Tripoli, Libya–Libya’s unity government has carried out a prisoner exchange with rival eastern forces, releasing a pilot captured during strongman Khalifa Haftar’s 2019 assault on Tripoli, local media reported Monday.
According to the reports and images on social media, pilot Amer al-Orfi al-Gajam was exchanged for 15 prisoners held by Haftar’s forces, which back a rival government and control much of eastern and southern Libya.
The exchange took place in a Haftar-controlled part of the Jufra region, near a ceasefire line between eastern and western forces.
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Images on social media appeared to show Gajam, a high-ranking member of Haftar’s forces, with a long beard and dressed in a traditional Libyan tunic and vest.
The 2011 revolt that toppled Moamer Kadhafi’s regime left a power vacuum that was filled by an array of armed groups.
Haftar’s east-based forces, the self-styled Libyan National Army, were among the most powerful groups that emerged in the aftermath.
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In 2019, Haftar seized large parts of the south and launched an assault on Tripoli.
In December that year, government forces said they had shot down a Russian-made MiG-23 fighter jet some 45 kilometres (28 miles) west of the capital, capturing its pilot Gajam.
Haftar’s forces later announced that they had lost a MiG-23 due to a “technical fault” and that the pilot had been captured.
They made no immediate statement on the reported prisoner exchange.