Is Khalifa Haftar Turning on Egypt? The Jaghbub Air Base

Is Khalifa Haftar turning on Egypt? He has not broken with Cairo, and no Egyptian official has said a word in public. But eastern Libya, under the man who has been Egypt’s closest partner next door for a decade, is now taking steps that cut against Egyptian interests one after another. The latest is the clearest: satellite images taken on 24 October 2026 show a new military air base rising at Jaghbub oasis, a few dozen kilometres from the Egyptian border, built by Turkish companies and planned without any coordination with Cairo.

Taken alone, each move can be explained away. Together they form a pattern. An oil pipeline that would serve both countries has stalled because Benghazi will not sign the guarantees it needs. A trade road Egypt is already building toward Libya is suddenly under attack in eastern Libya as a scheme to turn Libyans into a transit corridor for Egyptians. And a runway now sits close to Egypt’s western frontier with no word on who will fly from it. This is not yet a threat to Egypt’s national security. It is a warning, and if Cairo ignores it, it will become one.

• Haftar’s forces are building an air base at Jaghbub, close to Egypt’s border, with Turkish contractors and without coordinating with Egypt.
• The proposed 800 km Tobruk to Sidi Kerir oil pipeline, worth more than $1 billion, is stuck because eastern Libya refuses to guarantee supply.
• Eastern Libya’s parliament ratified Turkey’s 2019 maritime deal on 20 October 2026, a deal Egypt says has no legal effect on its waters.
• Each step alone is explainable; together they are a warning Cairo must answer now, before a warning becomes a real threat.

For years, Egypt and Haftar’s eastern Libya have worked almost as one system. Much of the officer corps of Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) was trained in Egyptian military academies, and much of its weaponry came through Egypt. Cairo treats eastern Libya as part of its own national security, and Haftar’s camp has repeatedly promised to keep coordinating with Egypt, most recently when President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi received him in Cairo on 19 August 2026.

That partnership matters more now than at any time since 2020, because Egypt is stretched on almost every front. Israel’s war in Gaza and talk of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank press on its eastern border. Sudan’s civil war burns on its southern one, with refugees and smuggling routes running north. The war with Iran has disrupted the Gulf, where millions of Egyptians work and where Egypt has its own commitments, including Egyptian troops guarding sensitive sites in Saudi Arabia. A quiet, friendly western border is the one thing Egypt has been able to count on.

Cairo has stopped waiting for Benghazi. Egypt’s intelligence chief, Hassan Rashad, has held talks with Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s government in Tripoli, and Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly met Dbeibah in New Alamein on 30 July 2026. On 7 November 2026, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty reopened Egypt’s embassy in Tripoli, closed since 2014, met Dbeibah and pressed for the energy projects, including refining.

It is a strong diplomatic move, and it shows Egypt will work with whichever Libyan government can deliver. But Tripoli is no easy partner either. Dbeibah has courted Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the leader behind the Nile dam Egypt regards as a threat to its water supply.

The second project is a road. Egypt is building a corridor from Berenice, its Red Sea port in the far south and home to a large military air base, west along the Sudanese border to East Oweinat, across a short stretch of Libya through Kufra, and on to Chad. Chad is landlocked, and Berenice would become its nearest port. The wider plan runs about 4,500 km all the way to Douala in Cameroon, on the Atlantic, and Egypt’s Arab Contractors has been working with Libya and Chad on it. Transport Minister Kamel al-Wazir said in early November 2026 that the Egyptian section toward Kufra is close to completion.

Roads like this are a security project as much as a trade one. A road brings people into empty land: they settle, build and farm along it. Much of the United States was desert and prairie before roads and railways filled it with towns. A road through southern Libya would secure Libya’s own remote borderlands in the same way.

Eastern Libya had understood this. Then, just as al-Wazir announced progress, voices on Libyan social media began asking why Libya should feed Egypt’s port at Berenice at all, and insisting that Libyans would not become a transit route for Egyptians. Chad grew hesitant once Libya did. There is no contradiction: Libya can run its own ports and still benefit from this road. The project appears to have been badly explained to Libyans, and nobody made clear that it threatens no Libyan plan or port. No official rejection has come from the eastern government, which agreed to the route in advance. But the mood has turned.

The third move is military. Imagery from 24 October 2026 shows a new air base under construction for Haftar’s forces in the Jaghbub oasis, in the desert just west of the Egyptian frontier, with a long runway, access roads and aircraft parking areas. Work at the site has been carried out by Turkish construction companies.

Nothing suggests Haftar told Cairo, “I am building a base on your border.” There is no sign of coordination with Egypt, and the Egyptian government has said nothing in public. Egypt’s relations with Türkiye (Turkey) are now very good: the two navies held their Sea of Friendship exercise off Alexandria from 4 to 9 November 2026, with the Turkish amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu taking part. But good relations do not reveal intentions. Today it is a Libyan base built by Turkish firms. Who will use it tomorrow?

Russia is the obvious question. Haftar has long relied on Moscow; Vladimir Putin received him at the Kremlin in May 2025, and Russian military personnel have operated from bases in eastern Libya for years. Egypt has little reason to trust Russia’s choices in its neighbourhood. Moscow signed a naval cooperation agreement with Ethiopia in March 2025 to help a landlocked country build a navy, and Ethiopia took delivery of Russian-supplied Sukhoi Su-30 fighters in January 2024. A runway this close to Egypt that could one day host Russian aircraft is not something Cairo can simply accept. And there is the question of location: of all the desert in eastern Libya, why build so close to Egypt?

Khalifa Haftar is the field marshal who commands the Libyan National Army, the force that controls eastern and much of southern Libya, from Benghazi and Tobruk down to Kufra on the borders of Egypt, Sudan and Chad. A former officer under Muammar Gaddafi who later lived for years in the United States, he returned during the 2011 uprising and rose to dominate the east after 2014. His sons now hold key posts: Saddam Haftar is the LNA’s deputy commander, and Belqasem Haftar runs the reconstruction fund that awards contracts across the east.

Libya has been split since 2014 between rival authorities in Tripoli and the east. Egypt backed Haftar because his forces sit along its 1,100 km western border, a frontier that Islamist militants and arms smugglers had used. In June 2020, when Turkish-backed forces pushed toward Sirte, Sisi declared the Sirte to Jufra line a red line and ordered Egypt’s army to prepare for missions abroad. Egypt was ready to go to war with Turkey for eastern Libya, and only American and Russian mediation pulled the two sides back at the last moment. Even without fighting, that crisis cost Egypt economically.

Eastern Libya is entitled to choose its own partners. It is an independent state and Libyans are Egypt’s brothers; they owe Cairo nothing on their interests. But their choices must not come at Egypt’s expense. Egypt stood with eastern Libya when it needed help and was prepared to fight a war for it. It is fair to expect, in return, that a military base on Egypt’s border is not built behind its back.

Put the pieces side by side: a pipeline left unsigned, a road suddenly opposed, an air base built without telling Cairo, Turkish firms crowding out Egyptian ones and supplies flowing to Sudan’s RSF. This is not yet a threat to Egypt’s national security. It is a warning, and the road eastern Libya is taking is not a promising one. A warning that is ignored turns into a real threat. Egypt has had enough trouble on its other borders; it cannot afford a new one in the west. Cairo must watch every one of these moves closely, demand coordination on anything built near its frontier, and make clear to Haftar’s camp now, before the warning hardens into something worse.