Author - ab_mnbr

As Haftar Moves Closer To Russia, Will Libya Become The Next Syria?

By Zainab Calcuttawala

Libya’s returning oil wealth could bring back cheap fuel, food and foreign goods in a subsidy-based system in the most optimistic scenario. But as oil prices and production rise, the future of new political developments hangs in the balance in a growing power struggle between Russia and the United Nations. Read More

Is He Realy the Only Solution for Libya?

By Richard Galustian

It was an image that told Libya’s story in a nutshell. Last week Fayez al Sarraj, designated leader of the country’s proposed unity government, sat alone in a Cairo hotel room waiting for a phone call to meet with his country’s most powerful military leader, Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar. Read More

Libya: America And Russia Choose A Side

The UN sponsored unity government known as the GNA (Government of National Accord) has been in Tripoli since early 2016 but has been unable to placate or unite the many factions that have been keeping the country in chaos since 2012. Read More

The beginning of Basic Rights Erosion

 By Jamie Prentis

Regional military governor insists order was given to stop people joining terrorist groups in other countries. An order preventing men and women ages 18-45 in eastern Libya from travelling abroad without first obtaining security clearances is being met with outrage. Read More

Libya After ISIS

By Frederic Wehrey and Wolfram Lacher

The new U.S. administration needs to send strong signals to forces on all sides of the Libya conflict, as well as their foreign patrons, and make clear that a political settlement presents the only viable path out of the chaos. Read More

North Africa, Europe’s Last Resort on Migration

By Tasnim Abderrahim

To address the Mediterranean migrant crisis, the EU is seeking closer partnerships with North African states.Since the controversial deal between Turkey and the European Union (EU) in March 2016 has largely succeeded in preventing refugees from reaching Europe through the eastern Mediterranean route, EU decisionmakers have turned their attention to the central Mediterranean. Read More

I Was a Muslim in Trump’s White House

By Rumana Ahmed

When President Obama left, I stayed on at the National Security Council in order to serve my country. I lasted eight days. In 2011, I was hired, straight out of college, to work at the White House and eventually the National Security Council. My job there was to promote and protect the best of what my country stands for. Read More

How to stabilise Libya if Haftar won’t play ball

By Mattia Toaldo

A final deal in Libya is impossible without Haftar, but so is one under the conditions he’s demanding. A way round must be found. There is no deal without Haftar,” European and Arab foreign ministers have been saying since last spring. Read More

Haftar’s true agenda in Libya

By Osama Al-Sharif

As he managed to stretch his control over most of eastern Libya, including the oil fields, after ridding Benghazi of militant threats, Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar is now looking to capitalize on his gains in a bid to have the final say on his country’s future. Read More

If you revert, we shall revert

By Atef Elatrash

I understand the collateral depression state accompanied the sixth anniversary of the Feb. 17th revolution (call it a calamity, conspiracy, or civil war, I will not burn you with a security report). Read More

Russia increases involvement in Libya by signing oil deal

By Patrick Wintour

Libyan national oil corporation says contract with Rosneft to redevelop oilfields lays groundwork for further investment. Russia has significantly boosted its involvement in Libya by signing a potentially major contract to help redevelop Libyan oilfields. Read More

European Border Officials Paint Grim Libyan Picture

By Jamie Dettmer

A bleak assessment by European border officials of the turmoil in Libya is casting doubt on the prospects for European Union efforts to work more closely with authorities in the strife-torn country to curb migration flows across the Mediterranean. Read More

Washington on Libyan Mediation Line… Flirts with Haftar

By Khalid Mahmoud

Asharq Al-Awsat learned on Saturday of indirect contact between U.S. President Donald Trump representatives and leader of the Libyan National Army (LNA)General Khalifa Haftar, indicating the openness of the Trump administration to the Libyan file unlike his predecessor Barack Obama. Read More

Oil: cause of, and solution to, Libya’s problems

By Robin Mills

On the anniversary of its revolution, Friday last week, Libya’s oil industry had been in chaos for six years. Large oil companies active there – ConocoPhillips, Hess and Suncor among them – have stopped including it in their forecasts. Read More

Libya’s final hours

By Richard Galustian

The day before the sixth anniversary of the so called revolution in Libya on the Friday the 17th February, the UN backed GNA prime minister sat in a hotel room in Cairo for a call that never came. Read More

Libya and its lost years

By Yousef Al-Azmi

Years after the Lockerbie crisis in which Libya was implicated, several international bodies attempted to contain the crisis and set up effective solutions for ensuring an acceptable end. Read More

February Revolution Anniversary the sixth

Editorial: The opinions and attitudes had differed among the Libyans on celebrating the sixth anniversary of 17th Feb. revolution. Most of the views didn’t change on the succession of the revolution itself in collapsing the dictatorship and the corruption. Read More

Libya’s Political Stalemate: (7) What Libyans Really Want

By Sami Zaptia

Six years on from its February 2011 revolution, Libya’s political scene is characterized by fragmentation and polarization. The constantly shifting political and military allegiances and contested legitimacy since 2014 have today resulted in three Libyan ‘‘governments’’ claiming legitimacy.  Read More

Libyan Revolution

By Rupesh Jang Shah

February 2017 marks eight years of the beginning of the Arab Spring protest of 2011 in Libya, which led to the ousting and ultimate death of Muammar Gaddafi (the deposed leader of Libya). Read More

Libya’s political chaos deepens

By Chris Stephen

A new offensive by militias to capture Libya’s eastern oilfields has set back the state oil company’s hopes that foreign firms will return to the country’s upstream – and creates new doubts about its ability to sustain an oil-output recovery. Read More