports in the western region,” the Military Information Division of the General Command of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces said in a statement on their Facebook page.

According to the statement, the Libyan army’s naval troops threatened to strike whoever approaches the western zone’s ports “with an iron fist, especially the Muslim Brotherhood’s country Turkey”.