U.A.E. Boosted Arms Transfers to Libya to Salvage Warlord’s Campaign, U.N. Panel Finds

Between January and April, the U.A.E. air force dispatched some 150 flights that the U.N. experts believe carried ammunition and defense systems. Dozens of flights continued from the Emirates over the summer using an American-made C-17 military transport plane even after Mr. Haftar’s offensive unraveled, the diplomat said.

The U.A.E. has also been accused of using ships to ferry jet fuel to Libya for military purposes in violation of the Libyan arms embargo. The European Union, which this year launched naval patrols to give teeth to the embargo, earlier this month stopped a vessel loaded with jet fuel that EU officials allege was meant for military use in an area controlled by Mr. Haftar.

The weapons from the U.A.E. have contributed to a massive arms buildup in Libya. The backing for Mr. Haftar in a 14-month-long assault on the central government in Tripoli has put the Emiratis on the opposite side of the U.S. Washington, like the U.N., recognizes authorities in Tripoli as Libya’s legitimate government, although President Trump praised Mr. Haftar in 2019, leaving U.S. policy on the conflict muddled for several months.

The Emirates’ airlift of weapons and other supplies to Mr. Haftar has also made the small, wealthy nation one of the power brokers of the Libyan conflict alongside Turkey and Russia. Turkey has intervened in the conflict in support of the Tripoli government, hoping to outflank rivals like Russia and the Emirates and claim commercial interests such as natural-gas rights in the Mediterranean.

Arms supplies from the Emirates have been essential to Mr. Haftar’s military takeover of the eastern half of Libya, where he continues to resist attempts to broker a political solution to the conflict. The Emirates has in recent years sent armed drones, air-defense systems, laser-guided bombs and attack helicopters to Mr. Haftar’s forces, according to previously published U.N. reports.

“The U.A.E. have been the leading spoiler in Libya since 2015,” said Wolfram Lacher, a Libya expert at the German Institute for International and Security Studies, a Berlin think tank.

The U.A.E.’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, declined to discuss the specifics of the country’s arms shipments to Libya and said the Emirates was fighting terrorist groups in Libya alongside allies.

“In Libya, we don’t work alone,” Mr. Gargash said. “We work in tandem with the Egyptians, with the French, with other countries.”

In January, U.A.E. Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed joined other world leaders in signing an agreement to uphold the U.N. arms embargo on Libya, but the flow of weapons to the country has since escalated.

The influx of military supplies from the U.A.E. peaked in late 2019 and early 2020 as Mr. Haftar’s campaign sputtered against the U.N.-recognized government. As the tide turned against him, the Gulf nation dispatched about 150 military flights primarily using massive Russian-made cargo planes to eastern Libya and western Egypt between January and April, according to the U.N. report, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council in late August.

Many of the flights landed at Egypt’s Sidi Barrani air base, near the Libyan border. From there, vehicles and aircraft hauled military hardware into Libya, according to the U.N. report, which cites aerial images of the base and flight records.

Mr. Haftar’s offensive ended in failure in June when pro-government forces, backed by Turkey, drove Mr. Haftar’s militias away from the capital.

Foreign powers have faced few consequences for contravening the U.N. weapons embargo. In February, the deputy head of the U.N. Mission in Libya, Stephanie Williams, said, “The arms embargo has become a joke.”

The U.N. panel said in late 2019 that authorities in eastern Libya were seeking jet fuel primarily for use by Mr. Haftar’s air force, and as a result that any new imports of jet fuel would be a breach of the embargo. The EU’s naval operation seized a ship for the first time on Sept. 10 in the Mediterranean, which, according to an EU statement, was likely bringing jet fuel from the Emiratis to eastern Libya for military purposes.

The EU has also sanctioned violators as part of its efforts to enforce the arms embargo. The bloc last week sanctioned one Turkish and one Jordanian shipping company for hauling military materials to Libya. It also sanctioned a Kazakh airline, Sigma Airlines, which had previously been used by the U.A.E to fly weapons to Libya, for violating the weapons ban.

The airline didn’t respond to calls and a message seeking comment on the flights.

The Emirates uses a network of private companies and relies on allied states to deliver arms to Libya, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with people familiar with the situation. That helps avoid scrutiny from U.N. investigators and misleads weapons suppliers about the hardware’s ultimate destination, according to a former official with knowledge of the situation.

In recent years, the Emirates has purchased multiple Russian-made Mi-24 helicopters, often from third countries in Europe, among them Belarus, according to the U.N. Panel of Experts monitoring the Libyan arms embargo. It then arranged to send the helicopters to Libya, according to documents seen by the Journal and U.N. reports.

The U.A.E. military, using a private Dubai-based company called AAL Group, initially ordered seven Russian-made Mi-24 helicopters from the Czech Republic in 2015, according to contracts and other documents reviewed by the Journal.

AAL Group didn’t respond to calls and emails seeking comment on the matter.

A year later, the air-force commander affiliated with Mr. Haftar’s Libyan militia approved an order to buy 11 Mi-24 helicopters, including seven with the same serial numbers as the ones purchased by the U.A.E. from the Czech Republic, according to correspondence seen by the Journal.

U.N. investigators alerted the Czech government about an apparent plan to move the helicopters to Libya, according to letters reviewed by the Journal.

At one point, the Emirati government invited the Czech ambassador to see the helicopters flying in the Emirates to reassure him the aircraft were intended for local use only, according to a former official with knowledge of the situation.

It is unclear whether the Czech-sourced helicopters ended up in Libya. Mr. Haftar’s forces have used some Mi-24 helicopters in battle in recent months, including in the assault on Tripoli. Libyan pilots affiliated with Mr. Haftar’s forces have also trained on the same type of helicopters in Egypt, according to a former Western official with knowledge of the situation.

An Egyptian government spokesman didn’t respond to requests for comment on the helicopters and arms transfers to Libya.

In 2017, U.N. officials raised concerns that the U.A.E. intended to transfer one group of these helicopters to Libya. The Emirates then sent at least three of the aircraft to Egypt in 2018, according to contracts, a transfer certificate and other documents seen by the Journal. The Czech Foreign Ministry also confirmed that the helicopters reached Egypt and that it issued approval for the retransfer in 2019.

The Czech Foreign Ministry said Czech authorities never received any information about the intention of Egypt to transfer the helicopters to Libya.

“We confirm that the Czech Permanent Mission to UN in New York is in contact with the Panel of Experts on Libya on this matter,” the Foreign Ministry said in an email.

The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense didn’t respond to requests for comment on the specifics of the helicopter exports.

Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com