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Turkish Firms Building Haftar Air Base Near Egyptian Border, Italian Agency Reports

Turkish construction companies are building a new air base for Khalifa Haftar’s forces at Jaghbub, an oasis in eastern Libya about 23 km from the Egyptian border, and the project is causing concern in Cairo. That is what the Italian news agency Agenzia Nova reported in an exclusive on 28 October 2026. Neither the Turkish government, the companies named, Haftar’s General Command nor the Egyptian government has publicly confirmed the report.

Image: DefenceMENA briefing cover (graphic, not a photo of the site).

What Agenzia Nova reported

The Rome-based agency based its report on sources it describes as close to the matter, on commercial satellite imagery and on public company records. It reported that:

Location and runway: The base is in the Jaghbub oasis area. Its runway is about 3.6 km (3,600 m) long. With the right pavement strength and support facilities, that length could take heavy transport aircraft as well as fighters and drones.
Timeline: Work started in June 2025 and sped up in recent weeks. Nova says the pace has roughly tripled compared with the first phase.
Satellite imagery: Planet imagery dated 24 October 2026 shows a long straight runway, access roads and aircraft parking areas. According to Nova, at least three aprons are finished and a fourth is still being built.
Contractor: Nova names the builder as ATSG İnşaat, a joint venture of the Turkish firms Akteknik, TavSera and Gönüç. It says the group’s presence in Libya is listed by the Turkish contractors’ association, and that public professional profiles show ATSG staff working at a Jaghbub site during 2026.
Cost and funding: No official figures on cost or funding are available.

Nova’s sources say Cairo is worried mainly that foreign powers could use bases formally controlled by Haftar’s forces for military operations or arms transfers, with consequences for Egypt’s security.

What can be checked independently

Planet imagery exists. On 26 October 2026, Planet’s public “Stories” platform published a user-made imagery story titled “Al Jaghbub Air Base”. DefenceMENA could not independently measure the runway or count the aprons.

ATSG’s partners and footprint are public. On its own LinkedIn page, ATSG İnşaat calls itself a joint venture set up in 2025 by Akteknik, TavSera and Gönüç. It says its partners’ past work includes airports, and the page lists staff in several countries, Libya among them. The company has not publicly linked itself to a project at Jaghbub.

Akteknik already has a contract with Haftar’s command. On 20 July 2026, the General Command’s military media division announced in Benghazi that it had signed a contract with a Turkish company for an integrated project to manage and monitor Libya’s land borders. Phase one covers 275 km and falls under the command’s “Vision 2030”, supervised by deputy commander Saddam Haftar. The official statement did not name the company. Libyan outlets, including the Libya Herald, identified it as Akteknik İnşaat. At the time, the Libya Herald also wrote that ATSG was reportedly building or upgrading several airports and air bases in Libya for Haftar’s forces. No value, timeline or exact border section was announced.

What is not confirmed

No official Turkish, Libyan or Egyptian statement has confirmed that Turkish firms are building a military air base at Jaghbub. The same goes for ATSG’s role there.
Egypt’s reported alarm about the base comes only from unnamed sources quoted by Nova. Cairo has not commented on the base publicly.
It is not known who is paying for the work or which aircraft the base is meant for.
Nova itself says nothing ties the Turkish firms at Jaghbub to separate upgrade work at Maaten al-Sarra, the base in Libya’s far south-east near the Sudan and Chad borders.

Context: Ankara and Benghazi move closer

In 2019 and 2020, Türkiye backed the Tripoli government militarily against Haftar’s offensive on the capital. That support included armed drones (see what the Bayraktar TB2’s combat use in Libya showed). Since then, Ankara has steadily built ties with the Haftar family’s command in Benghazi. Turkish-made equipment has also turned up in the east: about 90 BMC Amazon armoured vehicles appeared in a parade there this month (our report).

On 20 October 2026, the Haftar-aligned House of Representatives in eastern Libya unanimously approved the 2019 maritime memorandum between Türkiye and the former Government of National Accord. It reversed its earlier rejection of the deal (what the vote changes). Egypt’s foreign ministry said on 21 October that the memorandum is “null and void”, has no legal effect for Egypt, and infringes Egypt’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty repeated that position to Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Istanbul on 23 October. According to Egypt’s State Information Service, Fidan said he understood Egypt’s concerns about developments in Libya and stressed the importance of continued consultation. Fidan has publicly defended the agreement as legitimate.

Why it matters

Jaghbub sits on Egypt’s western flank. Cairo also backs Sudan’s army in its war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Nova notes that international investigations have named Libya’s Kufra region as a supply corridor into Sudan. The United Arab Emirates has been repeatedly accused of supplying the RSF and denies it. If the reported runway is confirmed, it would give eastern Libya another airfield able to handle large transport aircraft close to Egypt. It would also tie Turkish industry more closely to Haftar’s military infrastructure at a time when Cairo and Ankara are already at odds over the maritime deal. For the wider picture, see Egypt, Libya and Chad’s border-security talks and our tracker of Turkish defence companies active in Africa.

DefenceMENA will update this article if any of the governments or companies involved respond.

Sources

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