UN report finds Italy violated arms embargo on Libya

These violations implicate the Italian government, which is accused of failing to provide details about the purpose of military flights to Libya.

In a report presented to the Security Council last week, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged “Libyan stakeholders to refrain from unilateral actions that could further escalate tensions,” stressing that the country’s political, economic and institutional stability remains “fragile,” while the mediation efforts of UN Special Envoy Hanna Tetteh continue amid persistent divisions.

The report expresses particular concern over repeated “violations of the arms embargo,” which Guterres noted is currently ineffective and fuels the flow of military equipment to non-state armed actors.

These violations also implicate the Italian government, which is accused of failing to provide details about the purpose of military flights to Libya – about 40 out of a total of 124 flights carried out by five countries: Russia, Turkey, Great Britain, the US and Italy – between 2024 and 2025. Furthermore, Italy was found to be “non-compliant” regarding the violation of paragraph nine of Resolution 1970 of 2011, which established the arms embargo. The UN panel of experts found that the Italian bilateral mission conducted a training course on the “military combat method,” which concluded on December 26, 2024: an activity that, due to its explicitly military nature, “constituted a violation of paragraph 9 of resolution 1970 (2011).”

On Tuesday, the Italian Foreign Ministry announced that it had “provided its own response to the observations of the UN experts,” clarifying that the activities carried out concerned training programs for the Libyan Armed Forces within the framework of the UN “roadmap.”

The report also highlights that the gray areas regarding the possible violation of the embargo are not an isolated case. Other international actors, including Russia and Turkey, are also involved in providing military support to various Libyan factions, contributing to further destabilizing the country and prolonging the conflict.

At the same time, serious irregularities and abuses are emerging in the oil sector, where import and export operations are conducted outside official channels. A well-organized system of illicit exports of oil and refined products, supported by networks linked to key figures in both eastern and western Libya, has reached “unprecedented levels,” contributing to the erosion of the National Oil Corporation's (NOC) ability to protect the state’s interests.

The final report documents the direct involvement of both Saddam Haftar – son of Cyrenaica’s strongman, Marshal Khalifa Haftar – and Ibrahim Dbeibah, the grandson of Abdulhamid Dbeibah, prime minister of the Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli, in illicit activities in the energy sector. According to the experts, all this was enabled by a “system of impunity” that allowed armed militias to pervade Libyan institutions.

Against this backdrop, relations between the Italian government and certain militia leaders are ongoing, as demonstrated by the meeting held in Rome on April 14 between Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi – in the presence of the director of Italy's foreign intelligence agency (AISE), Giovanni Caravelli – and his Libyan counterpart Imad Trabelsi, head of the Zintan militias. The episode highlights once again Italy’s active and controversial role in the Libyan context: an involvement that, according to various international reports, also includes forms of economic and operational support for local militias tasked with intercepting and blocking migration flows.

The oil sector, the country’s main resource, has thus become a major source of income for parallel networks, with serious effects on the country’s stability and power struggles. Internal conflicts – between the president of the Presidential Council, Mohammed el-Menfi, and Dbeibah – have intensified following recent reports about a plan presented by Massad Boulos, the US envoy for Africa, who allegedly proposed to one of Haftar’s sons to give him the leadership of the Presidential Council in exchange for Dbeibah staying on as prime minister of a unified government for the whole country .

© Il Manifesto Global