Sixth drone within two days gets shot down in the vicinity of Misrata and Tripoli, which could lead to kicking out Turkey from the Libyan scene after the several consecutive strikes that it has received from the Libyan National Army, raising doubts about Turkish drones, whose industry has witnessed an extraordinary boom in Ankara.
What is the story behind the drones and what defects do they have? Questions urged foreign parties to search for the truth.
The story started in 2005, when the engineer Selçuk Bayraktar was able to persuade a group of Turkish officials to attend the presentation of a drone, which he made himself. Selçuk Bayraktar is the son of the businessman Ozdemir Bayraktar, the owner of the Baykar Technical Company that is specialized in manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles, thus the young man saved Turkey the headache of buying drones from world powers.
Turkey was then trying to buy drones from the United States, but Erdogan then handed the keys to the industry to Bayraktar, who became his son-in-law in 2016.
And this industry has become one of the most sought-after Turkish defense targets, but it has relapsed when reports were issued revealing that the dro6 is not ready for its manufacturers – something Turkish soldiers who fled their country on the night of the coup in 2016 acknowledged as well.
Several reports, including Nordic Monitor, the Swedish specialist website in intelligence affairs, and the Greek “ptisidiastima” were published by experts saying that most of the losses of Bayraktar TP2 occurred after falling, which was also reported in a secret message dating back to 15 July 2016 and bearing the signature of Major General Awni Angon, who was the chief of staff of the Turkish army at the time, the thing that angered Ankara.
The reports proved correct for more than a fall of Turkish drones of the same type owned by the Government of National Accord in Tripoli. The reports also indicated that the Turkish army had discovered some systematic failures and drone problems some time ago, but they were discreet about them so they could complete selling deals with Libya.
