New airbase rises near Libya's border

TLDR

• Al Jazeera says satellite images show open desert at Jaghbub in June 2025 and a runway complex by October 2026.¹
• Agenzia Nova reports Turkish firms are building it, with a runway of about 3.6 kilometres, citing unnamed sources.²
• DefenceMENA says no government or named company has confirmed the builder, and it could not measure the runway itself.³

Al Jazeera Net's open-source unit published on 28 October a satellite-imagery sequence of a new airfield in the Jaghbub oasis in eastern Libya, near the Egyptian border, in territory held by forces under Khalifa Haftar.¹ It says no aviation facilities were visible at the site on 16 June 2025, and that a runway, parallel taxiway, aprons and support structures took shape over the following 16 months.¹⁴

Why it matters: the Al Jazeera piece is a clean example of time-series imagery work: dated frames from one location, shown in order, with a higher-resolution image used to confirm what the coarser frames suggest.¹ The more specific claims, on the builder and the runway length, come from a second outlet and need separate checking.²

Driving the news:

• Al Jazeera's frames run from 16 June 2025 to 26 October 2026. A straight cleared strip is visible by 14 October 2025, clearer by 15 November 2025, and the main runway looks regular by 12 June 2026.¹
• A Vantor image of 10 September 2026 shows a paved runway, a parallel taxiway linked by several connectors, large aircraft parking areas and support buildings on the west side, the unit says.¹
• The 26 October image shows the main features complete and the runway joined to adjacent taxiways.¹⁴
• Agenzia Nova puts the site about 23 kilometres from the Egyptian border and the runway at about 3.6 kilometres, long enough for heavy transport aircraft. It cites Planet imagery of 24 October showing at least three finished aprons and a fourth under construction.²
• Nova says the builder is ATSG Insaat, a joint venture of the Turkish firms Akteknik, TavSera and Gonuc, citing sources, contractor-association records and public professional profiles.²

The big picture: Nova links the base to wider Libyan military construction, including the reactivation of Maaten al-Sarra in the south-east, while saying nothing ties the Jaghbub builders to that work.² DefenceMENA adds that Haftar's command announced a border-monitoring contract with a Turkish company in July, which Libyan outlets identified as Akteknik, and that the eastern House of Representatives ratified the 2019 Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum on 20 October. Egypt's foreign ministry called that memorandum "null and void" on 21 October.³ Nova says Cairo worries that foreign powers could use bases formally held by Haftar's forces, and notes that Libya's Kufra region has been named as a supply corridor into Sudan's war.²

The other side: Egypt's concern comes only from unnamed sources quoted by Nova. DefenceMENA says Cairo has not commented publicly and that neither Turkey, the named companies nor Haftar's command has confirmed the report.³ The Libya Observer notes Al Jazeera did not say who controls or operates the airfield.⁴ Nova says no official cost or funding figures exist.²

Single-source note: the imagery chronology rests on Al Jazeera's unit, and the runway length, the Turkish builder and Egypt's alarm rest on Nova alone, with DefenceMENA and the Libya Observer relaying them. None of the imagery was independently reviewed. The two accounts differ on timing: Nova says work began in June 2025, while Al Jazeera's 16 June 2025 frame shows open desert and its first visible strip is dated October 2025. The Libya Observer says the series used Planet and Vantor imagery, while Al Jazeera's own text credits Planet for the series and Vantor for the September image.