The drone was shot down just east of Misrata, a key source of military power for forces aligned with the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), those forces said on their social media pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They posted pictures of the charred wreckage of an aircraft and a largely intact wing being carried away on a pick-up truck, identifying it as a drone supplied by the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UAE has been supporting east Libya-based forces led by Khalifa Haftar, supplying them with Chinese-made Wing Loong drones that long gave them an aerial advantage over less powerful Turkish drones used by their rivals, according to U.N. experts, diplomats and analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many more of the Turkish drones have been destroyed or shot down than the Chinese drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Turkey has recently been sending reinforcements to the GNA, which include air defense systems as well as military advisors, analysts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haftar\u2019s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) has been waging a offensive to take control of Tripoli since April, the latest escalation of a conflict between rival camps based in Tripoli and east Libya since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The LNA said the downed drone was Turkish, but a weapons specialist with wide experience in the region confirmed the drone was a Wing Loong. UAE authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.N. mission to Libya said that weapons had been pouring into Libya despite a pledge by international powers to respect an arms embargo that has been routinely breached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the eastern city of Benghazi on Tuesday, several hundred people attended a rally to celebrate the capture of what the LNA said was a Turkish armored vehicle seized from their rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Tripoli, three children were killed and one was seriously wounded after a shell fell on a residential area in the Hadba al-Badri district, a spokesman for the Red Crescent said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.N. children\u2019s agency UNICEF said this month that the war in Tripoli had shut more than 200 schools, depriving more than 115,000 children of schooling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fighting has forced more than 150,000 people, 90,000 of whom are children, to flee their homes, according to U.N. estimates. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TRIPOLI, Jan 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Forces aligned with Libya\u2019s UN-backed government said they had shot down a drone operated by their rivals, suggesting a strengthening of air defenses as they receive accelerated military support from Turkey. The drone was shot down just east of Misrata, a key source of military power for forces aligned with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60331"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}