By Charles Kurzman
President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to restrict refugee admissions and deny visas to individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries his administration deems a terrorist risk ― Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Read More
The fluctuations in successfully addressing this issue were particularly apparent in Libya. The Islamic State (ISIS) seized control of Sirte in May 2015, incorporating the coastal city as a key area of its global caliphate. Read More
By Tuesday Reitano & Mark Shaw
Europe seems to think force and arms are the solution to reducing people smuggling in the volatile and fluid Libya. Even Gaddafi knew better. Read More
By Solomon Dersso
Soon after the peaceful transition of power from Barack Obama to Donald Trump in the US, Gambia’s crisis was also resolved without a single gunshot. The embattled President Yahya Jammeh appeared on national TV announcing his decision “to relinquish the mantle of leadership”. Read More
By Heba Saleh
War-weary Libyans should have had reason to hope after Isis was finally pushed out of its stronghold of Sirte and the country doubled its oil production. But a renegade general who appears ever closer to Russia is putting the rare progress at risk as he seeks to expand his territory in the north African state. Read More
By Charlie Savage
Before ceding power, the Obama administration quietly removed a former extremist stronghold in Libya from a list of combat zones where United States counterterrorism drone strikes are authorized without obeying special rules intended to prevent civilian deaths, officials said on Friday. Read More
Guards and officials at major ports in Libya’s eastern Oil Crescent say they’re hoping foreign workers will soon return as they struggle to build on output gains with meagre resources. Read More
The Libyan dialogue committee agreed Tuesday, in Tunisia, to decrease the number of the Presidential Council’s members from nine to three, whom it said will be tasked with working according to the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA). Read More
The decision to bomb terrorist training camps in Libya last week was made after U.S. intelligence officials determined that they were connected to the bloody Berlin truck attack last month, officials said. Read More
By Gregory Aftandilian
Having pro-Russian strongman in charge of Libya is undoubtedly tempting for President Vladimir Putin. Read More
By Francis Ghilès
Although Russia says it remains committed to UN arms embargo on Libya, show of support for Haftar comes when his enemies are weakening. Read More
By M.G. Oprea
Russia’s increased involvement in Libya is another sign that President Vladimir Putin seeks a resurgent Russia that holds sway with allies throughout the Middle East. Read More
John C.K. Daly
Fresh from its successes in Syria, Russia is turning its attention to another country riven by the “Arab spring” — Libya. Read More
By Sawsan Abu-Husain
Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Taha Siala considers the upcoming meeting between Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar and Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj a positive action following the political block. Read More
By Emily Estelle
U.S.-backed Libyan partners are prioritizing the protection of their interests in Libya’s ongoing civil war over the fight against Salafi-jihadi groups. Read More
Armed groups, some affiliated with rival governments vying for legitimacy and territorial control, detained, tortured, “disappeared,” and unlawfully killed people with impunity in Libya during 2016, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2017. Read More
The United Nations-backed, internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) struggled in 2016 to assert itself in the capital Tripoli, as two authorities—one also based in Tripoli and another in eastern Libya—continued to compete for legitimacy and control over resources and infrastructure. Read More
MEE contributor
The GNA has struggled to unite country and overcome economic crisis but Ahmed Maiteeq tells MEE progress is being made Read More
By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart
More than 80 Islamic State militants, some of whom were believed to be plotting attacks in Europe, died in U.S. air strikes on camps outside the group’s former North African stronghold of Sirte in Libya, the United States said on Thursday. Read More
By William Gallo
It was April 2011, just weeks after the start of a U.S.-led bombing campaign in Libya. Donald Trump, then a reality television star, was speaking to The Wall Street Journal about whether he supported the NATO military intervention, Read More
By Marco Salustro
A piece by award-winning filmmaker Marco Salustro, published in Index on Censorship’s latest issue, describes the journalistic challenges of covering the plight of the thousands of migrants who have fled sub-Saharan Africa and are now being held in Libya Read More
By John Edens
North Africa is a long way from New Zealand. But back in the 1980s, Gaddafi was making overtures in the South Pacific and the Central Intelligence Agency believed the dictator was trying to build a network. Read More
Federica Saini Fasanotti
Last week, the Italian government reopened the embassy in Tripoli, the first do so after the majority of Libya’s embassies closed in 2015. Read More
By Moazzam Begg
British government is yet to come clean about role in abductions and torture during ‘War on Terror’ but ruling is a step in the right direction. Read More
By Ibrahim Fraihat
The biggest threat to the Arab Spring six years after its inception remains authoritarianism. The fall of Aleppo on the sixth anniversary of the start of the Arab Spring reminds us how tyranny has triumphed over the hope of 2011. Read More
By Barbara Bibbo
Haftar met with Russian officials in an effort to secure military support that would prepare for his control of Libya. Rival factions wrestling for control in a divided Libya are plunging the country into further chaos, as a UN-brokered government struggles to bring stability to its people. Read More
By Emadeddin Zahri Muntasser
As a businessman, it is really no surprise that President-elect Trump wants to do the international relations equivalent of letting the market right itself in preferring stable governments in lieu of struggling democracies. Read More
By Bel Trew
Russia is planning to arm a Libyan general who has been fighting the western-backed government in Tripoli, according to aides of the strongman. Read More
It appears that 2017, like the previous year, will be saturated with economic challenges for the nations of the Middle East. These challenges arise in a context of the expected regression of vital sectors of the economy, the most significant being oil and tourism. Read More
By Jamie Prentis
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been sharply criticised by Human Rights Watch (HRW) for not launching new investigations into war crimes in Libya. Read More
By Arnaud Delalande
Intelligence Online — a professional journal covering the world’s intelligence services — revealed that the pilots of Air Tractor attack planes flying from Al Khadim air base in Libya are private contractors working for Erik Prince, the founder of the company formerly known as Blackwater. Read More
By Jason Pack
Summary: No matter which party is victorious in southwest Libya, if Misratan forces and Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter begin a full-scale battle for control, there is little doubt that the whole southern region will be destabilized as Russia’s increasing public support for Hifter and his anti-Islamist “strongman” credentials fuel the fire. Read More
By Karlos Zurutuza
Libya’s third-largest city offers opportunities to foreigners and migrants eager to work, but it’s also a dead end for those trying to get to Europe. Read More
By Wolfgang Pusztai
In the evening of February 15, 2011, the Libyan Revolution began with the first protests in Al-Beida, a city in the eastern region of Libya, the Cyrenaica. Read More
Review by: Mohammed Basyoni Abdulhaleem
The circumstances that Muslim majority countries, in the Middle East, in particular, have revealed a sort of “Islamic exceptionalism” as the experience of Islam is different from that of Christianity in Western societies. Read More
By Kavitha Surana
Rome is trying to shape the future of its onetime colony, but may get elbowed aside by local strongmen and their foreign partners. Read More