Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya forces

Libyan army origins go back to the Libyan Arab army (popularly known as the Sanusi army) of World War Two[ 5] Soon after Italy joined the army, some Libyan exiled in Egypt appealed to their countrymen to organize themselves into army troops and join the British in the battle against the Axis States.

The five regiments originally intended for the guerilla war in the Jabal al Akhdar district of Cyrenaica were built under Commanders. As the high level of manoeuvrability of the desertification campaign called for a high level of technological and mechnical know-how, the Libyan armed services were mainly used as auxiliary personnel to guard army facilities and inmates.

The need for the Sanusi forces that had been educated and armed by the Brits seemed to be over once Britain had managed to occupy Libyan territory. However, the Sanusi army hesitated to dissolve and the vast majority of its members were sent to the UK Army's regional law enforcement agency in Cyrenaica.

In 1951, when Libya became independent, vets of the former Sanusi army were at the core of the Royal Libyan Army. A part of the Middle East Command and consisting of 25-th tank brigade and briefly the 10-th tank division, they were still present after liberation and remained in Libya until at least 1957.

6 ] Despite the Sanussi line of the new armies, King Idris I quickly became suspicious of them. The 1952 Free Officers' putsch in Egypt caused many Libyan officials to be disappointed by Idris and Gamal Abdel Nasser's great supporters. At the same time, the UK military officials appointed by Idris to provide training and advice to the new military services considered the troops to be totally unreliable.

More and more they saw their part in observing the military instead of increasing its efficiency. Idris founded a Marine in 1962 and an Luftwaffe in 1963. Trying to address his increasing doubt about the loyalties of the military by removing its capabilities. He placed Cyreneans in all leadership posts, loyally but often unskilled, limiting the military to 6,500 men, holding the military slightly under arm and setting up two competing paramilitaries, the National Security and Cyrenaican Defence Factions, drawn from Cyrenean Bedouins who were loyally committed to the Sanussi.

Together, the two armies had equipped a combined force of 14,000 men with choppers, armored vehicles, anti-tank guns and arsenals. However, these actions did not stop a group of military officials under the leadership of then-captain Muammar Gaddafi (a signal officer) from taking over on 1 September 1969. The Arab failure during the Six-Day War of July 1967 was an important part of the military' s military campaign because the military officials thought that Libya should have sent troops to help Egypt and the other Arab states.

And Idris had also tried to overhaul the army, but only half-heartedly, further frustrated young Libyan mates. Soon after the attempted putsch, Gaddafi began to sack, detain or executed every superior army commander and several other subordinate commanders close to the state.

He then began to restructure the military according to his external policies. 10 ] The enlargement of the military and the merger of CDF and NSF to form the military was the first of the priorities, and in 1970 it was almost 20,000. The Air Service was also the focus of interest: 400 employees and ten Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter jets were to be complemented by major acquisitions of Mirage III fighter aircraft from France.

The Libyan Armed Forces in 2009 had 25,000 soldiers and 25,000 more (' 50,000 in total). In those days the military was organized in 11 border and 4 safety zones, a regiment safety battalion, 10 tank battalions, 10 mechanized infantry battalions, 18 infantry battalions, 6 command battalions, 22 artillery battalions, 4 SSM brigades and 7 air defense artillery battalions.

The 32nd Khamis Gaddafi Guard was one of the regime's most important allies. The' Khamis Brigade' was regarded by US diocritics as the most able to defend the regimes in 2009. 12 ] In additon, the Revolutionary Guard Corps also functioned as a brigade-sized protective troop for Gaddafi. It turned out in 2009 that a British Air Service Department is currently developing Libyan SpezialUps.

Although the Libyan armed forces had a large amount of combat gear, the great majority was purchased by the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s and became largely outdated. There have been no large arms buys in recent years, mainly due to the economic downturn and the introduction of defence penalties in the 90s.

These and various other domestic forces had seriously weakened the overall Libyan armed forces over the years, and they were lagging behind their main neighbors in regard to their actual combat capacities and warfare. In 1976, when the civil conflict in Lebanon was escalating, Libya sent a quota to the Arab deterrent force in Lebanon.

In early 1979, after the Arab League renewed the Arab deterrent force's term of office, the Sudanese, the Saudis and the UAE left Lebanon, the Libyan armies were largely given up and had to find their own way home, if at all. Between the end of the seventies and around 1987, the military had four great incidents in Chad involving the Chad-Libya war.

Libya's army lost heavily in these disputes, particularly in the 1987 Toyota Wars, mainly due to bad policy and West assistance to Chad. In the end, all these ideas were averted and Libya no longer occupied the Aouzou Strip or any other part of Chad. Libya's army has stopped functioning after the rebels' triumph in the Libyan conflict.

Libyan troops on the ground used a large amount of mostly Sovjet gear. The figures do not include items of gear damaged or taken prisoner during the Libyan conflict of 2011. IISS estimates the number of tanks in 2009 at 2,025: T-55 - 500; 1,040 T-54/T-55 in storage; T-62 - 100; 70 in storage; T-72 - 150; 115 in storage.

IISS estimates the total number of ordnance in use in 2009 at 2,421. Also the IISS estimates that Libya had 500 mortars: 82 mm - 428; 120 mm - - M-43; 160 mm - ? M-160. During 2009, the IISS estimates that Libya had Crotale, SA-7 Grail, SA-9/SA-13 surface-to-air rockets and AA ordnance in military personnel.

There was a SA-2, SA-3, SA-5 Gammon and SA-8b Gecko as well as cannons. During 2009, the state approved the supply of 3.73 million euros in the munitions sector. In 2009, Serbia exports $1,920,185 in supplies, which includes self-propelled weapons for "civilian and army end users" to Libya.

In 2005, 2006 and 2007 there were also large supplies to agents who acted as agents for several different markets, among them Libya. In 2009, Malta supplied 7,936 million euros of what was referred to as "non-military goods" to Libya. These were intended for the General People's Committee for Public Security, i.e. for the Libyan Ministry of the Interior.

When the US Armed Services abandoned Libya in 1970, Wheelus Airport, a former US institution about seven nautical mile from Tripoli, became a Libyan military base and was re-named Okba Ben Nafi Airport. The May 2011 edition of Combat Aircraft contained an essay on the aerial features of the Libyan civil conflict of 2011.

Libya's naval power was founded in November 1962. It' s a rather small Marine with a few rocket fregates, bomber bombers and patrols to protect the coast, but with a very restricted self-defence ability. Libya's naval service has always been the smallest in Libya and has always depended on international resources for supplies, spares and education.

All staff of the Libyan Navy is approximately 8,000 men. Originally the actual power was restricted to smaller ships, but this change occurred after the ascent of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 1969. It was from this point on that Libya began to buy weapons from Europe and the Soviet Union. In 1970, the port and custom policing was merged with the Navy, expanding the Navy's mandate to cover contraband and tolls.

Libya initially got six U-boats from the USSR in 1982, but it is very unlikely that the U-boats are still in operation. A large part of the Libyan navy was made useless by the NATO bombings in 2011[25], and the precise number of ships that survived is not known. All the above information about the People's Militia dates back to around 1987; it is not clear whether the troops still remained in existence at the moment of the 2011 civilian conflict.

A tragedy of weapons: military and security developments in the Maghreb. IISS Military Review 2011, p. 7, 320. Hanspeter Mattes, Security Sector Governance in the Middle East: Cases of Libya, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2004 (http://se2.dcaf. ch/serviceengine/Files), p. 13.

Libya Defense and Safety Report: includes 3-year BMI forecast. Defense and Defense Policy in Libya (Q4 2010). Libya, 1987. See "Great Britain, Libya and the Suez Crisis", Journal of Strategic Studies, April 2007. R.M.A., A brief historic outline in memory of the first hundred years of the Royal Malta Army as the Royal Army's normal ordnance corps).

Until 1969 the troops had 6,000 employees organized in bataillons. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2009, p. 256. Amazigh World Congress for Military General Commander of Southern Libya Regional, the Touareg Ali Kenna to join the Libyan rebilion". "Russian plans to arm 200 USSR tank for Libya."

{\A6}^ LISS 2009. Military Balance in the Middle East (2005)" (PDF). Amnesty International,''Transfers of weapons to the Middle East and North Africa: Military balance in the Middle East: Lybia Archived on March 14, 2007 at the Wayback machine..... Libyan Aeronautical Army'no longer exists'". "Libyan SAM Network". Libyan navy ships bombarded in three NATO military harbours.

Gaddafi murdered in home town, Libya sees future". Arab War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991. Military balance in the Middle East. "and the United States: Near East Forum. "and the United States: The Middle East Quarterly. Near East Forum. Archiveed from the orginal on April 18, 2009. Libya. Library of the Congressional Land Study, Other Paramilitary Forces, 1988.

Library of Congress Country Study, 1988, Armed Forces Uniforms, Ranks and Badges.