The British newspaper "The Guardian" quoted the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as confirming that about 2000 rebels would be transferred to Libya from the Syrian city of Idlib to reinforce the troops of Fayez al-Serraj. The New York Times, however, reported the news that the forces belonging to the Tripoli Protection Force have affirmed the presence alongside the Libyan National Army of hundreds of Russian snipers, presumably belonging to the Wagner company.
Italy is present with its own contingent in Misurata with a military hospital located near the Air Force Academy which was the object of air attacks by Khalifa Haftar's aviation. Turkey, on the other hand, last January 2 ordered the sending of its troops to defend Tripoli from the siege of Haftar. Erdogan in a speech in Parliament announced the start of operations in Libya, although a contingent of Turkish officers would already be engaged in Tripoli in training, support and coordination activities.
On Thursday 16 January, in an interview with a French radio station, the United Nations special envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame he explained that the UN Mission has no certainty about the Turkish forces in Libya, adding that "there may be Turkish military experts and certainly there are Syrian opposition fighters who have been sent to Libya". Salamè did not say who sent these mercenaries, but limited himself to specifying that "there are official experts who represent governments as there are private military companies, as well as people present for ideological reasons and we cannot put everything under the title of mercenaries ". The envoy also reiterated that the presence of people who came to Libya to fight for money or ideological reasons is not to be excluded. The fighting in Tripoli, since April 4, has and continues to attract "all those who trade weapons or who want to fight, but their legal statuses are very different". The UN envoy also said that at least 10 countries have violated the arms embargo on Libya in 2019 hoping that the Berlin conference will end this policy.
According to UNHCR, the detainees would have been offered a chance: to be able to stay in Libya forever if they chose to fight on the front line. UNHCR's Special Representative for the Central Mediterranean, Vincent Cochetel, stated in recent days that both sides would be recruiting migrants from among its ranks: "We saw that those recruiting efforts were aimed primarily at the Sudanese"Cochetel said, probably because they can speak Arabic, explaining that if migrants decide to enlist, they receive a uniform, a rifle and are immediately taken to urban guerrilla warfare. The issue had already emerged on 3 July 2019 when following the LNA's raid on the migrant detention center in Tajoura, south of Tripoli, security images and field investigations by international organizations revealed that several migrants were used by militias to transport weapons, make repairs and maintenance on military vehicles used in battle.