How could an army have lost an entire region in a few days - and then recovered it so quickly?
On 14 March, General Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army launched a counterattack against the fighters of the Saraya Defend Benghazi and the Petroleum Facilities Guard coalition, which had managed to take most of the coastal cities near the oil terminals 10 days earlier.
This lightning counter-offensive has left observers skeptical. How could an army have lost an entire region in a few days - and then recovered it so quickly?
The reasons for the failure of Haftar to contain the offensive on the oil terminals in the first place were multiple. Unlike their first attempt in#December 2016, the SDB and PFG fighters managed to rally some militias from Misrata including the al-Marsa Brigade. That's the first reason.
Secondly, the SDB-PFG convoy coming from Zillah, a town in the Sahara Desert where the SDB were based, joined the fight quickly and attacked several locations, taking Haftar troops - which were already limited in number because they were fighting on other fronts, particularly Derna - by surprise. The UAE's Wing Loong drones, supporting Haftar's forces,#apparently failed to spot the oncoming convoy in the desert.
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