Author - ab_mnbr

Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

D. Drug smuggling

Among the different sectors of Zawiya’s militia economy, drug smuggling is the most difficult to assess, since it has no legal component. Zawiya sits on two drug smuggling corridors: alcohol and Moroccan hashish move from the west and south-west into Libya—or, in the case of hashish, on to Egypt. Tramadol and other prescription drugs are imported via ports such as Misrata and al-Khoms to be either consumed in Libya or smuggled on to Tunisia and Algeria.

The nearby town of Ajeilat is a key node for both routes, just as it has long been an important hub for fuel smuggling; it also increasingly serves as an assembly point for migrants before they are embarked at Zuwara or Sabratha. Since 2011, competition among armed groups over the Ajeilat area has been closely linked to the profits to be made in controlling these illicit flows. Such rivalries were reportedly the driver behind repeated clashes in the town in 2012 and 2013, between local smugglers and Jamal al-Ghaeb’s Libya Shield Force unit from Mutrid.

Security officials and battalion leaders agree that they were also a key factor in the violent expulsion of the Buzribas’ ally Barka (‘al-Shalfuh’) from Ajeilat by Bahroun and Leheb in 2021. In May 2023, GNU drone strikes targeted a facility of Hatem al-Fehri, who had reportedly replaced Barka as the leading drug smuggler in Ajeilat. According to a well-connected resident of neighbouring Sabratha, Fehri was not allied with any particular party in Zawiya, but had been pragmatic in dealing with the city’s leading security actors.

In parallel, selling drugs to smaller dealers and consumers also became a business for armed groups in Zawiya itself. Hnesh’s group, from which Bahroun’s group would emerge after Hnesh’s death in 2017, initially formed as a hashish-selling enterprise. Under the protection of armed groups, drug and alcohol sales became increasingly open in the city, provoking the ire of local residents.

Later, Sifao gained notoriety as a leading drug dealer who enjoyed official status under Zawiya’s police directorate. As one security official put it, ‘Sifao carved up the drug market in Zawiya. As a result, Awlad Sagr and Zuwaran drug traders no longer did any business in the city. That’s why they attacked Sifao [in September 2022].’

Whether the main battalion leaders in Zawiya are directly involved in moving drugs remains unclear. While some interlocutors described Bahroun as the dominant actor in the regional drug trade, or suggested that the Buzribas’ boats at the Maya port had been used for drug smuggling, others argued that Leheb and Bahroun were not involved themselves. Instead, they blamed individual commanders in these leaders’ forces, or armed gangs that were loosely allied with, but not a formal part of, these forces.

Sifao, for example, was widely considered to be under Bahroun’s protection at the time of his conflict with Leheb, in September 2022. In this reading, Bahroun and Leheb closed their eyes to drug smuggling by allies in order to make use of their firepower when needed.

E. The local geopolitics of illicit flows

The illicit flows outlined above mean that control over roads has been a key concern for Zawiyan armed groups, and the ability to man checkpoints along them critical. With the rise of the local black market in fuel from 2016 onwards, in particular, checkpoints became a major source of income and therefore a key focus of competition over territory—a local geopolitics.

Attempts by one group to obstruct the passage of a rival group—or of goods protected by that group—were a common cause of clashes between armed groups. Checkpoints by less powerful armed groups specialized in extorting vulnerable groups, such as Tunisian petty traders; in 2023, this applied for instance to the ‘najm wa hilal’ (‘star and crescent’) checkpoint in Ajeilat, which was being manned by an SSA unit from Zawiya that remained allied with Leheb even while switching its formal allegiance from the Buzribas to Kikli, in order to retain access to salaries.

While patterns of control over western Libyan roads have continuously changed, one constant has been that no single actor could establish control over the entire stretch linking Tripoli to the Tunisian border. Actors along these roads therefore needed to strike deals, or at least to manage conflict among themselves.

According to one key security actor from Zawiya, ‘all the clashes are over control of the roads. Al-Far [Bahroun], Buzriba and Othman [al-Leheb] are competing over petrol, migrants and pills. They fight over the checkpoints, over being able to pass them. At times, they come to terms and let each other pass. At others, they disagree and fight.’

Another of the leading actors complemented this view: ‘Othman and al-Far have tried to avoid confrontation, by not stopping each other’s shipments. Othman controls much of the road, but lets al-Far’s people pass—and the other way around. If one seizes shipments, the other one will, too.’ This was confirmed by a close associate of Leheb: ‘We won’t stop al-Far’s vehicles. We don’t want problems.’ Indeed, key actors cooperated on manning checkpoints even as they found themselves on opposing political sides. By early 2022, the main checkpoints along the coastal road from Zawiya to the border crossing at Ras Jdeir were generally joint checkpoints shared by several forces.

As relations between Bahroun and Leheb deteriorated during the power struggle between the Bashagha and Dabeiba governments, Leheb compelled Bahroun’s men to withdraw from most of these checkpoints. Several of them, however, continued to be manned by the police directorates support force (quwat da’m al-mudiriyat), whose unit in western Libya was in itself a power sharing arrangement between Bahroun and Leheb—with its commander reporting to Bahroun, and his deputy to Leheb.

The checkpoint at Abu Kammash—the last checkpoint before the border crossing—was manned jointly by Leheb’s Brigade 103, Ben Rajab’s Brigade 52, and Brigade 105 from Zuwara. Leheb and Ben Rajab also jointly thwarted an attempt by Interior Minister Trabelsi in November 2023 to deploy forces to the Assa airbase at the Tunisian border, where Brigades 52 and 103 both maintained bases. The need for cooperation along the roads presumably also acted as a deterrent against all-out escalation in Zawiya itself. Likewise, patterns of control in the city itself have remained characterized by ambiguity, which again reflected a desire to avoid open confrontation.

Only two districts fell clearly under the control of a single group, owing to their demographic make-up—and forces external to these areas made no attempt to encroach on these two. First, Leheb controlled the areas along the road to Bir al-Ghanem—areas in which Awlad Sagr form a majority. Second, the Buzriba brothers exercised de facto authority in Abu Surra, an Awlad Buhmeira district. By contrast, Bahroun could not claim exclusive control over any extended area.

Much of central Zawiya and parts of the Harsha district were not clearly under the authority of any major group. Certain smaller neighbourhoods in these districts were considered the turf of minor local militias or criminal gangs. Elsewhere, no standing armed group was in control, often because demobilized fighters who retained their weapons were expected to resist attempts by any single force to exert control over their neighbourhoods.

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Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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Talmiz Ahmad

At a conclave convened in Cairo by the Arab League last month, Libya’s three principal leaders jointly agreed on the “necessity” of forming a new unified government that would supervise the long-delayed national elections and provide a modicum of unity to a country that has been deeply divided for more than 10 years and destabilized by armed activity by largely independent military factions.

The three leaders recognized that Libyans were anxious to have elections and agreed to set up a technical committee to “look into controversial points.” These pious statements have little relation to reality. Hardly any Libyan believes that these august personalities have any intention of conducting elections that would sweep them out of the positions that at least two of them have enjoyed — without any legal basis — for a decade. Reflecting the country’s bizarre politics, on March 31, the residence of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah was attacked by unknown gunmen with rocket-propelled grenades, though no one was injured.

Libya has been cursed with binaries. It has two administrations, the House of Representatives in Tobruk and the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, with Tobruk exercising authority in the east and south and Tripoli dominant in the northwest. It also has two armed forces, the Libyan National Army, headed by self-styled Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, nominally under the House of Representatives, and several militant groups under the Government of National Accord.

Each administration is backed by separate international coalitions: Egypt, the UAE, France and Russia support Tobruk, while Turkiye and Qatar back Tripoli. In February 2021, the Government of National Accord was replaced by the Government of National Unity under Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah in an interim arrangement until national elections in December that year. However, the election commission canceled the electoral exercise on technical, judicial and security grounds. The House of Representatives then demanded that Dbeibah step down and even appointed his successor. Dbeibah refused to give up his position and he remains prime minister. Not surprisingly, Dbeibah and Haftar, who exercise effective authority in the country, did not attend the Cairo conference.

There is no agreement among Libyan political factions about various aspects of the elections, such as the constitutional mandate for the electoral process, the authority to conduct the elections, the demarcation of constituencies, the eligibility criteria for the candidates and several other related matters. Soon after the Cairo meeting, Haftar pointed out that the political process had been provided more opportunities than necessary and that he was ready to “issue bold decisions and strict orders” to uphold the interests of the Libyan people — an obvious threat of military intervention.

The status quo has enabled political leaders to stay in power and amass extraordinary wealth, even as a third of Libya’s people live below the poverty line. Billions of dollars of oil revenues are unaccounted for, while the National Oil Corporation estimates that up to a third of petroleum and diesel provided by the state is smuggled. A former senior UN official has referred to this as “redistributive kleptocracy.”
Political divisions have also placed Libya at the center of regional migration and human trafficking. More than 700,000 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have come to Libya en route to Europe by sea and 2,250 of them drowned in the Mediterranean last year. Hundreds of others detained in Libya have experienced extortion and sexual abuse and some have committed suicide.

In recent years, domestic political affiliations and alignments among external players have been going through important changes. On the domestic scene, the divide between Dbeibah and Haftar is gradually being bridged, largely due to close relations between the younger members of the two families, who have benefited from lucrative deals these ties have thrown up. Their ties are being referred to as a “corruption pact.”

Among external players, Turkiye’s engagements with the UAE, Egypt and Russia have improved its relations with the House of Representatives and Haftar. Turkiye and Russia are also working together to ensure they pursue their interests in Libya without conflict. Long associated with the administration in Tripoli, Turkiye has a “permanent presence” at Al-Watiya airbase, near Zintan, and the naval base at Misrata and is also associated with some militant factions in Tripoli.

Libya’s importance for Russia lies in its location on the Mediterranean and the borders it shares with six African states — Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia in North Africa and Sudan, Chad and Niger in the Sahel. Russia’s interests are secured by units of the Wagner Group, now referred to as the “Expeditionary Corps,” who maintain three airbases in Libya: one in the oil basin of Sirte and two in the interior, which provide Russia with access to the sub-Saharan region.

The US closed its embassy in Libya after its diplomatic mission in Benghazi was attacked by militants in 2012 and the ambassador was killed. However, the expanding Russian presence in NATO’s southern flank and across the Sahel has compelled the US to consider the reopening of its embassy to promote deeper engagement with Libyan groups. Sadly, none of these changes address Libya’s political malaise. The country’s politicians continue to sacrifice its interests at the altar of personal avarice, thus ensuring that their nation remains broken and its people denied participation in national affairs and a greater share of the national wealth.

A different approach would require a level of leadership and statesmanship that has not been apparent in the country for several years.

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Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

C. Migration and counter-migration

The Libyan economy has long been, and remains, reliant on labour migrants for most manual and many skilled jobs. Additionally, in 2014, Libya became a key transit country for migrants and refugees seeking to reach Europe. Prior to 2022, virtually all departures from Libya took place along the country’s western coast, from Misrata to the Tunisian border.

In the absence of central authority, these flows have created a business of coercion centered around the protection and extortion of transiting migrants, as well as rent-seeking in the context of counter-migration; all three types of profit-making schemes are closely linked, and are often carried out by the same armed actors. Zawiya’s business of coercion in counter-migration began with the appointment of Milad (‘al-Bija’) as a coastguard officer in late 2014, at a time when Zuwara was the primary departure point of migrants along the western coast.

In late 2015, Zuwara closed as a departure point owing to a local clamp-down, prompting smugglers to move to Sabratha, Sorman, and western Zawiya. At this point, Milad’s close associate Kashlaf, the head of the PFG Support Force at the Zawiya refinery, opened the Nasr detention centre in the refinery, and Milad began intercepting increasing numbers of migrants on the sea.

Milad’s coastguard unit in Zawiya reportedly intercepted some boats, while allowing those run by smugglers who had struck arrangements with the coastguard to pass. The Nasr detention centre, which gained the status of a legitimate DCIM facility in April 2016, became notorious for horrific conditions, torture, sexual slavery, and the extortion of migrants in exchange for their release—as did a second detention centre in the city’s Abu Issa district.

With the GNA cooperating with Italy and the European Union (EU) on counter-migration from 2016 onwards, actors across western Libyan coastal cities shifted towards the anti-migration business. In early 2017, the Criminal Investigations Department in Mutrid shut down migrant smuggling operations in the districts. In June, the leading migrant smuggler in Sabratha, Ahmed al-Dabbashi, as well as the Milad–Kashlaf– Buzriba network in Zawiya began cooperating on stopping departures. Arrivals to Italy from Libya collapsed instantaneously, and would only begin to recover in 2021. While counter-migration did not offer the same profits as migrant smuggling, it did promise a politically savvy and financially lucrative survival strategy.

Operating detention centres under the Interior Ministry’s DCIM provided official legitimacy, state salaries, and opportunities for embezzlement by overcharging on catering contracts; moreover, migrants held in the centres could be hired out to employers for forced labour, sold to other detention centres or smugglers, or released against payments. The coastguard offered access to international contacts; recognition; and support in the form of boats, training, and intelligence supplied by Italy and the EU. Overall, involvement in counter-migration activities appeared to enable armed groups to convert themselves into legitimate actors whose actions enjoyed the support of European governments.

In the words of a close associate of Bahroun, ‘European support allowed migrant smugglers to become legitimate several years ago. Today, they control migrant flows to clear themselves in front of the attorney general and the international community.’

This survival strategy has not always worked out for the actors involved. Nevertheless, it has continued to define the counter-migration business in Zawiya. Arrivals to Italy from the area remained low despite the constantly changing constellation of actors. In October 2017, Sabratha was taken over by pro-Haftar forces, prompting Dabbashi to seek refuge with his allies in Zawiya. The DCIM issued orders to close the Abu Issa and Nasr detention centres following reports of abuses, in 2017 and April 2018, respectively—though both centres remained open.

Dabbashi, Kashlaf, and Milad were sanctioned by the UN Security Council in June 2018. That same month, Milad was suspended from his post (though Kashlaf was not), but he remained de facto in charge of the Zawiya coastguard unit. In interviews with the author in November 2018, Kashlaf and Milad showed themselves eager to restore their international reputation by doubling down on counter-migration efforts.

That is precisely what Milad did when he was released and rehabilitated in April 2021, after several months of detention. He stepped up interceptions and later gained a leading position at the Naval Academy in Janzur, thereby distancing himself from the migration business. Meanwhile, conditions in the Nasr detention centre improved, and the more pernicious aspects of its business model receded. But this could not restore Kashlaf’s reputation.

With the creation of the SSA in early 2021, the Buzriba led network saw an opportunity to whitewash its counter-migration business. The Buzribas and Dhawi pursued this goal by running maritime patrols and opening a detention centre under the SSA. Hassan Buzriba acknowledged as much in an interview with the author: ‘Al-Bija [Milad] has a bad reputation, he’s a burnt figure. We [the SSA], by contrast, had a clean reputation. It’s the same with al-Qsab [Kashlaf]. He’s trying to better himself, to improve his reputation, to get out of the sanctions. But we don’t work together in business.’

The SSA failed, however, to obtain international support for its Maya detention centre—partly due to reports of endemic violence and disastrous conditions at the centre, and partly because SSA commander Kikli declared it closed in early 2022. International standing was indeed a key concern of counter-migration, driven by the heavy European focus on it.

As a close associate of Bahroun emphasized, Bahroun regularly received an Italian intelligence officer who congratulated him on the efficient anti-migration efforts in Zawiya. Hassan Buzriba claimed that the SSA’s Maya detention centre had maintained relations with many foreign embassies to return migrants to their countries of origin, including Bangladesh, Egypt, and Morocco. He also declared that the SSA’s maritime patrols had received coordinates from Italian officers through the Libyan Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Tripoli. Whether these claims were accurate or not, they showed that Buzriba and others saw international approval as integral to their business model.

More specifically, Buzriba’s insistence on international support for the SSA was a reaction to the GNU’s claims that the SSA’s boats had been used in smuggling, and were therefore targeted in drone strikes. While the SSA’s counter-migration efforts had clearly been a for-profit enterprise, its business model evolved due to the Buzribas’ and Dhawi’s changing fortunes. Initially, the SSA had focused on assembling several thousand detainees at the centre, in order to obtain government budgets as well as support from the EU, Italy, and international organizations. To this end, the Buzribas had bought patrol boats in Europe and Turkey, not only using the SSA budget but also mobilizing some funds themselves, suggesting that this was an investment.

In 2022, it was extremely difficult for detainees to obtain their release, even by paying ransoms. As the centre failed to gain foreign backing and lost the Tripoli government’s recognition, however, it became easier for detainees to pay for their release. Moreover, sub-Saharan African detainees were sent to detention centres in southern Libya ahead of being expelled; such transfers often involved payments, since southern detention centres would sell migrants as forced labour.

Finally, the SSA’s business model also involved a measure of collusion with migrant smugglers. Militiamen with relations to both the Buzribas and migrant smugglers alleged that the former would extract payments from the latter by exploiting inside information on where and when boats were departing. Even though the SSA was patrolling the entire coast up to the Tunisian border, and by 2022 most departures in the region were again taking place in Zuwara and Sabratha, it was common knowledge that migrant smugglers were also operating in Zawiya’s Harsha and Mutrid districts, only a few kilometres from the refinery. In June 2023, a GNU drone strike hit a workshop of the most notorious of these smugglers, a former police officer called Haitham al-Tumi, in the Harsha district.

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Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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The Rise of the Stability Support Apparatus as Hegemon

Adam Hakan

Repression, wartime mobilization, and offshoots

The Tripoli militia quartet’s oligopoly was the defining feature of the 2017–18 security landscape in the Libyan capital. Ghaniwa’s hegemony over Abu Salim was, for the most part, territorially unchallenged, but he took measures to ‘coup-proof’ his force and consolidate command and control over his units through marginalization and violent repression.

Ghaniwa also sought to shore up his group’s social legitimacy within Abu Salim itself. One strategy he relied upon included launching recruitment campaigns within the neighbourhood itself, an effort meant to make his ASCSD’s make-up more reflective of the demo-graphics within his area of control. This also positioned Ghaniwa as an employer and provider in a time of economic malaise, particularly for youth. Another strategy, which Ghaniwa was famed across Tripoli for, was coercing the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) and its staff to prevent load-shedding schemes from being applied in Abu Salim.

This significantly boosted Ghaniwa’s popularity in his neighbourhood, despite his group being part of the quartet that gained notoriety for illicit enrichment throughout their years dominating the capital. Haftar’s famed offensive on Tripoli in April of 2019 upended the quartet’s oligopoly, and threatened Ghaniwa’s hegemony over Abu Salim. Ghaniwa was not one of the Tripoli-based groups who Haftar had focused on negotiating with over the capture of the capital.

The Libyan Arab Armed Forces had instead focused on talks with the Kaniyat, from Tarhuna; Gheryani units, under Adel Daab; Zawiyan factions, under Mahmoud Ben Rajab and the Buzriba brothers; Naji Gneidi, the leader of Fursan Janzur; and the TRB’s Tajuri. Arrangements with Zawiyan factions, critical to Tripoli’s capture, fell apart on the same day Haftar launched his offensive—due to Ben Rajab reneging on an agreement to allow Haftar’s forces safe passage to Janzur. With prospects of a blitzkrieg on Tripoli visibly

collapsing, Haftar was clearly set on employing military means to seize the capital. Several groups from Tripoli’s outskirts mobilized quickly to counter Haftar’s offensive, notably units from Misrata, Zawiya, and Zintan. This put the onus on Tripoli-based groups to either militarily join the fight or openly admit their desire to negotiate with Haftar.

On 10 April, then PC President Serraj brought representatives of armed groups to Abu Sitta’s naval base in Tripoli to probe their stances on formalizing the establishment of a coalition with other western-based groups to defend Tripoli. The meeting, in which Tripoli’s groups opted to put their differences with other western groups aside and mobilize under the GNA’s umbrella, formalized the new alliance. The ASCSD—and broader quartet—sided with western armed groups that had mobilized to resist the offensive.

Despite the shared military goal, old grudges from the post-Fajr era, notably with Misratan groups mobilized at Tripoli’s outskirts that had had previous run-ins with Ghaniwa’s ASCSD, affected the mobilization process. Ghaniwa, whose Tripoli-based group lacked any meaningful combat experience compared with more experienced Misratan and Zintani units, was initially adamant not to allow the deployment of other forces towards the Hadhba front line via Abu Salim, as he worried they would never

leave.46 This led to the ASCSD suffering heavy losses in the early months of the offensive, including the loss of field commanders. Ghaniwa’s position on allowing other units’ deployment changed when his ASCSD became known as the Achilles heel in Tripoli’s defences, with Haftar’s coalition—and later, Wagner mercenaries —concentrating on penetrating Tripoli through Abu Salim and its vicinity as the war went on.

The official end of the offensive on Tripoli in June of 2020 represented another defining moment for Ghaniwa’s ASCSD. While the anti-Haftar ‘Volcano of Wrath’ coalition had emerged victorious thanks to an influx of Turkish support, Ghaniwa was left weakened and vulnerable. His ASCSD’s military performance during the war was lacklustre, and his ranks had suffered losses. Moreover, his group had not benefited significantly from Turkish security assistance, unlike other peers from western Libya.

In addition, many Volcano of Wrath-aligned units—predominantly Misratan—resented Ghaniwa and his ASCSD for their role in evicting revolutionary groups from the capital after the signing of the LPA. To make matters worse, the TRB—one of the ASCSD’s powerful allies in Tripoli—had also experienced significant fragmentation in the aftermath of the war. Therefore, despite gaining credit for helping to defend the capital, Ghaniwa was left isolated. Nevertheless, capitalizing once again on the political climate, Ghaniwa leveraged the weakness and international isolation of the GNA and its prime minister, Fayez al-Serraj, to reconsolidate once more.

Serraj had, by then, grown weary of the ambitions of then GNA Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha to replace him as prime minister. Against the backdrop of an impending political dialogue, under the aegis of the UN, aimed at replacing the GNA, Prime Minister al-Serraj became even more desperate. He sought to secure the support of Tripoli-based groups against the Misratan Bashagha, who had eyes on the presidency. Bashagha had campaigned on the promise to reform security, dismantle Tripoli’s cartel, and counter human smuggling groups west of Libya.

In a masterstroke of expedience, Ghaniwa brought figures targeted by Bashagha under one umbrella, convincing Serraj to institutionalize a new armed group, dubbed the SSA, under the PC. For Serraj, the rationale was simply to secure the support of Ghaniwa and other groups in order to thwart Bashagha’s attempts to replace him. But for Ghaniwa, the SSA was a vehicle to reconsolidate, rebrand, and project influence.

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Adam Hakan is a researcher specializing in the study of armed groups in the Middle East and North Africa. His expertise includes analysing the role of rebel and armed factions in state politics, armed group governance and mobilization strategies, conflict economies, and the interplay between armed groups and international actors.

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Small Arms Survey

Hafed Al-Ghwell

The rapprochement between Turkiye and Egypt, after years of frigid relations, heralds a new era of regional diplomacy, with consequential ripples across the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. The detente, crystallized by a series of diplomatic exchanges and culminating in a significant state visit by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Egypt, marks a turning of the page on bilateral tensions.

This warming of relations between Cairo and Ankara is especially significant for Libya, a nation that has been afflicted by internal divisions and foreign meddling since the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The Egypt-Turkiye rift has had profound implications for Libya, partly contributing to the country’s east-west leadership divide amid the complex interplay of geopolitical interests and regional dynamics.
Both countries have become involved in Libya, with differing objectives and methods. Turkiye’s support for the UN-recognized Government of National Accord has been multifaceted, including military assistance, the deployment of Syrian mercenaries, and diplomatic backing.

This support culminated in a maritime delimitation deal, signed by Ankara and the GNA in 2019 with the aim of securing Turkiye’s interests in western Libya and parts of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Military reinforcements provided by Turkiye, particularly ahead of the GNA’s counteroffensive in 2020, proved crucial in helping to repel the advance of the rival Libyan National Army toward Tripoli, leading to an enduring strategic stalemate.

Egypt, meanwhile, has primarily backed the LNA, led by Khalifa Haftar, through the provision of military aid and political support. Cairo’s involvement is driven by concerns about border security, Islamist militants, and a desire for a friendly regime in eastern Libya. Its support for the LNA includes a declaration that Sirte, a strategically located city, represents a “red line” for Egyptian national security, and authorization for troop deployments to support the LNA.

This backing is also rooted in a broader regional strategy to contain Islamist militancy, which Cairo perceives as a threat to domestic stability. The involvement of Egypt and Turkiye is just one aspect of the broader proxy dimensions to Libya’s internal struggles, with each country supporting its respective allies through military, logistical, and diplomatic means.

This external support has not only exacerbated Libya’s internal fragmentation, it has also complicated peace efforts by reinforcing the military and political divisions between the GNA in the west and the LNA in the east. The deadlock has been further cemented by the strategic importance of Libya’s vast oil and gas resources, over which both rival factions seek control, with significant implications for the nation’s long-term economic stability and sovereignty.

Against this backdrop, Egypt-Turkiye rapprochement presents an incredible opportunity for the two nations to recalibrate their roles amid geopolitical realignments and shared concerns, potentially fostering an environment more conducive to Libya’s future reconciliation.

The political fragmentation in Libya, made worse by the postponement of elections, is at a critical juncture where joint mediation by Egypt and Turkiye could help foster unity and stability. If both Cairo and Ankara were to take steps to leverage their influence in ways that facilitate an inclusive and irreproachable electoral process in Libya, it could serve as a cornerstone of their changing roles and afford both countries opportunities to preempt the emergence of shared threats.

Given their respective influence on Libyan factions, a cooperative approach by Egypt and Turkiye could significantly advance the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration process in the country. This is particularly relevant during the disarmament and demobilization phases, in which both countries could leverage their relationships with Libyan armed groups and foreign mercenaries in a push toward peace-building efforts. An effective disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration process is vital for the transition of combatants into civilian life, thereby reducing the power of militias and facilitating national unity.

Moreover, renewed cooperation would also help, albeit for different reasons. Given the potential for a fast-tracked €7.4 billion ($8 billion) check from Brussels for its help to combat the flow of migrants to Europe, Egypt has an even greater incentive to shore up its efforts to do so. Turkiye wants to protect its strategic and economic interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, while Egypt has not been shy about prioritizing the integrity of its western border, while also seeking to ensure safety and employment opportunities for Egyptian workers in Libya.

A cooperative stance on Libya would also greatly aid in efforts to mitigate the potential threats emanating from a volatile subregion, given the intensifying civil war in neighboring Sudan and a failed coup in Chad.

Egyptian and Turkish support for what is likely to be rapid post-transition economic and social development in Libya is another area in which their rapprochement can potentially have an impact. Investments in infrastructure, education, and healthcare, which will be essential for the reconstruction of Libya, could benefit from joint initiatives by Cairo and Ankara.

Not only would this help advance the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration process by facilitating the reintegration of former combatants into civilian life, it would promote social cohesion. This would in turn help a nascent, unified government to swiftly and effectively address the socioeconomic fragilities that often enrage an embittered public, as seen repeatedly in post-invasion Iraq.

The current detente between Egypt and Turkiye signals a departure from their historically competitive relationship, creating a platform for a more harmonized approach in Libya and parts of the Eastern Mediterranean where frictions persist. Though challenges remain, given the deeply entrenched regional and international interests in Libya, an alignment of objectives by Cairo and Ankara could promote a more stable and unified nation. This will entail a cautious but concerted effort to address electoral delays and security issues, thereby setting Libya on a trajectory of sustainable development and reform of governance.

The shift in dynamics toward cooperation between Egypt and Turkiye offers a unique opportunity for both nations to recalibrate their approaches to Libya. While there are still obstacles to overcome, including the reconciliation of differing national agendas and navigation of local complexities, shared strategic interests and the potential benefits of a stable Libya invite a rare note of cautious optimism.
A successful partnership between Egypt and Turkiye in Libya could serve as a cornerstone for broader regional peace and cooperation.

Instead of serving as a battleground for regional rivalries, Libya could benefit from becoming a theater of cooperation, in which the confluence of Egyptian and Turkish interests support the construction of a cohesive and prosperous state. The key to achieving this vision lies in maintaining steady momentum in the process of rapprochement between Egypt and Turkiye, immune from other geopolitical perturbations, and the translation of diplomatic cordiality into effective collaboration on the Libyan file.

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Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

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Herman Wang &Kelly Norways

HIGHLIGHTS

• Subsidies, Russian supplies fuel illicit Libyan oil trade
• Russian oil exports hit by Ukraine’s refinery attacks
• Soaring subsidies pressuring Libya’s foreign reserves

Ukraine’s intense campaign of drone attacks on Russia’s refineries may squeeze a lucrative illicit oil trade more than 4,000 km away in Libya that has already inflamed political tensions in the volatile North African country.

Sources in Libya say fuel is regularly imported from Russia via middlemen in Turkey, in a trade route that has emerged for Moscow over the past year as it seeks new oil customers in the face of stringent Western sanctions and the EU’s import ban over the invasion of Ukraine.

But little of that oil stays in the country, with much of the cargo allegedly smuggled out of Libya’s porous southern borders into Sudan, where local sources and analysts say it is siphoned to Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia.

The RSF, who are reportedly backed by the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, then in some cases reexport the fuel, including to Europe, generating billions of dollars in profit and fueling its civil war against the Sudanese Armed Forces, sources allege.

But in recent weeks, Russia has sustained heavy losses to its refinery capacity due to Ukraine’s attacks, impacting product flows as the Kremlin seeks to safeguard fuel supplies for its military and population centers ahead of peak summer demand. Russia has banned gasoline exports for six months from March 1, while rising diesel prices could trigger further intervention.

That may force the smugglers to find other fuel supplies to maintain Libya’s black market trade, a recent flashpoint between Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeiba and his critics, including former ally Siddiq al-Kabir, the head of Libya’s central bank.

By the central bank’s accounting, the amount of gasoline and diesel being imported into the country should be more than enough to satisfy domestic demand. And yet, locals regularly report fuel shortages and long queues at filling stations.

Subsidies paid by the government for all goods have ballooned from 20.8 billion dinars in 2021 to 61 billion dinars in 2023, of which 41 billion dinars was for fuel, Kabir has repeatedly noted in recent weeks.

“This exceeds the needs of the national economy and confirms that a large portion of this fuel, it is smuggled abroad,” Kabir wrote in a pointed March 21 letter to Dbeiba, criticizing his handling of the economy.

“Moreover, the fuel subsidy bill is expected to grow during the year 2024, according to the National Oil Corp. In this regard, the government has not taken the necessary measures to address this phenomenon.”

Dbeiba, for his part, has rejected Kabir’s criticisms and said the Libyan economy is in strong shape, though in a March 18 meeting of the Supreme Council for Energy and Water Affairs, he called for NOC and its affiliated companies to “focus on the principle of disclosure and transparency in all implemented programs.”

Dbeiba’s office did not respond to request for comment.

Porous borders

Libya, an OPEC member and holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, pumped 1.14 million b/d of crude in February, according to the latest Platts survey of the group’s output by S&P Global Commodity Insights. Much of that crude is exported to Europe, as Libya’s refining sector remains decimated by decades of civil war, with production of some 140,000 b/d of products from the Zawiya refinery and other limited facilities.

Refining capacity limitations have left Libya reliant on hefty fuel imports to meet domestic demand, prompting a pivot to cheap Russian supply in the wake of the war with Ukraine. According to S&P Global Commodities at Sea data, refined product flows from Russia to Libya were up almost tenfold on the year in 2023.

Some 60,600 b/d of gasoil, gasoline and naphtha flowed between the two countries in 2023, up from just 6,800 b/d in 2022, snatching market share from Mediterranean gasoil suppliers, as around half of the 8-10 cargoes bound for Libya have been fulfilled by Russian supply, according to traders.

The fuel is sold at subsidized rates of 3 cents/liter at retail, a legacy of the Qadhafi regime, making smuggling and black-market sales a vastly lucrative trade and an open secret amongst the various groups vying for power in the country.

“External sanctions and active intervention have curbed the ability of non-state actors to conduct crude sales, but subsidized products can be sold to neighboring states at higher prices, offering a tempting illegal source of revenues for those in border areas as well as organized gangs and militias,” said Catherine Hunter, who heads North African E&P risk analysis for S&P Global Commodity Insights, in a recent report on the country’s oil governance.

 The issue could come to a head soon, as Russian oil exports have slumped in recent weeks due to the flurry of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Already, product shipments to Libya have suffered. According to S&P Global Commodities at Sea, Russian diesel and gasoline exports to Libya breached 100,000 b/d for the first time on record in January, up 35% on the month, but have since more than halved to 48,000 b/d in March, though some volumes of dark fleet shipments may not be fully captured in the data.

Diesel exports, typically accounting for the bulk of supplies, have suffered the sharpest volume declines, with gasoil flows falling from 68,300 b/d in January to 40,000 b/d in March, the CAS figures show. Russian gasoline flows to Libya fell 76% in the same span to just 7,600 b/d.

Entrenched subsidies

The dramatic changes in flows leave Libya in a potentially precarious position, with the growing criticism of fuel smuggling threatening the tenuous hold of Dbeiba’s UN-backed Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli. A rival Government of National Stability (GNS) supported by the Libyan National Army is seated in Benghazi.

Kabir and his allies accuse Dbeiba of turning a blind eye to the smuggling and are pressuring the prime minister to reform the subsidy program, which is draining the country’s foreign reserves.

NOC Chairman Farhat Bengdara, whose controversial appointment to the position in 2022 was seen as a compromise between the GNU and the GNS, has also come under scrutiny.

Mohamed al-Menfi, who chairs the presidential council, has launched an investigation into the NOC’s handling of the country’s fuel imports and alleged smuggling, The Guardian newspaper reported March 25. Bengdara’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Adding to the turmoil, Libyan oil minister Mohammed Aoun, who has feuded with the NOC over oil revenues, was suspended March 25 by the country’s Administrative Control Agency due to a legal investigation, which could be related to opposition to deals with international oil companies, sources told S&P Global Commodity Insights. The ministry and Aoun declined to comment, while Aoun denied being served a suspension order March 25.

Meanwhile, the revenues generated by the smuggling are also perpetuating the civil war in Sudan that forced South Sudan to declare force majeure on its roughly 150,000 b/d of crude exports that flow via pipeline through its northern neighbor.

Illiasse Sdiqui, an associate director with Libya-focused security firm Whispering Bell, said the government’s inability to track fuel transport and consumption has allowed the smuggling to flourish. Removing the subsidies that encourage the trade would be a major political risk that could destabilize the already fractured country, he added.

“It is an established trade involving multiple stakeholders that have grown more sophisticated at re-exporting the smuggled fuel, either to neighboring countries by road or by sea from eastern ports,” Sdiqui said. “Instability in neighboring Sudan has exacerbated the issue because demand for smuggled fuel increased.”

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Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

B. The black market for fuel

The most distinctive aspect of Zawiya’s illicit economy is the city’s function as a key node in the black market for fuel. The structure of this market, and the role of armed groups in it, has changed significantly since 2011; its current form therefore has to be understood as the product of its successive iterations.

From Zawiya’s refinery, both imported and locally produced fuels are distributed across the entire region west of Tripoli, including the Nafusa mountains. Vehicle oil produced in Zawiya supplies the entire Libyan market.

Brega Petroleum Marketing Company, which is fully owned by the NOC, operates fuel depots in Zawiya and other key hubs across Libya. Distribution is managed by four subsidiary companies of Brega—Libya Oil, al-Rahila, al-Sharara, and al-Turuq al-Sari’a. These distribution companies operate stations that should sell fuel at heavily subsidized prices set by the state.

Octane-95, for example, officially costs LYD 0.15 (around USD 0.025–0.03 at 2023 black market currency prices) per liter. The resulting differential with world market prices made fuel smuggling to neighbouring countries a highly lucrative business even during the Qaddafi era. But after 2011, and particularly from 2014 onwards, the scale of fuel smuggling operations increased significantly.

Prior to 2011, the combined amount of petrol and diesel distributed from Zawiya was around 1.2 million liters per week; the weekly amount increased after 2011 and, by 2023, had reached an average of four million liters. Fuel stations multiplied, most of which were ghost stations that existed only on paper or were closed to the public, but sold the fuel they bought at official prices on the black market.

The black market for fuel distributed from the Zawiya refinery developed into a large scale, organized racket during the period of Zawiya’s isolation from Tripoli, from 2015 onwards. During the first half of 2015, fuel distribution from Zawiya towards the Nafusa mountains—from where some fuel was typically smuggled on to Tunisia—was heavily disrupted by road closures, as forces from Warshafana and Zintan clashed with Libya Dawn-aligned Amazigh communities.

At that time, far greater amounts of fuel were distributed to Zuwara, where organized networks with international ties were using tankers to illegally sell fuel to counterparts in Italy, Malta, and beyond— most notoriously to the network led by Fahmi Khalifa. Given the new scale of smuggling from Zuwara, these networks had to operate in collusion with elements in the distribution companies and the refinery—where Kashlaf’s Nasr Battalion had officially acted as the Support Force of the local PFG unit since July 2014, and therefore controlled all fuel trucks leaving the complex.

The need for Zuwaran smugglers to strike arrangements with Kashlaf was even greater given that Kashlaf cooperated closely with coastguard officer Milad, who could intercept tankers on the sea. Similar arrangements straddling the PFG unit, distribution companies, and gas station owners then took root with smugglers in Nalut. Armed groups along the way, not knowing which shipments were legitimate and which ones were destined to be smuggled, began demanding payments from all fuel trucks passing through their checkpoints. This was notably the case in Bir Ayad, a key node for access to the Nafusa mountains and the Tunisian border at Wazin.

In mid-2016, a PFG officer from Zintan began manning a checkpoint at Bir Ayad, where he made fuel trucks pay a toll of LYD 1,000 (around USD 230 at the time) at first, then LYD 6,000 (around USD 720 at the time) per truck by March 2017. Multiple such checkpoints appeared along all roads from Zawiya towards the Tunisian border, including along the coastal road. As a consequence, the fuel was no longer available at official prices, and fuel stations had to close.

According to municipal officials in the Nafusa mountains, any local attempts to clamp down on fuel smuggling triggered a complete suspension of fuel supplies from the Zawiya refinery—with some at the time explicitly blaming Kashlaf for such retaliation. As a result, fuel was no longer only smuggled abroad, but also sold at a black market premium to local consumers. In 2017, this even became the case in Zawiya itself, although the city was home to the refinery.

During 2017 and 2018, the share of the local black market—as opposed to smuggling destined for Tunisia—increased further because Tunisian security forces policed the border more heavily. Moreover, Fahmi Khalifa was arrested in August 2017 and his network dismantled; thereafter, fuel smuggling by sea from Zuwara devolved into multiple smaller-scale operations. From Bridge 27 in Warshafana to the Tunisian border, fuel at official prices was available only in limited quantities—if at all—from mid-2017, requiring buyers to wait long hours in queues.

Instead, it was sold at fluctuating prices along the road by sub-Saharan African migrants, who in turn were working for black market traders closely linked to armed groups. In February 2023, for example, 20 litres sold for around LYD 8 (around USD 1.6) in Zawiya (or LYD 0.4 (USD 0.08) per litre) and LYD 10 (USD 1.9) in Sabratha, though prices had previously been significantly higher at times, and rose again towards the end of 2023.

Fuel was therefore sold in the domestic black market at more than double the official price, and smuggled abroad for much more. With a weekly supply of around four million litres, this meant that the black market for fuel distributed from Zawiya was worth at least LYD 310 million (around USD 60 million at 2023 prices) per year, and likely multiple times that. Arrangements between the armed groups controlling these flows constantly evolved, as did the routes, and attempts to renegotiate arrangements regularly provoked conflict.

From October 2017 onwards, fuel destined for the border area at Regdalein and Zuwara could no longer move along the coast, since Sabratha had been taken over by forces that were de facto loyal to Haftar. Forced to circumvent Sabratha via Bir Ghanem, fuel trucks provided a boon to Trabelsi, whose force manned a checkpoint there. Later, in December 2017, Kashlaf reportedly prevented trucks from leaving the refinery, in an apparent dispute over the distribution of profits. That quarrel was solved by negotiations led by Ali Buzriba the following month.

Meanwhile, Kashlaf tightened his control over the refinery by repeatedly resorting to violence, sending men to beat up managers or vandalize their offices. Another dispute illustrates how armed groups were infiltrating the distribution companies. Throughout 2018, the engine oil produced at the refinery could not be distributed, as competing criminal networks associated with armed groups in and around Zawiya disagreed on how to split the substantial profits to be reaped by selling it on the black market.

A kilogram of engine oil cost LYD 2 (around USD 0.3 at the time) officially, but sold for more than ten times that price on the black market. By November 2018, the amount stored in the refinery had reportedly reached one million kilograms, and production had to be suspended. The armed groups disputing each other’s right to sell the oil had helped set up competing boards of Brega’s Sharara subsidiary: Kashlaf had backed the registration of a Sharara administration in Zawiya; the head of the Fursan Janzur militia, Naji Gneidi, controlled the administration based at the company’s original headquarters in Janzur; Kikli had another Sharara administration registered in Abu Salim; and the Salafist-leaning Criminal Investigations Department in Zawiya’s Mutrid district reportedly backed a fourth administration.

The Tripoli war—which caused the flight of Gneidi, the dismantling of the Mutrid Criminal Investigations Department, and a convergence of interests between Kashlaf and Kikli— then allowed for the dispute to be resolved and production to resume. Over time, then, tight networks formed that straddled armed groups, black market traders, and the management of the distribution companies. Establishing responsibility for black market sales was increasingly difficult, since the distribution companies’ sales to gas stations all had legitimate paperwork; at times, fuel would also change hands several times before ending up in the hands of black market traders.

The attorney general occasionally tried to contain the phenomenon by prosecuting gas station owners who were not selling the fuel they had received to the public. But these efforts had no lasting impact. The Zuwara area saw a resurgence in fuel smuggling by sea; one of the illegal storage facilities hit by GNU drone strikes in May and June 2023 reportedly held two million litres of petrol.

The strikes targeted fuel smuggling locations across western coastal cities, and caused fuel sellers to vanish from the streets overnight as black market traders chose to lay low. After an interval of around a week, gas stations began reopening to sell fuel at the official price, though not yet in quantities sufficient to satisfy demand. By August, however, the quantities of fuel available at the official price began decreasing again in cities west of Zawiya, and black market sales resumed, including in Zawiya itself eventually. The black market for fuel therefore remains a key feature of Zawiya’s militia economy at the time of writing.

***

Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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The Rise of the Stability Support Apparatus as Hegemon

Adam Hakan

Opportunism and the aftermath of Fajr Libya

Despite suffering a heavy loss to Zintani units in June 2013, Ghaniwa’s bout of conflict with them earned him the praises of the self-proclaimed revolutionary camp within the capital and beyond it. At the time, political and military stakeholders with ties in the Islamist or hard-line revolutionary milieus considered themselves to represent the bulwark against a burgeoning anti-revolutionary movement sweeping the region.

In Libya, this movement was perceived by political Islamists and hard-line revolutionaries to be masterminded by their political opponent in the GNC, the National Forces Alliance (NFA). By extension, Zintani factions in the capital also represented a threat, given their alignment and ties with the NFA. Further compounding revolutionary antagonism towards Zintani units was their reconciliation with regime-era officers, and the subsequent recruitment of these officers

into their ranks.22 Perceiving that the NFA was orchestrating a soft coup at best, or a comeback of the Qaddafi regime at worst, Islamist and revolutionary armed actors scrambled in May 2013 to force the GNC to pass a sweeping Political Isolation Law that barred thousands of Libyan officials from holding office.

This use of force for political goals occurred a month before clashes between Ghaniwa and Zintani units erupted in June. Viewed in this context, the clash between Zintani factions and the Military Council-aligned Ghaniwa was the first instance of revolutionaries and their opponents violently colliding.

This backdrop was a windfall for Ghaniwa, as he easily claimed revolutionary creed, soliciting the support of Islamists and revolutionary forces to rebuild and reconsolidate. Burki’s links within the GNC were instrumental in this endeavour, and Ghaniwa regained his footing in Abu Salim thanks to his support. Ghaniwa subsequently squarely positioned himself with the revolutionary coalition to benefit from their military support.

When Khalifa Haftar launched Operation Dignity in May of 2014, Zintani units aligned with Haftar in Tripoli stormed the GNC headquarters in Abu Salim. This pitted Ghaniwa against Zintani units once more and paved the way for Ghaniwa’s eventual alignment with the Fajr Libya operation. Launched in July 2014 by a coalition of revolutionaries and Islamists under the aegis of Misrata’s Military Council, the operation’s immediate military goal was to dislodge Zintani units from the capital’s Airport Road and International Airport.

Burki’s Abu Salim Military Council aligned with Fajr Libya, and, by extension, so did Ghaniwa. Revolutionaries and Islamists within the GNC were also quick to announce support for the operation. After weeks of fighting, the coalition’s military goal succeeded: Zintani forces were evicted from the capital, but Tripoli’s International Airport was no longer operational due to the violent clashes. The destructive nature of the war, coupled with the evacuation of most diplomatic staff and the destruction of Tripoli’s then only civilian airport, had a disproportionately negative impact on the Libyan population.

Despite succeeding in ousting Zintani units, the pyrrhic nature of the victory in the 2014 civil war became an albatross of unpopularity for the Fajr Libya coalition. Retreating from Tripoli, Zintani forces opted to target the town of Kikla—Ghaniwa’s hometown situated 150 kilometres south-west of Tripoli—which was suspected of being prepared as a launching pad for Fajr Libya’s units to potentially attack Zintan. This was a defining moment for Ghaniwa, who mobilized in October 2014 to his native city to defend it alongside his Tripoli-based cadre with roots in Kikla.

Some of the deadliest fighting seen in Libya’s post-revolutionary history raged in Kikla for weeks; despite benefiting from substantial military support from the Fajr Libya coalition, Ghaniwa’s group and Kikla’s revolutionaries were defeated, retreating to Tripoli. Some 4,000 households in Kikla were also internally displaced as Zintan occupied their town after indiscriminate shelling. Ghaniwa saw this defeat as an opportunity, offering the majority of Kikla’s displaced families free shelter in an incomplete residential project in Abu Salim’s vicinity. He also recruited their youth—most of whom he had already armed and fought with in Kikla—into his SSC unit.

Fajr Libya’s aftermath was a turning point for Ghaniwa’s group in Abu Salim. The recruitment of Kikla’s displaced youth into his group significantly expanded its ranks. Moreover, Ghaniwa had also retained an arsenal of heavy weaponry—notably tanks and cannons—provided by Misrata’s Military Council during the fighting in Kikla. Just months after Ghaniwa’s defeat in Kikla, the head of the Abu Salim Council, Burki, died in clashes against Haftar-aligned units in Aziziya in March 2015.

Despite Burki’s brother Ammru replacing him at the helm, the Military Council’s influence waned, gradually overshadowed by Ghaniwa’s now more powerful SSC unit. This marked the first instance of Ghaniwa being the dominant force in Abu Salim—ironically emerging as a winner on the back of successive military defeats.

Rebranding and the rise of the Abu Salim hegemon

The aftermath of the conflict in 2014 and the political transformations that came about in its wake had a significant impact on Tripoli’s security landscape. First, the GNC-linked, self-styled National Salvation Government established in August 2014, although internationally unrecognized, reconfigured the institutional affiliations of armed groups in the capital.

Formed as a war cabinet, the newly established executive’s Ministry of Interior set up a Central Security Apparatus in Tripoli to improve security in the capital, the only real territory controlled by the government. This decision provided an avenue for Ghaniwa—among others—to secure a new affiliation for his Abu Salim-based group.

This quest for a new affiliation was due to an Interior Ministry decree issued the previous year stipulating the dissolution of the SSC by the end of 2013, a decision that compromised Ghaniwa’s institutional affiliation to the state. Ghaniwa’s SSC unit, now strengthened with fresh recruits and newly acquired weapons, became the Abu Salim Central Security Directorate (ASCSD).

A second dynamic that impacted Tripoli’s security was the by-product of the fragmentation of the Fajr Libya coalition and the then ongoing UN-led Skhirat talks to form a unity government. This led to increased tensions between Tripoli-based groups—including Ghaniwa’s—over their preferred political blueprint for the way forward and their stances vis-à-vis the dialogue process.

These tensions soon came to a head, with the Skhirat talks culminating in the signing of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) in December of 2015, which stipulated the establishment of the Presidency Council (PC) and the formation of an inclusive Government of National Accord (GNA). But the LPA’s section on interim security arrangements, which was meant to guarantee the newly established PC’s arrival in Tripoli, was deliberately left vague.

These arrangements were crucial as Tripoli was still dominated by armed groups that had mobilized as part of Fajr Libya, and was also the seat of the National Salvation Government, which rejected the LPA. Bishr, former head of the now dissolved SSC, returned to Tripoli shortly after the signing of the LPA as the informal intermediate between the PC’s Security Arrangements Committee and the capital’s armed groups.

Charged with securing the arrival of the PC, Bishr relied primarily on his network in his native Suq al-Jum’a to build a pro-PC coalition. His immediate priorities were to secure the support of the Special Deterrence Force (SDF), which controlled Mitiga airport, and the Nawasi Battalion, which controlled the port and naval base.35 Sensing the inevitable

wind of change with the arrival of the PC through the Nawasi-controlled Busitta naval base in March 2016, Ghaniwa and Tripoli Revolutionaries Battalion (TRB) commander Haitham al-Tajuri, both of whom had links to Bishr through the SSC, decided to side with the new PC. The PC subsequently opted to weaponize language around security arrangements in the LPA, which stipulated ‘the withdrawal of armed formations from cities’. Opportunistically, some Tripoli based armed groups used the UN process and the institutions it produced to gain legitimacy, thus doing the PC’s bidding.

Now rebranding his Ministry of Interior-affiliated unit as a policing and counter-criminal force, Ghaniwa and his ASCSD leveraged the international community’s blinkered quest for stability in Tripoli to take on local enemies and evict them from the capital. While the broad faultlines for conflict in Tripoli were indeed structured along rifts between supporters and opponents of the GNA, ambitions for expansion, territorial consolidation, and a desire to assert control over state-linked institutions and facilities were also at play, particularly in Abu Salim. This paved the way for Ghaniwa’s rise as a hegemon in Abu Salim.

From 2016 to 2017, Ghaniwa, acting in concert with a clique of other Tripoli-based pro GNA groups, moved against opponents. In a fateful turn of events, the ASCSD first turned on its old ally, the Abu Salim Military Council—which had rebranded as the ‘Martyr Salah al-Burki Battalion’—in early 2016. Clashes over territory with the Burki Battalion were commonplace in Abu Salim throughout 2016, and the force was eventually pushed south of Abu Salim and towards al-Hadhba in February 2017.

Ghaniwa had also clashed with Misratan forces in al-Hadhba throughout 2016, soliciting Tajuri’s support in his effort to push them out of his territory. In March 2017, Ghaniwa expanded further, evicting the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group-linked Ihsan Brigade from its last holdout in Nasr forest and, with the help of Tajuri’s TRB, dislodging the pro-GNC Presidential Security Force units from the vicinity of Rixos Hotel near Abu Salim. Disgruntled with Ghaniwa, a coalition of forces led by Misratan commanders Mohamed Baaiou and Salah Badi launched multiple unsuccessful assaults on the ASCSD in May 2017.

Ghaniwa and Tajuri eventually ended this threat by pushing these forces outside of Tripoli’s administrative borders in July, seizing the strategic Hadhba prison and its highly prized inmates in the process. In under two years, Ghaniwa had risen to dominate Abu Salim, asserting control over Rixos, the seat of the new LPA-established High State Council, the strategic Hospitality Palaces, and the Nasr forest. This cemented the oligopoly of a so-called ‘militia quartet’—the Nawasi, the SDF, the TRB, and the ASCSD—in the capital and Ghaniwa’s hegemony over Abu Salim.

***

Adam Hakan is a researcher specializing in the study of armed groups in the Middle East and North Africa. His expertise includes analysing the role of rebel and armed factions in state politics, armed group governance and mobilization strategies, conflict economies, and the interplay between armed groups and international actors.

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Small Arms Survey

Youssef Mohammad Sawani

Once awash in oil wealth, Libya has been trapped in what seems like a state of perpetual crisis since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. While civil war and conflict over the past 13 years have left Libya broken, the country’s woes are still deeply rooted in the legacy of Gadhafi’s four-decade rule.

While Gadhafi provided a degree of stability and directed oil revenues toward social programs, it came at a heavy cost. Economic diversification was stifled; entire sectors remained underdeveloped. Dependence on oil and state handouts flourished, with limited opportunities for entrepreneurship and private enterprise, which left the economy vulnerable to fluctuations in global oil prices. With his regime’s iron fist suppressing any political dissent, Gadhafi eliminated not only any democratic governance, but a wider culture of open discourse and political participation. Libya lacked any institutions or mechanisms for a peaceful transfer of power, as Gadhafi intended.

In 2011, the uprising of the Arab Spring capitalized on all these vulnerabilities. Gadhafi’s regime crumbled when NATO intervened to back rebel forces, but a power vacuum soon emerged, creating fertile ground for more foreign intervention that continues to this day—with the United States, Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Algeria, Italy and France all vying for influence, but each with their own strategic and economic interests. This external meddling continues to exacerbate internal divisions, hindering national reconciliation. Some foreign actors have supported rival factions in Libya’s divided east and west, fueling the flames of conflict.

The 2011 uprising unleashed a new wave of violence as those rival factions, some ideological and Islamist, others purely opportunistic, fought for power. Their backing by foreign powers created a complex web of allegiances and rivalries. This fragmented landscape became a breeding ground for extremism and unrest, constantly hindering attempts at rebuilding war-torn infrastructure and establishing a unified national government that was democratic, accountable and inclusive.

The international community, particularly the United Nations mission in Libya, known as UNSMIL, has prioritized holding elections as a path toward stability, despite many warnings that rushing into elections without addressing the root causes of instability is a recipe for disaster. Elections are not a quick fix.

Flawed elections held without a genuine commitment to democratic principles risk worsening Libya’s many underlying problems and sidelining vital issues like reconciliation. They would also alienate younger Libyans, a large segment of whom expresses frustration at the country’s political and economic quagmire, yearning for either a return to a bygone era of (perceived) stability or a strong leader to restore order, even if it comes at the expense of democratic freedoms.

The many different armed groups in Libya, some with entrenched economic interests in the current chaos, act as spoilers, obstructing any prospect for national reconciliation and political reform. The lack of consensus on key issues like the constitution and how to either disarm or incorporate armed groups within a national security framework further complicates matters.

The dreams of elections and a unified Libyan government are held hostage by the latest domestic power struggles and interminable international meddling. Governmental authority itself is bitterly and physically divided—between the House of Representatives in Tobruk (Libya’s parliament), the internationally recognized Government of National Unity in Tripoli, and the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar. The latest divisions have been over electoral laws that could benefit military figures like Haftar. Meanwhile, armed militias continue to operate with impunity, eroding any sense of central authority.

The human cost of this ongoing crisis is staggering. Libya’s economy is in freefall, with many Libyans facing acute shortages of basic necessities because of a shrinking dinar and soaring prices. Delayed salary payments and cash shortages add to the daily struggles, especially during Ramadan, a time of traditionally higher spending. The recent decision by the speaker of the House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, to accept the Central Bank governor’s proposal to impose a controversial 27 percent tax—which many Libyans dub the corruption tax—on foreign currency exchange has made the situation even worse, as economists had warned. The tax essentially adds a surcharge on top of the official exchange rate when converting dinars to foreign currencies, most commonly the U.S. dollar.

Caught in a political stalemate with no end in sight, Libyans face a bleak future, forced to endure hardship while their leaders prioritize personal gain over national reconciliation. The lack of effective solutions has led to widespread disillusionment, with trust in government collapsing. The economic consequences of this political paralysis are devastating: The once-stable Libyan dinar has plummeted in value by a stunning 66 percent since 2010. This devaluation has triggered a domino effect of economic woes. Food prices have skyrocketed by nearly 50 percent in just the past year. Businesses hesitate to invest in such an unpredictable environment, further stagnating growth.

In Tripoli, the internationally recognized Government of National Unity, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, appears more focused on clinging to power than pulling Libya out of the abyss. Dbeibah has based his premiership on populist policies and a surge in government spending, often tainted by corruption allegations. Critics argue that these strategies aim to secure public support, appease powerful militias or make concessions to foreign countries in a bid to extend his term. The consequences of these maneuvers are evident in Libya’s financial mess.

Efforts to control inflation through price controls have proven unsuccessful, with the persistent depreciation of the dinar fueling public anger. This discontent has given rise to the parallel Government of National Stability, based in the east with the backing of the House of Representatives in Tobruk. It has echoed concerns raised by the Central Bank about alleged financial mismanagement by Dbeibah’s government. The Government of National Stability aims to capitalize on public disillusionment, although its legitimacy is disputed by those who see it as a tool of Haftar while the House of Representatives is embroiled in its own political disputes.

The Central Bank, meanwhile, finds itself in a precarious position, with the bank’s governor, Siddiq al-Kabir, caught in a tug-of-war with Dbeibeh’s government in Tripoli. The bank is home to Africa’s largest foreign exchange reserves and has been described as “the sputtering heart of Libya’s oil-fueled economy.” Under Kabir, the bank has assumed even more power over Libya’s fractured political landscape, as one of the few functioning state institutions since 2011. Government spending has become impossible without the involvement of the Central Bank, and Kabir himself. But the bank has also come under more scrutiny, and Kabir has been criticized for his interventions in the economy and perceived lack of transparency.

In a move to steady the dinar, Kabir proposed the new 27 percent tax on foreign currency transactions, effectively devaluing the currency. The tax, according to Kabir, will generate an estimated $12 billion in revenue to help pay off public debt and fund development projects. The combined effect of the tax is expected to yield an exchange rate between 5.95 and 6.15 dinars to the U.S. dollar. The Central Bank last set the exchange rate in late 2020 at 4.8 dinars to the dollar, after different exchange rates were in effect for years across Libya in different areas controlled by rival factions (in 2011, the exchange rate was 1.22 dinars to the dollar).

While Kabir stresses the need for long-term economic recovery and is publicly pushing for the establishment of a unified government and unified national budget—which is seen as a direct challenge to Dbeibeh—his previous political maneuvering have eroded public confidence in the Central Bank. Many Libyans suspect the bank prioritizes the financial needs of powerful figures and militias—in part, as a way for Kabir to buy loyalty and keep himself in his position as Central Bank governor. There’s also skepticism about the bank’s actual ability to prop up the economy, given the scale of Libya’s economic collapse.

Most devastating, though, is the impact of all this on Libyan society. Years of crisis have created a lost generation, as education suffered immensely from Libya’s civil war and ongoing conflict. A country that once ranked high on the U.N.’s human development indicators saw all aspects of daily life suffer after 2011.

Libya was ranked 55 out of 187 countries on the U.N.’s Human Development Index prior to 2011, but fell to 105 out of 189 countries by 2020. The mental and physical health of Libyans has deteriorated significantly, as the ever-present threat of violence and the constant struggle to meet basic needs have taken a toll. Easy access to weapons and the proliferation of armed groups have normalized daily brutality, especially for young people who have grown up amid a culture of impunity. Mental health services are scarce, leaving many Libyans struggling to cope with trauma and anxiety.

Will Libya’s leaders prioritize unity and reconciliation for the sake of the rest of the country, or will they remain disastrously divided? Recent economic indicators suggest another looming crisis that could send Libya into even deeper turmoil. Libyans deserve so much better.

***

Youssef Sawani is Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Tripoli in Libya.

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The Rise of the Stability Support Apparatus as Hegemon

Adam Hakan

The SSA’s checkered journey to dominance … Origins in revolution and early evolution

Ghaniwa was relatively unknown in pre2011 Libya, being an ordinary civilian born in the modest town of Kikla, and owning a bakery in the Um Durman area of Abu Salim. This all changed in August of 2011, against the backdrop of Tripoli slowly falling to revolutionaries who had flocked into the capital from Misrata, Zintan, and the Nafusa mountains.

Seizing the momentum, Ghaniwa mobilized, alongside a dozen residents of Abu Salim from Kikla, to oust regime forces that had made the neighbourhood their last bastion in the capital. Wresting territorial control from retreating regime forces, Ghaniwa and his men captured a regime-era military barrack in the Um Durman area. To this day, the military camp remains Ghaniwa’s main headquarters in Abu Salim.

Tribal affinities played an important role in the formation of Ghaniwa’s early militia group. Because Abu Salim was one of the last regime strongholds in the Libyan capital, some revolutionary groups arriving from outside the capital had naturally moved towards the populated area not only to fight regime forces, but also for war spoils and territory.

Leveraging this dynamic, the then small-time revolutionary commander from Kikla recruited among his hometown’s revolutionary cadre to strengthen his own fledgling militia in Abu Salim. By late 2011, Ghaniwa’s group comprised some 30 to 45 revolutionaries, most of whom were from Kikla. Security pluralism was a defining feature of Libya’s post-revolutionary scene, and Abu Salim was no exception.8 Despite being at the helm of one of the first small groups that mobilized within the neighbourhood, Ghaniwa and his group were far from its most influential unit.

The local Abu Salim Military Council, headed by former Abu Salim prison inmate Salah al-Burki, emerged as the dominant force in Abu Salim in 2011. Hailing from Tarhuna, Burki and his force’s superiority was in large part owed to his own network, which straddled the revolutionary and Islamist milieus because of his personal background. Nevertheless, Ghaniwa could easily claim the mantle of a ‘revolutionary’ then, and, as such, benefited from Burki’s support.

Ghaniwa’s forces nominally operated under the umbrella of Burki’s Abu Salim Military Council, though by and large retained operational independence. In the immediate post-revolution phase, one of the most pronounced social identity markers was communities’ perceived alignment vis-à-vis the revolution. Abu Salim was largely viewed by revolutionary forces with suspicion, and the neighbourhood carries the stigma of being perceived as pro-regime to this very day. The sentiment that the revolution was ‘unfinished’ lingered after Tripoli fell to the rebels, but this ethos was more pronounced in Abu Salim—where revolutionaries securitized the discourse—than elsewhere in Tripoli.

This dynamic was not lost on Ghaniwa, who instrumentalized this perception to his group’s advantage. Arguing that he needed military support to address ‘regime threats’ in Abu Salim, Ghaniwa solicited military support from commanders in the revolutionary dominated neighbourhood of Suq al-Jum’a. This dynamic earned Ghaniwa the goodwill of the revolutionary forces at a time when conspiracies of regime comeback were at an all-time high. In October 2011, Ghaniwa’s group was consequently folded into the Supreme Security Committee (SSC), established by the National Transitional Council.

The appointment of Hashim Bishr, an Islamist from Suq al-Jum’a, at the helm of the Tripoli branch of the SSC proved a boon to Ghaniwa. After cultivating a relationship with Bishr using the same narrative and network, Ghaniwa managed to secure his group some cars and ‘technicals’ fitted with anti-aircraft machine guns through the SSC, and his group became known as the Abu Salim SSC unit. Much like other SSC units, it continued to operate with little to no oversight from the SSC headquarters. For Tripoli-based armed groups, the transition phase that began with

the election of the General National Congress (GNC) in July 2012 was decisive. Libya’s elites had conflicting visions and agendas that bled into the political sphere, toxifying it with zero-sum calculations and impeding meaningful reform and progress. Politico-military alliances grew more salient, and social fragmentation resulted in flash points between local armed groups.

By 2013, citizens had grown disillusioned with post-revolutionary militias across the country due to rampant insecurity. Tripoli, which housed most of Libya’s institutions as well as the seat of the GNC, had become the site of competition between armed groups representing or acting on behalf of the interests of different social and political stakeholders.

A popular trend calling for the expulsion of revolutionary groups from outside Tripoli—perceived as responsible for insecurity—had crystallized in the capital as a result. Despite most of his cadre not originally hailing from Tripoli, Ghaniwa and his militia were viewed by Tripoli’s residents as native to the capital and were therefore held in higher esteem than Tripoli-based Misratan or Zintani counterparts.

Even the Abu Salim Military Council, whose mere name and leadership evoked revolutionary tropes and an association with Islamists, was negatively viewed by the neighbourhood’s residents. Nevertheless, increased social legitimacy had limited effects in practice: Burki and his council continued to trump Ghaniwa and his group’s influence in the neighbourhood.

In 2013, owing to its strategic location, Abu Salim became one of the theatres for friction between Tripoli-based groups—a dynamic that almost spelled the end of Ghaniwa’s group. Indeed, one of the simmering conflicts was between forces aligned with the Islamist-led Abu Salim Military Council—including Ghaniwa’s SSC unit —and the more militarily potent Zintani units based in the capital.

Tensions were partly attributable to Tripoli’s unsustainable security arrangements and the belligerence of Zintani units, which respectively dominated and derived funds from the Abu Salim adjacent Airport Road and International Airport. The alignment of the Abu Salim Military Council and Zintani units with opposing political poles in the GNC compounded this divide.

Repeated confrontations and brinksmanship culminated in a flash-point in Abu Salim in June 2013, with the first recorded instance of post-revolutionary large-scale urban warfare within Abu Salim—pitting Ghaniwa’s unit against Zintani forces. Responding to Ghaniwa having arrested several individuals of Zintani origin on drug trafficking charges, Zintani units in the capital launched offensives on Ghaniwa’s barracks in Abu Salim.

Benefiting from military superiority in both equipment and personnel, Zintan looted the entirety of Ghaniwa’s weapons and vehicles from Abu Salim before retreating, freeing 130 detainees from one of his secret prisons in the process. This first military defeat almost ended Ghaniwa and his SSC unit’s footprint in Abu Salim.

***

Adam Hakan is a researcher specializing in the study of armed groups in the Middle East and North Africa. His expertise includes analysing the role of rebel and armed factions in state politics, armed group governance and mobilization strategies, conflict economies, and the interplay between armed groups and international actors.

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Small Arms Survey

Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

II. Struggling over resources: The militia economy

For Zawiya’s armed groups, the city’s isolation from, and marginalization in, the governments in Tripoli during 2015 and 2018 was a formative period. Groups experienced serious disruptions in access to government funding and official status. Those with revenues from illicit activities became the dominant actors and, on this basis, benefited from significantly greater influence in state institutions from 2019 onwards. The legitimacy and budgets associated with state security institutions facilitated the expansion of armed groups that had become deeply rooted in criminal activities.

Official status was a resource in itself, since it allowed armed groups to man checkpoints or operate migrant detention centres that were major sources of income. A senior military official from Zawiya summed it up: ‘The main drivers behind militia activities are fuel, migrant and drug smuggling’.

Funding from illicit activities, in turn, enabled militia leaders to offer additional incentives to their fighters; to hire mercenaries; and to buy the cooperation of politicians, bureaucrats, and security officials. The major exception to this rule was Ben Rajab’s Brigade 52, which relied entirely on state funding and was not involved in the illicit economy.

A. Official status, state funding, and state capture

Across Libya, access to state resources and the mantle of legitimacy has been volatile since 2011, and in Zawiya, this was even more the case than elsewhere. In the immediate post-revolutionary period, Zawiya’s revolutionary armed groups enjoyed ample funding, though its institutional channels evolved rapidly—initially through the Zawiya Military Council, then through the Libya Shield Forces, and for a brief period in 2013 through the Libyan Revolutionaries Operations Room.

With the split between two governments in 2014 and the Central Bank’s drastic budgetary cuts in 2015, state funding suddenly became much scarcer. Limited salary budgets were available through the Central Security Apparatus, headed by Omar al-Khadrawi in Tripoli, with the Zawiya branch led by his brother, Mohamed Hussein al-Khadrawi.

After the advent of the GNA, cooperation with Italy on counter-migration brought new funding through the Interior Ministry’s Department for Combatting Illegal Migration (DCIM), which financed detention centres that rapidly multiplied across western coastal cities.

As will be shown below, the migration and countermigration businesses rapidly became closely intertwined. The coastguard, as well as the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG), offered additional conduits for salaries for Milad’s group and Kashlaf’s Nasr Battalion, though those paled in comparison with the profits to be made in fuel smuggling and the migration business.

The police directorate, long headed by Col. Ali al-Lafi, provided cover and budgets to various armed groups. Most notoriously, Bahroun operated under the police directorate from 2017 onwards. Lafi, however, succeeded in striking a balance and accommodating the city’s competing factions, who backed him in return.

When Interior Minister Bashagha attempted to replace him in August 2020, strong opposition from Zawiya eventually compelled him to relent. With the end of the Tripoli war, political rivalries in the capital and the new weight of Zawiya’s armed groups suddenly gave the latter far greater access to official status and state funding. New bodies and units proliferated—most significantly the SSA— along with new military units, as well as the Law Enforcement Force promoted by Interior Minister Bashagha.

But these new institutional umbrellas could prove fickle in the context of the intensifying power struggles—as shown by Kikli’s suspension of funding to the Buzribas’ SSA branches. As Dabeiba focused on his political survival, the funds armed groups could obtain corresponded to the level of support they could offer him and the threat their defection to Bashagha would pose.

This also went for the new army units, such as Brigades 52 and 103. Beyond their salary budgets, the extent to which their commanders could expand and dispense patronage primarily depended on the operating budgets, which could vary greatly and be used at discretion.

In the search for legitimate status and funding, militia leaders frequently changed their institutional affiliation. In June 2022, Bahroun left the police directorate’s criminal investigations department and gained a new institutional cover in the GIS. A year later, Bahroun fell out with GIS head al-Ayeb and transferred to a new body set up at his own behest, the Apparatus for the Fight against Security Threats, which reported directly to the prime minister’s office. As of late 2023, that body had churned out hundreds of recruits at its bases in Sabratha, Sorman, and Tripoli, but had yet to establish any presence on the ground. Nevertheless, it obtained lavish funding from Dabeiba in December 2023. Increasingly, however, Zawiya’s most prominent militia leaders were able to gain far more from the state than recognition and funding for their units.

By the time of the tug of war between Bashagha and Dabeiba, the leading figures from Zawiya had emerged as key actors on the national stage, along with other western Libyan commanders as well as Haftar’s sons. Together, these militia leaders now wielded decisive influence over the distribution of government positions, as well as over whether a government could take or retain power in Tripoli.

In the case of Zawiya and its surroundings, those who aspired to such influence included the Buzriba brothers—Bashagha’s most powerful supporters in western Libya—and Dhawi, both of whom appointed relatives as ministers in the Bashagha government. Ben Rajab, Bahroun, and the latter’s associate Manfukh, in turn, formed part of a small group of western Libyan figures who, from early 2022 onwards, repeatedly met with Haftar’s sons abroad to negotiate, even as they ensured that the Bashagha government could not take office in Tripoli.

The substance of western Libyan commanders’ negotiations with Haftar’s sons or their representatives evolved over time. While the tug of war between the two competing governments lasted, the talks explored ways to overcome the deadlock, by either agreeing an electoral framework for elections, or forming a new government. Once Bashagha’s final attempt at taking office had failed in August 2022, negotiations centered on a reshuffle of ministerial posts in the Dabeiba government. Despite failing to achieve a consensus on the reshuffle, the parties successively reached deals on a range of other issues.

These included agreements on the Tripoli government’s payment of debts incurred by Haftar; the reshuffle of the board of directors of the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL); and an exchange of prisoners, including a fighter pilot in Haftar’s forces who had been in Bahroun’s custody.

Such deals showed that a select group of western Libyan commanders, among them Zawiya’s leading figures, had become influential enough to get things done at the highest levels of state institutions in Tripoli, and to appoint their allies to key positions. In August 2022, for example, Manfukh’s father was appointed as general manager of GECOL. This was part of a broader trend, however, towards the capture of state institutions by western Libyan militia leaders, increasingly in cooperation with their counterparts in eastern Libya: Haftar’s sons.

***

Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

D. A security crisis without catharsis (2022–23)

While the Buzribas, Dhawi, and Leheb suffered an important defeat in August 2022, they nevertheless held on to most of their positions, preventing the pro-Dabeiba camp from gaining overall control. Since early 2022, Leheb’s Sila’ Battalion had a new institutional umbrella as Brigade 103. Just like Ben Rajab’s Brigade 52, the brigade reported to the Western Coastal Military Region, whose commander was former GNA defence minister Salaheddin al-Namrush.

As Brigade 103, Leheb’s forces manned several checkpoints between Zawiya and the Tunisian border. Moreover, Ben Rajab had made clear that, while he would oppose Bashagha’s takeover, he was not a staunch supporter of Dabeiba; indeed, in the spring of 2022, he had attempted to broker an agreement between the two opposing camps on a new government to replace both Bashagha and Dabeiba.

In this tenuous balance of power, recurrent but short-lived clashes in residential neighbourhoods regularly caused civilian casualties. The four leading actors, however, continued to avoid direct, major confrontations among themselves. Instead, these clashes generally opposed smaller armed groups and gangs rumoured to be supported by one or another of the main actors. In September 2022, two children were killed in clashes between Leheb and Mohamed al-Sifao, a well-known drug trader who had recently gained an official capacity as leader of a force for Zawiya’s police directorate. Sifao was widely believed to have Bahroun’s backing.

Lieutenants of Kashlaf and Bahroun clashed in December 2022—reportedly over a hashish shipment—and again in February 2023. That month, two local armed groups fought in the Shurafa’ neighbourhood of central Zawiya, with both sides allegedly involved in selling drugs. In early April, Bahroun’s men clashed with the Kabowat—the militia from Awlad Sagr then allied with Leheb—in the Harsha area. During this period, murders became increasingly frequent. Most targeted young men, and while many appeared to be drug-related, or revenge killings for previous murders, others remained unexplained.

The majority of interlocutors, however, saw the incidents as common criminality rather than politically motivated. Nevertheless, the unresolved power struggle in the city clearly contributed to its worsening security crisis. The murders provoked growing popular anger, as did the repeated clashes between militias, the open selling of drugs, and the fact that militia involvement in the black market for fuel meant that car fuel was not available at the official, state subsidized price in the city.

In late March, which corresponded to the early month of Ramadan, young men from across Zawiya began organizing a youth movement that held small demonstrations in the city’s central Martyrs’ Square and began meeting with local officials, asking them to move to address insecurity and the fuel black market—with little success.

Tensions finally boiled over in late April 2023. The murder of Abdu Za’eet, a minor militia leader, sparked clashes between Za’eet’s group and that of a certain Hazem Aweis, who was allegedly responsible for the killing. As had become common among Zawiya’s armed groups, the two factions indiscriminately shelled each other’s territories, killing two civilians in their home. On 26 April, a video began circulating on social media that had reportedly been found on the phone of one of Za’eet’s men, and appeared to show two men from Za’eet’s group—one of whom was Sudanese but had been born in Zawiya and lived there all his life—torturing a young man.

Social media commentary, however, stoked popular anger by framing the incident as ‘mercenaries’ torturing ‘Libyans’, stoking popular anger. Large protests erupted that night, with the youth movement taking the lead and beginning a permanent sit-in in Martyrs’ Square. Protesters closed down the coastal road at the city’s eastern and western exits, as well as the municipal council, police directorate, and refinery. The sudden transformation of a small group of activists into a large group of protestors made it more difficult for them to agree on their demands.

The core group of activists asked for ‘the army’—in this case, Ben Rajab’s Brigade—to deploy. But when that unit moved into the city, some protesters began throwing stones at their vehicles, claiming that Ben Rajab had Syrians under his command. These protesters were associated with Ben Rajab’s rivals—Leheb and the Buzribas—and had not been part of the initial group of activists. Brigade 52 withdrew immediately to avoid a confrontation.

The Tripoli authorities were in no position to act on the protesters’ demands. Different officials in Tripoli were associated with competing actors in Zawiya. Attempts to drive out any of the big militias in the city also risked provoking major violence, and units from outside the city were likely to face local rejection. Moreover, the most obvious response—to deploy Brigade 52—had already failed.

The army’s chief of staff, Mohamed al-Haddad, met with protesters and made promises, but could do nothing more than establish a committee of various security officials, which brought no meaningful improvements. The protesters denounced government inaction and increased their pressure throughout May, with leading activists threatening to stop recognizing the GNU.

Compelled to act, Dabeiba ordered a campaign of drone strikes that began on 25 May and, according to the GNU, targeted locations used by drug, fuel, and migrant smugglers. Yet, the first strikes targeted one of Ali Buzriba’s properties as well as the Maya port—which the Buzribas and Dhawi used for their SSA patrol boats— suggesting that Dabeiba and Bahroun, his key ally in Zawiya, were using the antismuggling campaign as a cover to target their political adversaries.

Meshri, the Zawiyan head of the High Council of State who was by then fiercely opposed to Dabeiba, joined Ali Buzriba in denouncing the campaign as politically motivated. Foreign embassies expressed their reservations. In Zawiya itself, however, the campaign appeared to meet with widespread approval. Many interlocutors declared themselves relieved to see the militias’ ‘technicals’ (pickup trucks with weapon-mounting capabilities) disappear from the streets; they were also largely indifferent to the obvious bias in targets, and contemptuous of Meshri’s criticisms, pointing out that he had previously displayed little interest in Zawiya’s long-standing security crisis.

Meanwhile, the drone strikes appeared to become more even-handed as the campaign continued. Two days into the operation, reports spread that one of the targeted locations belonged to Mohamed al-Sifao, the drug trader allied with Bahroun. Eyewitnesses and security officials insisted, however, that Sifao had himself detonated an old armoured vehicle, to make it look as if the campaign had also targeted a Bahroun ally. Soon the targets widened to include smugglers’ facilities in Ajeilat, Sabratha, and Zuwara, seeming to dispel allegations of a campaign against political adversaries in Zawiya.

Most strikes caused only material damage, clearly seeking to reduce the risk of a backlash from casualties. Yet on 28 May, a second strike on al-Maya port killed a lieutenant of the Buzribas and a member of Dhawi’s battalion, and injured a nephew of the Buzriba brothers. Dhawi vowed a ‘fierce response’, and Ali Buzriba denounced the use of Turkish drones. Ten days into the drone strike campaign, the threat of a wider escalation began receding as the rhythm of the strikes gradually decelerated, and eventually stopped. Neither the Buzriba-led camp nor Bahroun and Dabeiba were strong enough to risk an all-out confrontation on the ground.

Bahroun and Dabeiba could hardly initiate a ground operation without the support of Ben Rajab and Western Coastal Region Commander Namrush—both of whom were highly critical of the drone campaign’s political tilt, and of Dabeiba’s heavy reliance on Bahroun. Indeed, Ben Rajab and Namrush brought Hassan Buzriba as well as representatives of Bahroun and Leheb together with Attorney General al-Siddiq al-Sour to agree on the arrest of suspected criminals. This move was clearly designed to bridge the divide between the two opposing camps in Zawiya and preempt any attempts to launch a ground operation, while also proposing a pragmatic approach towards dealing with Zawiya’s security crisis.

The results of this initiative were mixed and mostly short-lived. Black market fuel sales largely disappeared in June and July; petrol stations in Zawiya and neighbouring cities temporarily reopened, selling fuel at official prices. But from August onwards, cities to the west of Zawiya followed by Zawiya itself witnessed the return of the black market for fuel. The four leading actors initially competed with each other in displaying their willingness to cooperate with the attorney general by making arrests; by early August, the latter announced that several dozen suspects in murder cases and other serious crimes had been detained. Nevertheless, other suspects for whom the attorney general had issued arrest warrants were declared untouchable.

Some of the actions that ensued were based on negotiated arrangements: Sifao, for example, was not arrested, but instead was given safe passage to transfer his arsenal and men to Tripoli, where they joined Kikli’s forces. Abdelghani ‘al-Kabo’, whom the attorney general accused of drug and fuel smuggling, was arrested—briefly triggering a violent backlash from other armed Awlad Sagr elements. But his group, the ‘Kabowat’, continued to operate in the Harsha district and, by December 2023, Leheb was negotiating al-Kabo’s release with the attorney general.

Murders were far less frequent in the months following the operation than they had been in 2022 and early 2023. Drug sales, however, soon resumed on the streets of Zawiya’s city centre, with local residents alleging that drug traders enjoyed Bahroun’s protection. Overall, the four key actors appeared to settle for making the tenuous balance of power between themselves more sustainable. They sought to secure their own position, while sacrificing some pawns in a nod to the public pressure they were exposed to by the city’s security crisis. Meanwhile, their alignments continued to shift in the aftermath of the drone campaign.

Dabeiba’s entourage reached out to Leheb, attempting to pry him away from both the Buzribas and Ben Rajab. While Leheb entered into talks to see what he could obtain from Dabeiba, he continued to maintain his ties to Dabeiba’s foes: the Buzriba brothers and the Zintani military commander, al-Juwaili. In December 2023, the reconfiguration of alliances came into full view when Dabeiba held a public meeting with Zawiyan officials at the refinery. During that event, Dabeiba reportedly spoke at length behind closed doors with Leheb, as well as with Kashlaf and his lieutenant Walid Khammaj.

On the same occasion, Dabeiba appointed Khammaj as a deputy commander in the Support Forces, a body created by Dabeiba in May 2023 to assemble armed groups across western Libya. Given Kashlaf’s and Khammaj’s notoriety for their involvement in the illicit economy, Dabeiba’s visit to the refinery stood in stark contrast to his declared enmity towards fuel smugglers just months earlier. It also drove a rift between the Nasr Battalion and its long-time patrons, the Buzriba brothers.

This rift had been developing for some time, with Kashlaf reportedly resenting the Buzribas for escaping the international sanctions that had been imposed on him, and the Buzribas viewing Kashlaf as a reputational liability. Dabeiba’s rapprochement with Leheb and Kashlaf could hardly please Bahroun, who was on bad terms with both. Since the end of the drone campaign, Bahroun had adopted a lower profile, refraining from attempts to expand his territorial footprint; now his support became less critical to Dabeiba, who had gained other allies in Zawiya. Ben Rajab, in turn, opposed Dabeiba increasingly openly—partly as a result of deteriorating relations between Dabeiba and Central Bank governor, al-Siddiq al-Kabir, to whom Ben Rajab had close ties.

As 2023 drew to a close, relations among the leading actors in Zawiya were marked by ambiguity. Several protagonists acknowledged that they were uncertain over their respective counterparts’ alignment. The threat of a renewed polarization of groups into two opposing camps, however, continued to loom over their calculations.

***

Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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The Rise of the Stability Support Apparatus as Hegemon

Adam Hakan

Overview

The Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), entrenched in the strategic neighbourhood of Abu Salim, has emerged as a pivotal player in Libya’s power dynamics. At the main southern gateway into the Libyan capital of Tripoli, Abu Salim has gone from a hotbed of pro-Qaddafi resistance during Libya’s uprising of 2011 to a stronghold dominated by Abdelghani al-Kikli (widely known as ‘Ghaniwa’) and his SSA.

Ghaniwa consolidated power over Abu Salim through processes marked by violence, the dynamics of which were often underpinned by national-level politics. In so doing, he reshaped the neighbourhood’s political economy. The hegemonic nature of this military consolidation allowed the SSA to take on an outsized role in Libya’s broader political and economic spheres. This Briefing Paper offers a political economy analysis of Abu Salim and a chronological account of the rise of the SSA as hegemon.

The paper shows how the SSA’s economic activities encompass revenue that leverage its geographic footprint and networks. It also demonstrates how the group shifted its modus operandi over time to serve the end goal of consolidation.

Key findings

• Ghaniwa and his group’s rise to dominance in Abu Salim has been enabled by acting under various banners-based on contextual trends—from claiming revolutionary credentials post-2011 and brandishing the anti-crime mantle post-2014, to emphasizing stability post-2019.
• In its quest to dominate Abu Salim’s political economy, the SSA, along with its leadership, has deliberately modified its modus operandi and involvement in governance to deepen co-dependence between the group and Abu Salim’s residents.
• The aftermath of the 2019–20 Tripoli war marked a turning point that allowed the SSA leadership to expand its political and economic influence by transitioning from predation to state capture.
• The SSA markedly differs from other counterparts in Tripoli in that it has had the most advanced and longest-running hegemonic control over one neighbourhood. Despite this playing a positive role in stabilizing Abu Salim, it has come at the cost of its militarization.

Introduction

Over the past decade, Libya’s security landscape has undergone significant transformations, with the collapse of Qaddafi’s regime in 2011 inducing the fragmentation of its monopoly on violence. A plethora of armed groups emerged in the wake of this development, paving the way for the hybridization of Libya’s security sector. More than ten years later, a select number of these very groups have undergone processes of consolidation of their territorial control, while their peers have either been absorbed or vanquished, or vanished.

In tandem, these same powerful armed groups have established intricate and diverse mechanisms to sustain themselves financially, all while configuring and reconfiguring their relationships with local communities and government authorities. The consolidation methods adopted by these powerful groups have had significant impacts on shaping local political economies. Moreover, their networks now also exert sizeable influence over national-level politics, effectively interacting with high-profile national level stakeholders, as well as with foreign governments.

A microcosm of this process of consolidation has occurred in the famed neighbourhood of Abu Salim in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The largest of Tripoli’s 12 municipalities, Abu Salim is considered the main southern gateway into the capital, and borders its strategic Airport Road and the capital’s coveted International Airport. Abu Salim is also Libya’s most densely populated area and is home to two of Tripoli’s largest hospitals, its largest garment market, and one of western Libya’s largest scrap yards.

Prior to 2011, the neighbourhood was notorious for having the largest political prison of the Qaddafi regime. During the August 2011 uprising battles, Abu Salim was the last holdout of Qaddafi’s forces, with hit-and-run battles between revolutionaries and regime forces persisting for weeks after the rest of Tripoli fell to the rebels. After 2011, Abu Salim was an area of competition for control and influence between multiple armed groups. Of these groups, only one —the faction known today as the SSA has emerged victorious, monopolizing territorial control over the neighbourhood as it consolidated power.

The group now referred to as the SSA has proven resilient, navigating multiple phases of Libyan developments, from uneasy peace to all-out internationalized civil war. Under the leadership of its enigmatic figurehead Ghaniwa, the group has transformed from a rag-tag, inconsequential militia in Abu Salim in 2011 to an organized armed group whose leader’s blessing is widely regarded as a prerequisite for any aspiring prime minister securing a foothold in Tripoli.

As recently as 2022, the alignment of Ghaniwa and his Tripoli-based SSA was the main deciding factor in the clashes between two rival prime ministers, effectively illustrating that the SSA’s — and particularly, its leader’s—influence extended far beyond the Abu Salim neighbourhood stronghold. The journey of Ghaniwa’s SSA is remarkable not only due to the group’s contemporary influence, but also because it offers valuable insights into the processes of local armed group consolidation over time. It shows how non-linear the path towards consolidation can be, how armed groups can employ different strategies based on contextual factors, and how military victories are not necessarily the main determinant in assessing a given group’s ability to consolidate influence.

Moreover, Ghaniwa’s SSA also serves as a case study in highlighting the trade-offs for localized stability. From the modestly sized and relatively stable neighbourhood of Abu Salim, Ghaniwa’s influence is no longer confined to the local military arena but rather extends explicitly to national-level politics and economics, as well as to Libya’s near future.

This Briefing Paper aims to explore different facets of the SSA’s evolution, and its consolidation of control in Libya’s most populous neighbourhood—Abu Salim—over time. Firstly, the brief will chronologically explore the group’s trajectory, tracing its establishment and subsequent development, as well as its different phases of expansion in Abu Salim. Secondly, it will examine the group’s economic activities, including some of the diverse revenue streams that the group has tapped into. Thirdly, it will consider the group’s relationship with local communities and constituencies.

Lastly, the brief will delve into the SSA’s distinctive features, notably how it shaped its relationships with other actors, particularly local communities and national authorities. By analysing these aspects, the aim is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the SSA’s distinctive trajectory. While this in-depth analysis presents only one case study of armed group consolidation in Libya, it concludes by considering the implications, as well as policy lessons applicable to the entirety of the country’s biggest, largest, and most hybrid groups.

This paper is primarily based on interviews conducted by the author in Tripoli in 2022 and 2023. It also draws on past interviews conducted during the Tripoli conflict of 2019, as well as the author’s broader research on Libya undertaken between 2011 and 2022. Interlocutors included Libyan security officials and bureaucrats, as well as academics, politicians, journalists, and local residents.

***

Adam Hakan is a researcher specializing in the study of armed groups in the Middle East and North Africa. His expertise includes analysing the role of rebel and armed factions in state politics, armed group governance and mobilization strategies, conflict economies, and the interplay between armed groups and international actors.

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Small Arms Survey

Abdullah Alkabir

Perhaps the statement/message from the UN mission in Libya to the group of members of the House of Representatives and the High Council of State, who met in Tunisia a few days ago, is the clearest and most realistic of all its previous statements and declarations, as the statement responds to the meeting, its goals, and its outcome in a polite and at the same time, firm language .

The meeting brought together blocs and personalities whose orientations were well-known in the two chambers, without observing the accepted rules of communication between the two chambers, which is what the two chambers were keen on in previous dialogues, with the exception of the last period of Al-Mishri’s presidency of the HCS, when he concluded a deal with his counterpart Agila Saleh, but the deal did not work. It only reaped failure and aggravated the crisis , as all dialogues between the two chambers, at the level of subcommittees or the presidency, did.

Some members of both chambers insist on repeating the attempts despite their proven failure, and the reason was stated indirectly in the mission’s statement, which is that the political decision in the current Libyan situation is no longer in the hands of the local parties, but rather the regional and international parties involved in the conflict, who have the upper hand in engineering any transfer of power, and this was the case from the Sukhirat Agreement to the Tunis-Geneva Agreement.

There is no way to gradually restore sovereignty over national decision-making other than insisting on going back to the people to lead change through elections.

The mission’s message included, between the lines, a rebuke to the representatives and members gathered, reminding them that they only represent themselves, and that the dialogue that could mark the beginning of Libya’s exit from its crisis must include all or the majority of the parties. “We must acknowledge that this meeting of yours cannot be a substitute for a broader dialogue, with greater participation, and a more comprehensive agenda.”

Candidly and directly, the statement/message accuses them, in its final lines, of bringing Libya closer to drifting into the abyss, because of their insistence on remaining in their positions, and making their personal interests override the interests of the state and the people. “A lot of time has been wasted for Libya and its people. And every day you insist on remaining in your positions, or other parties maintain their positions, brings Libya dangerously closer to the brink of the abyss. You must restrain this relentless creep toward the abyss and resort to reason and wisdom to save Libya.”

The new American position explains this escalation in the tone of the UN mission in Libya towards some parties to the crisis. American diplomat Stephanie Khoury was appointed to the position of Assistant Special Envoy to Libya for Political Affairs, and the American Ambassador and Special Envoy to Libya, Richard Norland recently held several meetings with the Presidential Council and the government. and some other figures, announcing in brief statements the US administration’s support for Bathily’s initiative, which did not receive a response from some parties.

It was remarkable that these statements represent a retreat from support for the elections, to call for the formation of a caretaker government, and to link it to the importance of the participation of all Libyan actors in the political process, sponsored by the United Nations mission, to remove the remaining obstacles to the elections. The previous statements did not stipulate the formation of any type of government, but rather In a previous statement, Norland said that elections could be held even in the presence of two governments!

An international position supporting a fundamental change in Libya has not yet crystallized, which means that the conflict of interests of the countries active in the crisis does not allow such transformation now, but the escalation of the severity of the crisis, and the security and economic developments, require extending the current phase, but with reducing any emerging tensions, to remain at the brink of abyss, rather than falling into it.

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Gregory Aftandilian

Foreign Complicity

Despite foreign governments’ pledges in recent years to desist from interfering in Libya, they have continued to do so, even with military force. The two main outside forces are Turkey and Russia, which have established a kind of modus vivendi over Libya with the former aiding the GNU and the latter aiding Haftar’s forces. It also appears that Russian mercenaries in Libya previously associated with the Wagner Group have come under formal Russian military command.

According to former UN special envoy for Libya Stephanie Williams, Turkey, which has admitted to training 15,000 Libyan personnel since 2020, is closely associated with the 444 Combat Brigade in Tripoli (one of the country’s strongest fighting forces) and “maintains a permanent presence” at al-Watiya airbase near Zintan and at the naval base in Misrata. Meanwhile, Russia has sent Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov to eastern Libya several times since last August, and may be seeking military basing agreements on territory controlled by the eastern faction.

In addition, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and possibly France have reportedly aided Haftar’s forces, while Qatar has supported Tripoli’s forces and Italy has supported the Tripoli faction politically. The involvement of these foreign countries makes it hard for those Libyans who want a genuine Libyan solution to prevail. If a unity government were to emerge, such foreign forces undoubtedly would come under greater scrutiny and face political pressure to leave. Hence, the presence of these foreign forces helps to perpetuate the country’s political divisions.

Human Misery Abounds

If all this were not bad enough, Libya has faced mounting humanitarian crises in recent months. The terrible flood in Derna in which as many as 8,500 people were killed, thousands more unaccounted for, and some 45,000 left homeless, was a devastating human tragedy made worse by the lack of accountability.

The fact that the area’s two dams failed so quickly showed negligence on the part of the authorities who should have used government funds for their upkeep. According to Amnesty International, neither political faction has undertaken a full investigation, nor have they facilitated the issuance of death certificates so family members can claim pensions for their lost loved ones.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office has initiated criminal investigations into the dam disaster, and eight officials were arrested a few months ago. It remains to be seen how far accountability will go. To its credit, the UN, with the support of humanitarian agencies, has aided hundreds of thousands of Libyans with emergency humanitarian assistance, including shelter, clean water, food, educational support, and medical and psychological treatment. Many Libyans are mired in poverty, ironic for an oil-rich country with a small population.

Meanwhile, Libyan officials have tried to deflect blame over the negligence in Derna. The LNA and its internal security agency even arrested civil society activists for protesting the mismanagement of the crisis and the lack of accountability. On top of this tragedy is the ongoing migration problem, where tens of thousands of destitute Africans, usually from Sub-Saharan countries, have arrived in Libya every year seeking to use it as a transit point to Europe.

Often trafficked by militias, many migrants have been subjected to extortion, sexual abuse, and even death. On March 22, the international press reported that 65 bodies of migrants were found in a mass grave in southwest Libya. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it believed that they died while being smuggled through the desert.

Earlier in the month, about 60 migrants who set off from Libya in a rubber dinghy perished in the Mediterranean Sea. Although Libyan Interior Minister Emad Al-Trabelsi of the GNU faction stated that his agency has “launched security campaigns to control human smuggling gangs, activate electronic surveillance towers to secure the borders” and train border guards “in a manner consistent with…respect for human rights,” clearly much more needs to be done.

As the US Department of State said in 2023: “Endemic corruption and militias’ influence over government ministries contribute to the GNU’s inability to effectively address human trafficking.” Finally, the sad fact remains that many Libyans are mired in poverty, ironic for an oil-rich country with a small population. They wonder why a country with this abundant resource is unwilling or unable to take care of its citizens. It is not surprising, therefore, that they blame the political class for negligence, corruption, and graft.

Although oil production has been affected by violence and protests, it has slowly increased over the past year and is projected to rise above 1.5 million barrels per day by 2025. To be sure, one of the reasons why the political factions are reluctant to move toward elections is their fear that the fed-up populace will vote them out of power.

The United States and the EU Need to Do More

Although the Biden administration has backed UN efforts in Libya and supports national elections, it has not shown enough attention to help bring the country out of its present morass. Granted, the Israel-Hamas and the Russia-Ukraine wars have occupied US attention, but the administration has not even moved the US Embassy back to Libya (US diplomats dealing with Libya operate out of Tunisia) once violence abated.

Moreover, to punt the issue to the United Nations as the United States and the European Union have done  without giving the UN real power is, in effect, evading Libya’s problems. At a minimum, getting countries in the international community to not be spoilers in Libya should be a start so Libyans themselves can work out their own differences. This will not be an easy task, but removing foreign forces and military assistance from Libya will at least not reinforce the political divisions in the country, and hopefully public pressure from Libyan citizens will force the two sides to compromise and hold elections.

***

Gregory Aftandilian is a Nonresident Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC. He is a Senior Professorial Lecturer at American University where he teaches courses on US foreign policy. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Boston University and George Mason University, teaching courses on Middle East politics. Previously, he worked for the US government for over 20 years in such capacities as Professional Staff Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Middle East Analyst at the US Department of State. He holds degrees from Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago, and the London School of Economics. Aftandilian is the author of Egypt’s Bid for Arab Leadership: Implications for U.S. Policy.

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Wolfram Lacher

The militia leaders who were at odds with Bashagha, including the Buzribas, were jubilant when the LPDF, in February 2021, designated Abdelhamid Dabeiba as prime minister of a new Government of National Unity (GNU), dealing an unexpected defeat to Bashagha. Moreover, the three-member Presidency Council, selected together with Dabeiba, included Abdallah al-Lafi—an HoR member from Zawiya who had a reputation for pragmatism in the city.

In a clear sign of a more permissive environment for Zawiyan factions, Dabeiba’s interior minister immediately reinstated Ali and Hassan Buzriba’s brother Essam as the ministry’s chief financial officer, after Bashagha had dismissed him the previous year. Milad was released less than a month after Dabeiba took office in Tripoli—reportedly following Dabeiba’s intercession with the attorney general. Milad then resumed his functions, after being promoted in rank.

As relieved as the Buzribas had been by Bashagha’s defeat, they rapidly discovered that Dabeiba did not favour them over other Zawiyan factions. Instead, the GNU’s advent spurred competition among Zawiya’s main actors for influence within the government. Bahroun, who had long headed the Zawiya police directorate’s so-called ‘support force’, now also gained influence within the General Intelligence Service (GIS), by providing protection to GIS head Hussein al-Ayeb in Tripoli.

In late 2021, Bahroun also began protecting Minister of Oil Mohamed Oun, who had taken an office at the NOC, despite being involved in a bitter struggle with its chief, Sanalla. Around the same time, Bahroun was among the largest recipients when Dabeiba distributed an overall LYD 100 million (around USD 20 million at the time) to buy the loyalty of a handful of armed groups in the greater Tripoli area. Meanwhile, Ben Rajab benefited from his close ties with the Central Bank governor al-Siddiq al-Kabir, who had emerged as a key ally of Dabeiba, to mobilize government funding for Brigade 52.

The Buzriba brothers themselves used their new institutional umbrella, the SSA, to gain greater access to funding and boost their share of the region’s counter-migration business. Around mid-2021, they opened an SSA migrant detention centre in the Maya district, seeking a clean reputational slate, since the Nasr detention centre at the refinery was no longer officially recognized by the government and had long been discredited by the UN sanctions against Milad and Kashlaf.

The new detention centre, established in the dilapidated warehouses of a former pharmaceutical company, was in an area controlled by the Warshafana militia leader Muammar al-Dhawi. The latter had, for some time, emerged as a close ally of the Buzribas, and now also manned the Bridge 27 checkpoint on the coastal road. Together with the opening of the centre, SSA patrol boats began intercepting migrants and surrendering them to the Maya detention centre.

Political rivalries over access to state funding combined with struggles over control of territory fuelled a gradual escalation of violence. The Buzribas’ expansion through the SSA prompted Bahroun and Leheb to ally against them—a move that began with clashes between Bahroun and two Buzriba allies outside of Zawiya. In June 2021, Bahroun’s and Leheb’s forces attacked Mohamed Barka (‘al-Shalfuh’), the dominant militia leader in Ajeilat, who played a key role in the local smuggling economy and was at the time allied with the Buzribas.

The clashes were reportedly triggered by a drug shipment seized by Barka. Defeated, Barka withdrew to his Buzriba allies in Abu Surra, while Bahroun and Leheb extended their dominance over Ajeilat. In late July and early August, Bahroun repeatedly clashed with Dhawi over control of the Bridge 27 checkpoint. In Zawiya itself, intermittent confrontations began in July between the Kabowat—an Awlad Sagr militia in the Harsha area that was at the time allied with Bahroun and Leheb—and the Buzribas’ ally Kashlaf at the refinery. The same parties fought again in October, causing damage to the refinery complex.

Bahroun’s and the Buzribas’ forces also clashed directly on several occasions, including in the Juddaim district of eastern Zawiya in late August and again in November. Zawiya’s main factions were therefore deeply polarized by the time a new power struggle unfolded at the national level. With the cancellation of the presidential and parliamentary elections, initially scheduled for 24 December 2021, a new alliance of actors in eastern and western Libya formed with the aim of dislodging Dabeiba: Haftar backed the formation of a new government led by his former enemy Bashagha.

The opportunism at the heart of that alliance became even clearer in the way it reshaped political alignments in Zawiya. Bashagha needed support from armed groups in and around the capital in order to take power. To this end, he mobilized the backing of the very groups he had denounced as criminals when he was interior minister: the Buzribas in Zawiya; their ally Dhawi in Warshafana; and the Nawasi Battalion and Kikli in Tripoli.

Kikli, however, turned against Bashagha when the latter chose Essam Buzriba—Ali and Hassan’s older brother—as interior minister, thereby ignoring Kikli’s demand that the post should go to the Zintani militia leader, Emad al-Trabelsi. Kikli immediately proceeded to order the closure of the Maya migrant detention centre, and cut off Hassan Buzriba’s group from SSA salaries; as a result, the number of detainees in the Maya detention centre declined, as detainees were increasingly able to pay for their release.

Bahroun and Ben Rajab, who had been on good terms with Bashagha while he was at loggerheads with the Buzribas, now both staunchly opposed Bashagha. Bahroun, in particular, became a key figure in a new alliance of militia leaders who supported Dabeiba. Bahroun’s growing dominance in Zawiya, thanks to Dabeiba’s financial backing, transformed Leheb into Bahroun’s bitter enemy: Leheb had previously allied with Bahroun against the Buzribas, but joined the latter’s pro-Bashagha camp in the spring of 2022. The irony of this shift was even starker when considering that Bahroun had been among the allies of the Buzribas when he fought with Hnesh between 2015 and 2017, whereas Leheb had been their common enemy, as he had supported Khadrawi.

Conflicts and alignments in Zawiya were therefore neither a matter of ‘historic tribal divisions between Awlad Bu Hmeira and Awlad Saqr’, nor one of ‘deep ideological enmity’ between the Awlad Buhmeira and supposed Muslim Brotherhood-aligned factions. In fact, none of the main armed factions could be considered as aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. Rather, the constantly changing alliances appeared to be defined by the shifting balance of power, driven by militias’ evolving access to funding, as groups allied against ascendant factions—which they perceived as growing threats.

Throughout the first half of 2022, Bashagha and Dabeiba competed for the backing of Tripolitania’s armed groups, leading to the emergence of two opposing coalitions. Yet, remarkably, the main armed factions in Zawiya largely avoided direct confrontations among themselves, despite being key components in each of the two camps. In March, forces backing Bashagha made a first unsuccessful attempt to enter Tripoli, with Dhawi’s and the Buzribas’ forces deploying at Bridge 27, but were deterred by the mobilization of Ben Rajab’s Brigade 52 at Janzur’s western end.

In early May, forces associated with Bahroun and the Buzribas briefly fought in Zawiya; however, later that month, they avoided a direct clash after again mobilizing at Janzur’s western end, during Bashagha’s second failed attempt to take power in Tripoli. In July, after Dabeiba appointed Farhat Bengdara as the new NOC chairman based on a deal with Haftar, a big convoy of fighters from Leheb’s, Kashlaf’s, and other Zawiyan groups moved into Tripoli, attempting to prevent Bengdara from taking office.

Ben Rajab’s Brigade 52 let them pass, and they went on to stop in western Tripoli; Dabeiba’s emissaries eventually negotiated their withdrawal, reportedly for a payment of millions of dinars. The violent denouement finally came in August, when Kikli and the Deterrence Apparatus (formerly the Special Deterrence Force) moved against Bashagha’s allies in Tripoli.

GNU drone strikes—almost certainly carried out with Turkish approval and assistance—targeted the forces of the Zintani commander, Usama al-Juwaili, at the 7 April base, as well as Dhawi’s and the Buzribas’ forces at Bridge 27, compelling them to withdraw. This dealt a decisive blow to the pro-Bashagha camp, and allowed Ben Rajab to deploy his forces along the entire stretch of the coastal road between Janzur and Zawiya.

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Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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Elizabeth Hagedorn

The Biden administration sees a US diplomatic presence in Libya as critical to helping counter Russia’s growing footprint in Africa as well as supporting a UN-led push for elections. The Biden administration has notified Congress of its plan to restore the US diplomatic presence in Libya, a decade after unrest in the North African country forced American diplomats to evacuate the US Embassy in Tripoli. 

The Biden administration has notified Congress of its plan to restore the US diplomatic presence in Libya, a decade after unrest in the North African country forced American diplomats to evacuate the US Embassy in Tripoli. 

The State Department submitted a formal notification to lawmakers this month, a senior State Department official told Al-Monitor, kicking off what the department expects will be a one-to-two-year process to establish “an interim diplomatic facility” in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. 

The United States has been without an embassy in Libya since its personnel withdrew under heavy military escort in 2014 amid the budding civil war. American diplomats relocated to Malta and later Tunisia, where they now form a remote mission known as the Libya External Office. 

The Biden administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2025 seeks $57.2 million to fund a more robust diplomatic presence in Libya, including property costs, travel, equipment and security at its facility located in the western suburbs of Tripoli. The US facility won’t be a formal embassy, at least not for the foreseeable future. The Tunis-based diplomats assigned to Libya will instead use it to make more frequent and longer trips to the country. 

“There’s no substitute for persistent on-the-ground engagement with Libyan actors,” a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the arrangements. “We’ve taken the time to really undertake the diligent planning for this important milestone,” the senior official said. “It’s a very complicated undertaking to resume operations in a suspended post.”

United States an outlier

Libya plunged into chaos with the NATO-backed uprising that overthrew and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Full-blown civil war erupted several years later between the Tripoli-based internationally recognized Government of National Accord and Gen. Khalifa Hifter’s self-styled Libyan National Army in the east, each of which were backed by foreign powers that flooded the country with arms and mercenaries. 

Since brokering a cease-fire between the warring sides in October 2020, the United Nations has tried repeatedly to hold nationwide elections. The polls were originally planned for December 2021 but called off at the last minute amid disputes over who was eligible to run. Despite the political impasse, improved security conditions have led several US partners to reopen their embassies in recent years, including Italy in 2017, France in 2021 and the United Kingdom in 2022. 

But for the United States, raising its flag in Libya risks becoming a partisan issue. The September 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans brought increased scrutiny of US diplomatic outposts and spawned one of the costliest and most partisan congressional investigations in history. 

Today, most of the Republicans lawmakers who were members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, such as Trey Gowdy and Mike Pompeo, are out of office. But Benghazi still colors the views of some House Republicans, said another US official familiar with the current discussions over a renewed diplomatic presence. Their engagement with the State Department on Libya is “almost always antagonistic and oppositional,” the official said. 

The State Department stresses that its embassy operation plan, which is two years in the making, has “clearly defined safeguards” to ensure diplomatic work is conducted “safely and effectively.” “We’re mindful of the history,” the senior State Department official said. “We in no way have rushed this.” 

The department has briefed and closely coordinated with relevant congressional committees on the logistical and security arrangements at Palm City, a gated luxury community in Tripoli’s Janzour neighborhood where the United States is currently renting property. The sprawling complex also hosts a mix of oil and gas companies, nongovernmental organizations and other foreign missions, including those of the European Union and the United Nations. 

The location’s proximity to the Mediterranean shoreline enables fast evacuations by sea. As Hifter’s forces advanced on Tripoli in 2019, the US military hastily withdrew a small contingent of US forces from Palm City on hovercraft. 

Countering Russia’s inroads

The State Department cites a range of “fundamental interests” that warrant a restored US diplomatic presence in Libya, including supporting the United Nations’ push for elections, promoting US trade and investment opportunities and preventing Libya from becoming enmeshed in rising instability across the Sahel region.

But chief among the reasons for a US return is Russia’s expanding foothold on NATO’s southern flank. As the United States conducted diplomacy from the sidelines, Wagner Group mercenaries over the years helped cement Russian influence in Libya.

Since Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mysterious death in a plane crash in August, the Russian government has reportedly brought remnants of the paramilitary group under its direct supervision. A February report from the London-based Royal United Services Institute said Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, has “taken the Wagner Group’s functions in house.”

“In this moment after Prigozhin’s death, there’s a kind of ongoing evolution in how Russia is undertaking its activities across the African continent,” the senior State Department official said. “It stands to reason that as most other countries including major powers establish their diplomatic presence in Tripoli, the United States should do the same.” 

The remote diplomacy has made it harder for US officials to monitor events on the ground and build necessary relationships with local actors. In his capacity as special envoy to Libya, former ambassador Richard Norland travels regularly between Washington and Tripoli. The United States, however, is currently without an ambassador to the war-ravaged country while career diplomat Jennifer Gavito awaits Senate confirmation to take up the vacant post in Tunis. 

Moscow has sought to fill the diplomatic vacuum. Its ambassador to Libya, Aydar Aganin, is a fluent Arabic speaker who used to work for the Russia Today news service and is described by other diplomats as “very active.” “The Russians are desperate to impose legitimacy on their presence in Libya,” said a Libyan official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He’s using ‘we’re here and the Americans are not’ as a kind of sales pitch.” 

The Russians “seem to be shoring up their presence,” said Stephanie Williams, a former US diplomat who also served in senior UN roles in the country, including as special adviser to the UN secretary general on Libya from 2021 to 2022. “Libya has never been high on the priority list for Washington,” Williams said. “The US has not been there for many, many years, but you have to start somewhere. The best place to start is with an embassy on the ground.”

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Elizabeth Hagedorn is Al-Monitor’s State Department correspondent. She previously reported on the region as a freelance journalist in Turkey and Iraq for publications including Middle East Eye, The National and The Guardian.

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Gregory Aftandilian

Talks last month in Cairo between representatives of Libya’s two rival governments raised hopes over progress in resolving the country’s 10-year political impasse. The talks discussed the formation of a unified government with the authority to supervise long-overdue nationwide elections.

Although the two sides agreed on the need to forge such a coalition, and committed to forming a “technical committee” to iron out their differences, most Libya observers remain deeply skeptical that political unification will move forward anytime soon. Entrenched political and economic interests of the two factions, plus the support they receive from outside powers, make the chances for success exceedingly slim. Meanwhile, Libya faces mounting challenges. The country is dealing with the fallout of last September’s devastating flood in the city of Derna, high rates of poverty, militia activities that include illicit economic rackets, and human trafficking by some of these same militias exploiting migrants seeking to reach Europe.

Libya’s Deep Divisions

Libya has been deeply divided for more than a decade. The internationally-recognized government based in Tripoli in the west, called the Government of National Unity (GNU) in its most recent incarnation, controls about a third of the northern part of the country. A rival government in the east, under the House of Representatives (HoR) based in Tobruk, controls the remaining two-thirds of this northern area (the rest of the country is mostly sparsely-populated desert). The Tobruk-based government is supported by the self-anointed Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar and his large militia force, the Libyan National Army (LNA). The GNU, meanwhile, is supported by various militias in the west.

The internationally-recognized government in Tripoli controls about a third of the northern part of the country.

Militias loyal to the GNU, aided by elements of the Turkish military and its allied Syrian Arab mercenaries, halted a 2020 attempt by Haftar to take over the western part of the country by force. A ceasefire, put in place in October of that year, has held despite occasional outbursts of violence between rival militias.

United Nations-supported national elections, which were hoped to end Libya’s division, were scheduled for December 2021 but were postponed indefinitely over issues related to the eligibility of candidates and election rules. In the aftermath of this postponement, interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah vowed to stay in power until new elections were held, while the government in the east, charging that Dbeibah’s term had ended, named a rival prime minister, former interior minister Fathi Bashagha. The latter was replaced last year by Osama Hamad, Bashagha’s own finance minister.

Over the next couple of years, the UN Special Representative for Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, tried to get the elections back on track but came up short. The plan now is to first create a temporary unified government that will supervise preparations for a nationwide election. But bringing about such a unified government is far from easy.

Pessimistic Report by the UN Envoy

On February 15, prior to the Cairo meeting, Bathily addressed the UN Security Council in what can only be described as a pessimistic message. Despite various meetings and tentative agreements, he stated, “key Libyan institutional stakeholders appear unwilling to resolve the outstanding politically contested issues that would clear the path to the long-awaited elections in Libya.” He underscored that the status quo “seems to suit” these stakeholders.

Bathily noted the following challenges:

— The HOR Speaker, Aguila Saleh has said that he would only support a unified government as the “sole legitimate authority”in charge of elections.

— Muhammaed Takala, president of the High Council of State (which is independent of the two governments), has rejected the election laws issued by the House of Representatives.

— Al–Dbeibah has insisted that only the GNU should supervise the electoral process.

— Haftar has insisted that both governments be parties to unity government talks or both be excluded from them.

Bathily called on “all Libyan institutional actors” to engage in a dialogue without preconditions.

Meeting in Cairo

Although Cairo has long supported Haftar and the secular HoR faction, largely to prevent Muslim Brotherhood members and Islamist terrorists from Libya infiltrating Egypt, it has hosted talks between the two factions. The most recent discussions were held in Cairo on March 10 under the auspices of the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Egyptian diplomat Ahmed Aboul Gheit. Participating were Saleh of the HoR, Takala, and Mohammed Menfi, President of Libya’s Presidential Council (the latter two are usually associated with the GNU).

The three Libyans reportedly agreed to form a technical committee aimed at resolving disagreements and to establish a “single government body responsible for overseeing Libya’s electoral process and delivering essential services to citizens.” After the meeting, Menfi

said that the gathering was a “very important beginning” that would “live up to the ambition of Libyans to hold elections.”

And a Veiled Threat from Haftar

While this all sounds positive on paper, it is far from clear that such a unified, temporary government can be formed. Only four days after the Cairo meeting, Haftar gave a speech in which he said the political process “has been given more opportunities than necessary,” adding that his forces have reached a “high level of preparedness and readiness” and would not hesitate to “issue bold decisions and strict orders to confront with utmost strength anyone that would tamper with the fate of the people and the country.” Haftar made these threatening comments while attending his forces’ military maneuvers in the coastal city of Sirte, very close to GNU-controlled territory.

Why Haftar made such threats is unknown, especially since his ally, Saleh, participated in the Cairo meeting. Haftar may have sought to ensure that he would be part of the unified government negotiations to put the HoR faction in a better bargaining position.

Regardless of Haftar’s motive, Bathily traveled to the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on March 21 to meet with Haftar, perhaps to convince him to desist from making such threats. After the meeting, Bathily wrote on X.com (formerly Twitter) that participants had agreed to coordinate initiatives to enable elections and work toward a political settlement among the major actors.

Two days later, members of the Preparatory Committee for National Reconciliation (who represent Haftar’s forces), criticized its chairman Abdullah Al-Laf for failing to include the kin of dead fighters from these forces in the General Authority for the Care of Martyrs’ Families. These Haftar loyalists charged Al-Lafi with bias and said he was undermining the effort to achieve national unity. It is probable that Haftar had a hand in this matter.

Entrenched Interests

As Bathily noted in his UN address, both factions have a stake in maintaining the status quo because it serves their interests. Corruption is seen as widespread in both governments, and billions of dollars in oil revenues are reportedly unaccounted for. Militias supporting the factions have been engaged in oil smuggling. Libya’s National Oil Corporation estimates that up to one-third of petroleum and diesel provided by the state is smuggled. And like a Mafia organization, money is then kicked up to the top. As one prominent Libya analyst, Alia Brahimi, noted: “The political impasse in Libya can be interpreted as the result of a tacit bargain among elites to prolong their tenure in power. Both sets of politicians want to ensure continuing access to legitimate and illicit state resources.” In addition, many militias are involved in the smuggling of people and drugs.

***

Gregory Aftandilian is a Nonresident Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC. He is a Senior Professorial Lecturer at American University where he teaches courses on US foreign policy. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Boston University and George Mason University, teaching courses on Middle East politics. Previously, he worked for the US government for over 20 years in such capacities as Professional Staff Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Middle East Analyst at the US Department of State. He holds degrees from Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago, and the London School of Economics. Aftandilian is the author of Egypt’s Bid for Arab Leadership: Implications for U.S. Policy.

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Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

C. Resurgence, consolidation, and rivalry (2019–22)

On 4 April, the main armed groups in Zawiya mobilized immediately to oppose Haftar’s Tripoli offensive—with the exception of the Criminal Investigations Department in the western district of Mutrid, whose leaders, Sweisi and Ghaeb, aligned with Haftar.

Consequently, a significant proportion of Zawiyan forces remained in the city to prevent an attack via Mutrid from Sabratha and Sorman, which were controlled by Haftar’s forces. The main Zawiyan forces, however, also deployed fighters on the Ain Zara, Wadi al-Rabi’, and Airport Road fronts in Tripoli, as well as in the Warshafana area.

These forces even included those of the Buzriba brothers, who had quickly decided to renege on their tentative understanding with Haftar. Zawiyan groups represented the third-largest contingent of fighters in the forces fighting Haftar, after those of Misrata and Tripoli itself. For Zawiyan armed groups, the Tripoli war provided a moment of new-found unity and a regained sense of purpose. While this, of course, excluded the dominant militia in Mutrid, confrontations within the city were nevertheless avoided.

In January 2020, Sweisi and Ghaeb deployed some vehicles eastwards towards the Harsha area, but immediately withdrew to Mutrid after Zawiya’s anti-Haftar forces mobilized. More broadly, the resistance against Haftar’s attempt to seize power by force enjoyed widespread public support in Zawiya—a position that owed much to the city’s revolutionary spirit.

The military weight of the city’s forces also rapidly translated into increasing political influence. Meshri, who was by then president of the GNC’s successor institution, the High Council of State, became a key intermediary in channelling Turkish military support to GNA forces. In April 2019, Ali Buzriba—the political leader of the Buzriba family, and a boycotting member of the House of Representatives (HoR) since the 2014 elections—supported the establishment of a rival HoR assembly in Tripoli with substantial funds.

For almost two years, a greater number of HoR members would meet in Tripoli than in eastern Libya, where the rump HoR supported Haftar’s offensive. And in October 2019, Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj appointed Salaheddin al-Namrush from Zawiya as deputy defence minister—the minister’s post itself being vacant. Zawiyan representatives thereby began to exert greater influence over the allocation of state funds and external support, which helped to strengthen their city’s forces. Zawiyan forces played a key role in Haftar’s eventual defeat, once Turkey began intervening in earnest from late 2019 onwards to back the GNA.

In April 2020, they led the lightning takeover of Sabratha and Sorman; the following month, their second attempt to capture the Wutiya airbase on the Tunisian border eventually succeeded. That offensive also made use of Syrian mercenaries, whom Turkey had deployed with selected Libyan commanders, including Ben Rajab. In a striking illustration of how the war boosted Zawiya’s armed groups, Bahroun captured a Russian-made, UAE-supplied Pantsir air defence system at the Wutiya airbase and paraded it through the streets of Zawiya.

When Haftar’s LAAF withdrew from western Libya in June 2020, Zawiyan forces therefore found themselves in a stronger position than ever. Key Zawiyan commanders – most importantly Ben Rajab and Bahroun- now had positions at Tripoli International Airport, along the Airport Road, in the 7 April military base, and in Janzur. These positions would allow them to influence the Tripoli military balance throughout the following years. Moreover, Zawiyan forces now had freedom of movement to and from Tripoli, as well as Sabratha, Sorman, and Ajeilat, having driven out Haftar loyalists both from these cities and from Zawiya’s Mutrid district.

As soon as the Tripoli war was over, several Zawiyan commanders also turned to building more disciplined, official-looking forces—with GNA and Turkish support—including Brigade 52; despite being headed by a career military officer from Zawiya, the brigade had Ben Rajab’s backing and recruited from the fighters who had been under his command in the Tripoli war. Ben Rajab would later take the brigade’s leadership himself.

Another prominent Zawiyan commander, Mohamed Ben Yousef, led a newly formed force that attacked fuel smugglers across the region from Zawiya to the Tunisian border, over a period of two months, before ending its campaign when salary payments stopped. As a reflection of Zawiya’s new military weight, the UN included a representative of the city’s armed groups in its 75-member Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF), which began convening in November 2020. The designation of the representative, Muadh al-Manfukh, was agreed on by key Zawiyan commanders.

These same commanders would soon, however, both take advantage of, and be drawn into, the power struggles unfolding in Tripoli. This would be the defining dynamic of the next three years, and would both drive a consolidation of military power in the hands of four key Zawiyan commanders and intensify rivalries between them, in constantly changing alliances. The four main forces in these struggles were those of Bahroun, Ben Rajab, the Buzriba brothers, and Leheb. Numerous smaller groups were also involved, but generally sought the support of the larger players.

In the second half of 2020 and in early 2021, GNA Interior Minister Bashagha sought to position himself to become prime minister of a new unity government to be formed under the aegis of the UN. In August 2020, Bashagha tried to exploit protests against his political rivals, including Prime Minister Serraj. The latter responded by making several appointments to top positions as counterweights to Bashagha—including promoting Namrush to acting minister of defence. Bashagha’s efforts to strengthen his law-and-order profile also played out in Zawiya.

Among his primary targets for this purpose were the Nawasi Battalion and Abdelghani al-Kikli’s group in Tripoli, as well as the Buzriba network in Zawiya—particularly Milad, who had gained both national and international notoriety due to his UN sanctions listing. Bashagha’s enmity towards the Buzribas earned him Mahmoud Ben Rajab’s backing. Tensions between Bashagha and the Buzriba network rose when a force loyal to Bashagha arrested Milad in October 2020.

In January 2021, Bashagha announced ‘Operation Snake Hunt’ against fuel and migrant smugglers in the region west of Tripoli. Although no actual operation followed, the intended target was clearly the Buzriba network, and Ali Buzriba publicly lashed back at Bashagha. Bashagha’s adversarial stance, and the threat of him becoming prime minister, caused the Buzribas to ally with several Tripoli militias against Bashagha. Immediately after Bashagha’s announcement, Serraj issued a decree to create the Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), with Kikli at its head and Hassan Buzriba as one of Kikli’s deputies. The SSA reported to the Presidency Council rather than the Interior Ministry—giving Kikli and Buzriba a new official mantle that was outside Bashagha’s administrative reach—and had a wide-ranging mandate.

***

Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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Jawhar Farhat

Tripoli, Libya’s capital city, has seen governance by a range of armed forces with shifting loyalties. Since the conflict began in 2011, these militias have navigated changing political landscapes and internal conflicts.

Despite this, control over Tripoli stabilized. Armed groups united under the then-Government of National Accord against Major General Khalifa Haftar’s attempted capture in June 2020.

Furthermore, despite operating under government names and with multiple security capacities during different governance eras, these armed groups now display superficial government affiliations. Examples include official crests and online presence. However, their actions diverge significantly from those of traditional law enforcement and military units. Almost all of these groups are implicated in the city’s violence, ranging from inter-group clashes to kidnappings and forced disappearances.

While numerous armed factions operate in Tripoli and its vicinity, not all hold significant sway or territorial control. Here are the most notable armed groups currently active in Tripoli.

1.0 The RADA Special Deterrence Forces

Commander: Abdul Raouf Kara
Ministry Affiliation: Libyan Presidential Council
Headquarters: Mitiga base, Tripoli

1.1: History and Disposition 

Officially called the “Deterrence Agency for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime” this armed group more commonly called the Special Deterrence Brigade and is one of the factions involved in the current fighting in Tripoli. Established in 2013, it was led by Lieutenant Abdul Raouf Kara, a Salafist, and comprised a group of “revolutionaries.” 

In 2018, the Government of National Accord disbanded and reorganized the battalion, renaming it the “Deterrence Agency for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime.” It was granted authority to establish branches nationwide and bestowed with extensive powers for arrests and investigations. These decisions significantly increased the battalion’s significance and their official statements often claim that they are fighting crime in Tripoli. 

Backed by the government, RADA’s military strength and resources enabled it to extend control and influence beyond Tripoli to areas such as Tarhuna, Bani Walid, Zliten, and Al-Khoms, located east of the city [source]. Moreover, it had the authority to carry out arrest campaigns across western regions under the pretext of security enforcement.

The battalion received authorization from the current Presidential Council to execute the Public Prosecutor’s orders and conduct arrests. However, despite these powers, its involvement in numerous armed incidents in Tripoli did not alter its status as a militia. Reports from United Nations experts accuse the group of engaging in violent acts and trafficking in people [source]. Additionally, its conflicting stance on Haftar’s militias’ assault on the capital, Tripoli, arises from its ineffective involvement in protecting the city.

1.2 Activities 

The Deterrence Forces often publicise counterterrorism efforts and law enforcement actions. Recent clashes have also led to some announcements about moving facilities. Some examples include:

• On 5 January 2024, the Deterrence Service for Combating Terrorism and Crime in Libya announced the arrest of the governor of ISIS in Libya, Hashim Abu Sidra, who carried out the massacre of Copts in Sirte, Libya, in 2016.
• On 23 January 2024, The Deterrence Service for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime published for the first time the confessions of a number of criminals involved in these networks who were arrested earlier in cooperation with the Anti-Illegal Immigration Service.
• On 8 February 2024, the Deterrence Service for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime announced that they would withdraw from Mitiga International Airport and the Tripoli seaport. .

2.0 The Stability Support Apparatus

Commander: Abdel Ghani al-Kikli
Ministry Affiliation: National unity government
Headquarters: The Al-Falah area in the capital

2.1 History and Disposition 

The SSA It is the name given to the 2012-founded Abu Salim Brigade. The original brigade was headed by Abdel-Ghani Al-Kakli, a non-military individual who took part in the revolution of February 2011. It first established its headquarters in Abu Salim, the most well-known and sizable area in the city, before extending its sphere of influence to encompass the surrounding communities.

The SSA participated in numerous armed incidents across the capital, including Bab Ben Ghashir, Sharqiya, Al-Hadba, and Tripoli, notably at the former Ministry of Interior headquarters. It aligned primarily with local government authorities, receiving continuous financial backing, procurement of equipment, and substantial payments as a result.

In mid-2021, during the National Unity Government era, the Ministry of Interior rebranded the Abu Salim Battalion as the “Stability Support Apparatus” (SSA). With this designation, the agency gained authority to establish headquarters and branches in areas west of the capital, including Sabratha and Al-Zawiya cities.

2.1 Activities 

SSA frequently claim that they fight illegal migration, smuggling, and other crimes through their official social media channels. These include: 

• On 3 February, the Stabilization Support Service office was able to arrest about 100 illegal immigrants of different nationalities as they illegally crossed Libyan territory across the Tunisian border.
• On 1 February, the Stabilization Support Service office was able to arrest 34 illegal immigrants of different African nationalities.
• On 24 January, The Stabilization Support Service Office was able to arrest a number of outlaws as part of its efforts to combat drug trafficking.

***

Jawhar Farhat is an ALL source analyst with a Level 6 diploma (CSMP) in Security Management and a master’s degree in Military Sciences from the Military Academy of Tunisia. With eight years of military service and a specialization in the MENA region, he is currently pursuing a Master’s in Terrorism and Security at the University of Salford.

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Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

B. Isolation and fragmentation (2015–18)

The 2014–15 civil war had momentous consequences for politics, the economy, and security in Zawiya. With the coastal road cut off by hostile forces, the city was isolated from Tripoli.

Among Zawiyan armed groups, a hard-line stance towards Libya Dawn’s adversaries prevailed longer than in Misrata and Tripoli, causing Zawiya’s political marginalization in the Government of National Accord (GNA), which took office in Tripoli in March 2016.

Meanwhile, the disappearance of a unifying leadership and purpose led to the eruption of violent internal conflicts whose legacies continue to haunt Zawiya. As a stalemate took root between Libya Dawn and its Zintani-led adversaries from early 2015 onwards, Misratan forces—who formed the largest component of Libya Dawn—began ceasefire negotiations with leaders from Zintan and Warshafana.

In parallel, Misratan political figures became central to the UN-led process that eventually led to the conclusion of the Libyan Political Agreement in December 2015, and the formation of the GNA. Zawiyan armed groups, by contrast, were adverse to a ceasefire that would see Warshafana factions allied with Haftar return to their community’s territory, on Zawiya’s eastern borders—which occurred in mid-April 2015.

They were also divided: two field commanders from Zintan and Misrata who negotiated with Zawiyan counterparts both stressed that the groups could not credibly commit to ceasefires owing to their internal divisions, and that identifying key figures who could speak for Zawiya’s armed groups was a challenge.

According to the Misratan commander, groups from Zawiya thrice violated a ceasefire that Misratans had negotiated for Libya Dawn with Warshafana leaders. Zawiyan groups almost certainly adopted a less conciliatory stance, compared to Misratan factions, because the presence of armed groups in Warshafana would pose a direct threat to them. This fear was borne out by subsequent developments.

In May 2015, groups from Warshafana yet again captured the checkpoint at Bridge 27. From then onwards, Warshafana-based armed groups frequently carried out abductions and robberies along the stretch of road between Zawiya and the Tripoli suburb of Janzur, which repeatedly provoked clashes and temporary closures of the road by Zawiyan factions or Fursan Janzur—their allies in the now defunct Libya Dawn coalition.

Zawiya’s isolation deepened in October 2015, when a military helicopter carrying field commanders and officers from Zawiya and other western cities was shot down as it passed over the Maya area of Warshafana on its way from Tripoli to Zawiya.

Eighteen people were killed, including Kilani’s son Abderrahim, the leader of the Zawiya Martyrs Battalion Suhaib al-Rummah, and several prominent military officers. The incident triggered not only renewed clashes with groups in Warshafana, but also more importantly the almost year-long closure of the coastal road by Zawiyan leaders, with further temporary closures continuing until March 2017.

It also greatly strengthened those rejecting reconciliation in Zawiya at a time when other western Libyan factions were increasingly reaching out to their former adversaries. It became far more difficult for Zawiya residents to get to Tripoli, and vice versa. Zawiyan armed groups, meanwhile, had no weight in the Tripoli military balance, even as the city’s militias positioned themselves in favour of or against the nascent unity government.

The formation of the GNA therefore left Zawiya marginalized. Libya’s fourth-largest city had no representative in either the GNA’s nine-member Presidency Council, or its 18-member ministerial line-up. This was a striking omission in a context where the proportional representation of communities was considered a key criterion for government formation.

Moreover, political divisions in the city deepened as Zawiyan figures began striking arrangements with the GNA. Khaled al-Meshri, a GNC member for Zawiya, backed the GNA—in line with the stance of the Justice and Construction Party, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated party to which he belonged.

Through Meshri, several Zawiyan commanders—including Mohamed Hussein al-Khadrawi of the Central Support Apparatus and Ben Rajab, who by then led the Hamdi Ben Rajab Battalion—opted to support the GNA and ensure their forces retained official status and salaries from the 24 Report March 2024 state.

Hadiya, who staunchly opposed the GNA along with other hardliners, left Zawiya for Turkey and only returned in 2023.21 His departure created yet another gap in the leadership of the city’s armed groups, adding to the void left by the deaths of Kilani and the helicopter passengers.

Another prominent figure, Treiki, played a much reduced public role since he had suffered major injuries in a car accident while returning from the frontline in March 2015. Later, Ben Rajab and Khadrawi themselves temporarily lost their leadership positions along with a third prominent former revolutionary, Hassan Za’et: in June 2017, Saudi authorities arrested the three men and surrendered them to Haftar, who would only release them in March 2019.

Consequently, after the 2014–15 civil war, Zawiya was an embattled, isolated city, whose armed groups were suffering from a leadership crisis and a loss of purpose. In this context, fuel and migration smuggling took on an entirely new dimension in the city: armed groups that funded themselves through these activities rapidly gained in power—an aspect examined in detail below.

The eruption of serious violent conflict within the city itself also occurred in this context. In September 2015, Ibrahim al-Hnesh allegedly killed Hamza al-Khadrawi in a dispute linked to Hnesh’s hashish business, triggering clashes between armed groups in Zawiya’s city centre that would rage intermittently for the next two years.

While this conflict was made up of a series of short-lived armed confrontations, interlocutors in Zawiya generally refer to it as the ‘Khadrawi–Hnesh war’, and consistently estimate the overall toll of the conflict at around 180–90 people.

Several traced the origins of the ongoing conflicts in the city back to the clashes between Khadrawi and Hnesh. The Khadrawi–Hnesh war was symptomatic of both a generational change among Zawiya’s armed groups and the erosion of moral authority among the older generation of revolutionaries.

According to a person who was close to him, Hnesh had ‘stayed at home’ during the revolution, despite being 20 years old and several of his cousins being revolutionary fighters. Over the following years, he emerged as a hashish trader and formed a gang, which he led into battle in the 2014–15 civil war, reportedly building up his firepower with backing from Hadiya.

Hamza al-Khadrawi was from an extended family that included several prominent revolutionaries. He, too, had fought in the 2014–15 war—in the ranks of the Martyr Haitham al-Khadrawi Battalion headed by his brother Akram, who would lead the fight against Hnesh over the following years. Both families were from Zawiya’s city centre, and their association with different tribes added a social dimension to the conflict: the Khadrawis were Awlad Jarbu’, whereas Hnesh was a Bel’azi.

The fact that extended families on both sides refused to surrender members who were accused of killings was a major complicating factor. In February 2016, Zawiyan armed groups briefly regained unity when they joined the short campaign against the non-state armed group Islamic State (IS) in neighbouring Sabratha. But just a month later, the clashes between Hnesh and Khadrawi resumed with greater violence, and indiscriminate shelling by the warring parties caused residents to flee the area.

At that point, Treiki and other prominent former revolutionaries convinced both Hnesh and Akram al-Khadrawi to hand themselves in to the protective custody of the Special Deterrence Force in Tripoli, in order to stop the fighting. Several months later, however, both were free again, and repeated bouts of fighting erupted between July and October 2016. This time, the parties involved broadened, as Leheb’s Sila’ Battalion—known to most Zawiyan interlocutors as ‘the Awlad Sagr’—joined Khadrawi’s side.

Meanwhile, Hnesh gained support from Kashlaf of the Nasr Battalion, as well as from his close allies, the Buzriba brothers. Another local ceasefire reached in late October brought a fragile calm to the area until clashes broke out again the following April.

Finally, in June 2017, Hnesh was killed in renewed heavy fighting, which effectively ended the Hnesh–Khadrawi war. But by then the war had provoked a deep rift between Zawiya’s armed groups, set a precedent with its indifference to civilian casualties from the fighting, and spawned yearnings for revenge that would continue to inspire killings over the following years. It had also reshaped Zawiya’s security landscape.

A new force emerged out of the factions that fought for Hnesh and, after the latter’s death, Mohamed Bahroun—a young fighter known as ‘al-Far’ (‘the mouse’)—became its leader. Shortly afterwards, he acquired an official capacity as an officer in Zawiya’s police directorate. Bahroun’s group was no longer associated with any particular local constituency, but represented a hodgepodge of young fighters involved in drug and fuel smuggling. Bahroun, moreover, had been implicated by a former IS member in a taped confession published by the Special Deterrence Force in March 2016.

The Special Deterrence Force claimed that Bahroun had helped several IS members escape Sabratha the previous month, and hosted them in Hnesh’s positions in central Zawiya, where they were later captured by Khadrawi’s men (Special Deterrence Force, 2016). Bahroun denied the allegations and continued to operate under Zawiya’s police directorate, even after the attorney general issued an arrest warrant for him. Much later, after Bahroun had gained political influence, the attorney general annulled the arrest warrant.

The period between 2015 and 2018 also saw the rise of the Buzriba brothers as a major military force in Zawiya. Their Abu Surra Martyrs Battalion grew in strength thanks to their deep involvement in the illicit economy. Interlocutors in Zawiya consistently described the brothers as the patrons of both Kashlaf (‘al-Qsab’), whose Nasr Battalion controlled the refinery, and the coastguard officer Abderrahman Milad (‘al-Bija’), who was intercepting growing numbers of migrants departing from the shores of Zawiya and western Libyan cities in order to surrender them to the Nasr detention centre in the refinery.

Kashlaf and Milad were both members of the Awlad Buhmeira tribe, in A Political Economy of Zawiya 27 which the Buzribas had long been a politically powerful family. By the time the coastal road between Tripoli and Zawiya permanently reopened, in March 2017, this network had reached arrangements on fuel and migrant smuggling with armed groups in Warshafana and Zintan.

In addition, the Buzriba network’s backing for Hnesh included cooperation on fuel smuggling; the question of who controlled the refinery was therefore also at stake in the Hnesh–Khadrawi war. Kashlaf would retain control of the refinery despite being publicly accused of responsibility for fuel smuggling by the head of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla, and targeted by UN Security Council sanctions, together with Milad, in June 2018.

It was a sign of how divided Zawiya had become that some local factions were even reaching out to Haftar’s forces, which were steadily expanding their territory during this period. In the western district of Mutrid, a Salafist-tinged militia emerged whose leanings towards Haftar gradually became more apparent over the years. It was formed by Muhanned Sweisi and Hatem al-Ghaeb, who had both led armed groups in the area and transformed them into the Western Region Criminal Investigations Department in 2016, with backing from the Special Deterrence Force in Tripoli.

By March 2017, that unit had firmly established control over Mutrid and neighbouring Sorman, and by October the next city to the west, Sabratha, had fallen under the control of forces that retained official ties to Tripoli but made little secret of their defacto loyalty to Haftar. These groups took control of Sabratha during a brief war; fighters on the losing side fled to Zawiya, where they were hosted by the Buzribas and became a source of latent tensions with Sabratha.

Meanwhile, in southern Zawiya, a fuel smuggler and kidnapper from the Awlad Sagr called Ali Kardamin joined Haftar’s coalition as early as 2017; in June of that year, he attacked a UN convoy and briefly abducted several UN staff. Kardamin later fought with Haftar’s forces in the Tripoli war and was killed shortly after it ended.

In the city centre, Abderrauf Bukhder, a prominent former revolutionary, joined Haftar’s forces in 2018, causing his Oqba bin Nafe’ Battalion to split. Most significantly, in the south-eastern Abu Surra area, the Buzriba family opened channels to Haftar in the autumn of 2018, reportedly trying to ensure their interests would be protected if they backed Haftar’s move into western Libya. When that offensive finally began in April 2019, it therefore appeared inevitable that Zawiya would suffer deep divides. Instead, the 2019–20 civil war produced a remarkable reversal of the city’s fortunes.

***

Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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Ferhat Polat

New efforts to hold delayed elections offer a glimmer of hope to end Libya’s deep political crisis. But the Libyan people remain sceptical. Rival Libyan leaders recently announced that they have agreed on the necessity of forming a new unified government to oversee Libya’s long-delayed elections.

The elections in Libya, initially scheduled for December 2021, have been delayed indefinitely, due to disagreements about the electoral law and who should be allowed to stand in the polls. 

By delaying the elections, the dispute over the legitimacy of the current Prime Minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, has heightened. The Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR) speaker, Aguila Saleh, argued that Dbeibah’s mandate expired when the interim government failed to hold elections.

As a result, Libya once again fell into a deep political crisis. The appointment of Fathi Bashagha as prime minister by the HoR, with support from warlord Khalifa Haftar, has led to further turmoil in the country.

“Amidst the turmoil gripping Libya, recent developments offer a glimmer of hope for the nation’s stability and security”

Bashagha installed his government in Sirte, intending to enter and capture Libya’s capital Tripoli. But Bashagha’s attempts to take control of Tripoli have been unsuccessful, resulting in violent clashes with Dbeibah’s Government of National Unity (GNU) forces, killing dozens of people and wounding hundreds.

Following his inability to enter Tripoli, the HoR has decided to suspend Bashagha and assign his finance minister, Osama Hamada, to take over his responsibilities.

Amidst the turmoil gripping Libya, recent developments offer a glimmer of hope for the nation’s stability and security. Recently, the country’s interior minister announced that armed groups in Tripoli have agreed to leave the capital and allow regular forces to take over before the end of Ramadan on 10th April.

After over a decade of conflict, Libya is deeply divided and lacks strong national institutions and democratic experience, leading to a power vacuum that has allowed various armed groups to assert control over different parts of the country.

This has resulted in ongoing violence and instability, making it difficult for the Libyan people to rebuild their country and move towards a more peaceful and prosperous future.  Previous plans for swift elections have failed, but recent developments have brought hope for the future.

However, there are still many challenges that lie ahead on the road to stability in Libya. The absence of a constitution remains at the core of Libya’s problems concerning elections. In addition, there is a lack of security and the presence of foreign fighters.

The lack of a clear constitutional framework outlining the government structure and division of powers in Libya has been a hurdle to the electoral process. The Draft Constitution, developed by the Constitutional Drafting Assembly from 2014 to 2017 and finalised in July 2017, has yet to be subjected to a referendum. 

In the meantime, the Constitutional Declaration established by the National Transitional Council in August 2011 continues to serve as the temporary constitutional framework for the country.

There are various reasons for the failure, including domestic and external challenges encountered by the constitution-making body and ongoing disagreements among rival sides regarding different aspects of the final draft constitution.

For Libya to conduct successful and legitimate elections, the rival factions must agree on a constitutional framework well in advance. Creating a new constitution should outline the governance structure, define the roles and powers of the central authority, and establish clear rules for presidential, parliamentary, and electoral processes.

Elections are important for two main reasons. Firstly, they allow a country to move past its current political structure. In Libya, with two separate parliaments and governments, the lack of unity hinders state institutions from functioning effectively.

By creating the right conditions, elections could pave the way for a more cohesive and efficient political system. Secondly, polls can provide a roadmap for the nation’s future by giving a mandate to a newly elected government.

The situation in Libya still presents the worst possible preconditions for elections. Security issue is another key obstacle.

Research in post-conflict contexts has consistently found that successful elections are more likely when one side is definitively defeated, security measures are in place to guarantee peaceful voting, and credible electoral and judicial systems exist to prevent disputes over results.

Failing to meet these conditions can actually heighten the risk of a resurgence of violence.

Therefore, it is crucial to implement security sector reform. This involves integrating, unifying, and controlling militia groups to prevent the spread of weapons within the country. Thus, Libya needs military training.

Turkey has been one of the NATO members providing such support since a military cooperation agreement between the UN-backed government and Turkey was signed in 2019. The agreement was intended to provide essential military resources and training to help transition Tripoli-allied militias into a standing army.

Despite the recent positive steps taken towards forming a new unified government and removing militia forces from the capital, many Libyans remain sceptical about the potential success of the political negotiations.

This scepticism is fuelled by the history of previous political talks, which have shown little progress. Mistrust between rival parties, deeply entrenched divisions, and competing interests create significant barriers to achieving a sustainable agreement.

Without security, election laws, a widely accepted constitution, and unifying state institutions, especially military ones, any initiative to hold the elections will likely fail.

Ferhat Polat is a Chevening Scholar from the 2022 cohort and a researcher at the TRT World Research Centre. Holding an MA in Middle East Studies from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, he specialises in North African geopolitics and security, with a particular focus on Libya.

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Anna Borshchevskaya

Closer Military Ties with Iran

The invasion of Ukraine accelerated strategic cooperation between Russia and Iran, including in the military sphere. This trend is likely to continue. Multiple reports following the invasion hinted at a broader high-tech and defence partnership, and US officials began publically expressing concern. US National Security Council official John Kirby noted in late 2022, “Russia is offering Iran an unprecedented level of military and technical support that is transforming their relationship.”

Iran’s provision of Shaheed attack drones for use in Ukraine has received much attention and, to be sure, is important, as no country other than Iran has willingly helped Russia kill Ukrainians. But what Russia is providing to Iran deserves at least as much attention. At the end of 2023, Iran’s deputy defence minister told the Tasnim news agency that Iran had finalised arrangements to deliver Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and helicopters.

The Russians have yet to confirm the deal, but what is confirmed is the export to Iran of training aircraft, which would enable Iranian pilots to make the leap to the much more advanced Su-35. If this deal goes through, it would significantly increase Tehran’s ability to conduct offensive air operations by replacing its antiquated 1970s inventory of US aircraft, which the Shah purchased before the Islamic Revolution.

Iran remains a primary threat to the Gulf states, and the provision of Su-35s to Iran would shift the military balance within the region in Iran’s favour, causing the Gulf states to change their security planning. But even if the deal does not go through, a trend of strategic cooperation has already emerged, including through bilateral Russian-Iranian and multilateral Russian, Chinese and Iranian exercises, a pattern that goes back at least five years.

In late 2019, when Russia, China and Iran conducted their first trilateral military drills, Second Rear Admiral Gholamreza Tahani told Iran’s state-run Press TV that the drills were a signal that relations between these three countries had reached a “meaningful level,” and that it was the first time Iran held joint drills with two world naval powers on such a scale.

This trend has continued ever since. At the end of 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced progress on the Russian-Iranian treaty on a “comprehensive strategic partnership.” At the beginning of the year, Russia’s state-run TASS reported that the document is being finalised and is set to confirm bilateral respect for each state’s sovereignty.

With the increased frequency and intensity of diplomatic and military relations, as well as the associated information narratives, it is no wonder Iran is among the newest members of BRICS. The UAE has joined, while Saudi Arabia remains invited but has not formally accepted accession to the group. With Russia assuming the chairmanship on 1 January this year, it will be important to watch if Russia attempts to court many in the Middle East and Africa by dangling defence contracts.

Expanded Military Presence and Wagner

Achief Western strategic objective is to keep Russia out of the Mediterranean. This position allows Russia to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on the European Union and project military power into the Middle East and Africa while posturing on NATO’s southern flank. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has suffered debilitating losses. Still, the Russian Navy remains largely intact and can strike NATO targets with Kalibr land attack missiles across the Mediterranean.

If Russia were to enhance its position on the Mediterranean further, it would impact its ability to conduct its war on Ukraine, but as the West waffles in aiding Ukraine, the Russians may see even greater opportunity in North Africa and the Middle East. Thus, Moscow understands the strategic importance of this region and continues to vie for influence there.

Not only does Russia maintain its permanent bases in Syria, chiefly in Tartus and Khmeimim, but it continues to look for access to a naval base in Libya, which has been another focal point of Russia’s Middle East activities for approximately the last five years. Reports in late 2023 suggested that Russia is moving ahead with plans for gaining docking rights in a naval base in Eastern Libya, most likely in Tobruk, after Putin’s meeting on September 28 with eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar.

These plans do not appear to have been finalised, but Moscow is clearly working towards expanding its military influence in Libya. Tobruk is a deep-water port that would add to Russia’s logistical capabilities, especially with the shallow-water port of Tartus. Russia also continues to seek access to a naval base in Sudan on the Red Sea, with an eye towards permanent access to the Suez Canal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Peninsula.

Many of Russia’s efforts to expand its military influence have either been spearheaded by or maintained with the help of its so-called private military companies (PMC), such as the Wagner Group. This group has been an instrumental tool for the Kremlin. It has officially been rebranded in the aftermath of Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin leading a failed mutiny and subsequently dying in a plane crash in August.

Subsequently, the Russian defence ministry has taken over many of Wagner’s security, oil, and gold mining contracts and the group’s relationships with African leaders. In Africa, Wagner has been most recently rebranded as Afrika Korps; the takeaway is that the Kremlin needs a paramilitary force to continue carrying out foreign policy objectives, whether as Wagner or by any other name.

Taking the Long View of Russia

Some might look at Russia’s declining arms trade and sanctions on the Russian military-industrial complex that, if kept in place, portend the decline of Russia’s military capabilities and losses in Ukraine and conclude there is no need to worry about Russia’s influence in the Middle East. But this view is both myopic and misleading.

Russia continues to vie for influence in the region through cementing access to strategic ports and using paramilitary groups and proxies, all of which Russia can afford absent Western pressure to cease these activities. Its defence contracts are foundational to these efforts. Within Russia itself, the war in Ukraine is not only a chief military and foreign policy priority but also the main driver of economic growth. Russia’s 2024 budget shows that for the first time in decades, military and defence spending is higher than social spending.

Indeed, the war has militarised Russian society. In the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict, if it needs to release pressure incurred by an excess of combat veterans, it may employ them abroad, especially through the use of paramilitary groups such as Wagner. This will be far easier to accomplish now that the Defense Ministry fully controls the group. Thus, when it comes to Russia’s defence relationships in the Middle East, Western policymakers need to take a long view that accounts for both Putin’s strategic objectives and the implications of the Ukraine war, regardless of its outcome.

More to the point, if the US Congress continues to dither and delay aid to Ukraine, Russia may soon tip the scales decisively in its favour. If this happens, America’s standing in the world will be diminished, and its adversaries will grow emboldened.

***

Anna Borshchevskaya is a senior fellow in The Washington Institute’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East.

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Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

I. The making of Zawiya’s political economy

Zawiya has a population of around 350,000, making it Libya’s fourth-largest city. Towards the east, its outskirts adjoin the peri-urban sprawl of the Warshafana area, which separates Zawiya from Tripoli; its western districts merge seamlessly with the neighbouring city of Sorman, thereby forming a single metropolitan area with Sorman, Sabratha, and Ajeilat. Zawiya’s southern fringes are bordered by the arid, sparsely populated expanse of the Jafara plain, through which a road from Zawiya leads towards the Nafusa mountains. The most vital artery crossing Zawiya, however, is the coastal road from Tripoli to the Tunisian border. Finally, although its centre faces away from the sea, Zawiya is a coastal city with several small ports, including that of the refinery. As an urban centre, Zawiya is a recent creation.

Until the early 20th century, the area hosted a cluster of villages along with a few Ottoman administrative and military buildings. Its name derives from the zawaya (singular: zawiya) that had been established in the area since the 15th century, and that offered religious instruction to the region’s agropastoral population—the only education available until the Ottoman administration established a rudimentary primary school in 1902.

During the Italian colonial era (1911–43), Zawiya developed into a small town. Urbanization began in earnest following independence and the shift towards an oil economy. Zawiya’s population grew from 19,500 in 1964 to 53,000 in 1980; by 2006, it had reached 290,000.

The establishment of the refinery in 1974 and of the university in 1988 were milestones in Zawiya’s transformation into a major centre of Libya’s oil-based economy. Zawiya’s origination from a cluster of different communities remains recognizable in its urban fabric. Many areas of the city are predominantly inhabited by members of particular tribes or extended families, and therefore seen as these communities’ preserve. This even goes for parts of the city’s centre, where a neighbourhood such as that of Awlad Jarbu’ is associated with the eponymous tribe.

Similarly, Awlad Sagr mostly settled in the city’s southern and western districts; the south-eastern district of Abu Surra is the preserve of the Awlad Buhmeira tribe; parts of the Harsha district are considered the territory of the Gammuda; and so on. Other components of local society include the Karaghla (Koloughlis)—families who trace their origins back to Ottoman officers and soldiers stationed in the area. These social categories have undergone politicization since 2011, as local politicians and militia leaders have frequently invoked them in their struggles.

Yet they form only one basis for collective action among several. Close family ties tend to be a far better—though by no means foolproof—predictor of common political and economic interests than tribal identity or even membership of extended families. Most importantly, social relations formed through common membership in the armed groups and criminal networks that formed after 2011 created new loyalties that often supersede community ties.

A. The revolutionary era (2011–14)

Zawiya emerged from the 2011 civil war as a key stronghold of the revolutionary forces. This development would define the city for much of the following decade. Zawiya’s new political and military leadership originated in the revolutionary struggle, and in the early years after 2011 it remained relatively united due to this common revolutionary outlook.

The city found itself in the revolutionary camp largely in reaction to the indiscriminate response of the Qaddafi regime to the protests that spread across Libya from 15 February 2011 on wards. In Zawiya, the first protests erupted on 19 February. Authorities initially refrained from openly using violence, allowing protesters to stage a sit-in at the mosque in Martyrs’ Square, the city’s central square. On 24 February, regime forces attempted to take back control of the square by firing on protesters, killing ten and destroying the mosque’s minaret.

The outrage triggered by the killings caused protests to swell further, and led protesters to seize weapons. Regime forces attempted to violently suppress the demonstrators, but rapidly lost control of the city. On 28 February, government forces began a major offensive to recapture the city using heavy weapons and indiscriminate shelling, killing dozens. By 9 March, they had fought their way into Martyrs’ Square, where rebels were holed up in the mosque and buildings surrounding the square. Having subdued the resistance following heavy fighting, regime forces later razed the mosque to the ground and conducted waves of arrests.

Many rebels from Zawiya fled to the Nafusa mountains; others formed clandestine cells inside the city or smuggled weapons to those cells by boat from Benghazi. In the mountains, Zawiya revolutionaries mostly fought with those from Zintan, alongside fighters from Sabratha and other coastal cities. The strong ties that formed among revolutionaries from Sabratha, Zawiya, Zintan, and elsewhere would provide a basis for trust between them even during and after the 2014–15 civil war, when they fought on opposing sides.

In June 2011, rebels based in the mountains infiltrated the city and, together with cells based in Zawiya, attempted to wrest it from regime control, but failed. They eventually succeeded when rebel forces descended from the mountains in August. Zawiya fell to rebel control on 20 August after a week of heavy fighting. The battle for Tripoli began that day, and ended with the rebel takeover several days later. Fighters from Zawiyan rebel forces then joined the offensive against some of the regime’s last holdovers in Bani Walid, which came to an end in October. With the fall of the regime, Zawiyan field commanders began setting up their own armed groups in the city.

Many young men began joining these groups, attracted by the glamour of the victorious revolutionaries, the power emanating from carrying arms, and the state salaries that soon started to flow to the armed groups. From an estimated 2,000 Zawiyan men who fought during the 2011 revolution, the headcount of the city’s armed groups rose to 14,000 in 2012, when the Warriors Affairs Commission registered self-declared revolutionaries across Libya. Among the most prominent early armed groups were:

– the Zawiya Martyrs Battalion, led by Mohamed al-Kilani;

– the Company for Capture and the Redress of Grievances (Sariyat al-Qabdh w Radd al-Madhalim), led by Mustafa al-Treiki;

– the Faruq Battalion, led first by Mahmoud Ben Rajab and later by Mohamed Hussein al-Khadrawi;

– a group led by Munir Ajina in the city centre;

– a group led by Othman al-Leheb in southern Zawiya;

– a group led by Jamal al-Ghaeb and another called the Kufra Battalion, both based in the western district of Mutrid; the Nasr Battalion that controlled Zawiya’s refinery, led by Mohamed Kashlaf (‘al-Qsab’); and

– a group in the Abu Surra area, led by Khaled Buzriba.

In the immediate post-revolutionary period, however, all Zawiyan groups submitted to a collective leadership: the Zawiya Military Council, headed by Shaaban Hadiya, who together with Kilani had led Zawiyan revolutionary fighters in Zintan. Hadiya and Kilani were widely respected and exerted moral authority over Zawiya’s armed groups. Both were religious figures: Kilani was an imam in Zawiya and a self-described Salafi, while Hadiya had studied under the Salafi scholar Muqbil al-Wadi’i in Yemen. Similarly, Treiki’s and Ben Rajab’s groups were reputed for their religiously devout leadership and resolute crime fighting—even though their members also included many less than pious young men.

Later, adverse media reporting would wrongly portray these figures and their groups as extremists, or even claim that they had ties to jihadists. In reality, their outlook matched the widespread appeal of piety in the post-revolutionary period, and the general conservatism of Libyan society. Zawiyan forces soon became a key component of the revolutionary camp in the emerging political landscape.

As early as November 2011, they clashed with groups from neighbouring Warshafana over control of the military base at Bridge 27, a strategic location on the road to Tripoli. Both sides held dozens of residents of the opposing community hostage. These clashes would be the first of several successive conflicts between groups from Zawiya and Warshafana, with the former stigmatizing the latter as bandits and loyalists of the former regime. Under the leadership of Kilani, armed groups from Zawiya joined with former revolutionary battalions from other western Libyan cities to form the Western Shield—one of several units of the Libya Shield Forces—in early 2012. The unit deployed to interpose itself in local conflicts, including between groups from Zintan and the Mashashiya in Mizdah and al-Shqeiqa, as well as between Zintani and Zuwaran groups at the Mellitah oil and gas complex.

For the former revolutionary battalions, the Shield was a temporary replacement for the defunct Libyan army that allowed them to defend the revolutionary order in the state’s name. It was also a conduit for state salaries and operating budgets, as well as a reflection of the rapidly intensifying competition between the former revolutionary factions over access to state resources. In keeping with the revolutionary spirit of the moment, two prominent field commanders were among the four representatives elected as individual candidates in Zawiya in the July 2012 elections to the General National Congress (GNC): Kilani came first, and Treiki fourth. Both rapidly became leading representatives of the hardline revolutionary camp in the GNC.

In September 2012, they helped push through the GNC’s authorization of a military operation in Bani Walid—a community that was stigmatized as pro-Qaddafi—to capture suspected criminals; Kilani even joined the fighting himself. In early 2013, they were staunch supporters of the Political Isolation Law that would exclude former regime officials from public office. Shortly after the law was passed, Kilani was instrumental in obtaining official status and a budget for the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROR), a body that brought together a number of hard-line revolutionary commanders. In October 2013, Hadiya was appointed head of the LROR with Kilani’s backing.

Only days afterwards, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was briefly abducted by armed men. Following his release, he accused Kilani and Treiki of being behind the incident, though both denied the charges. Such developments gradually hardened the divide between the self-declared revolutionary camp and its opponents, which in western Libya were led by armed groups from Zintan. Even within Zawiya, however, the formation of the LROR was controversial. Some of the more powerful Zawiyan forces refused to join the body, including Ben Rajab’s and Leheb’s groups—whether because they opposed the LROR’s tactic of besieging ministries to extract concessions, or because they retained close ties to Zintani revolutionaries.

Following Zeidan’s abduction, the GNC transferred the LROR’s chain of command from the GNC presidency to the chief of staff, thereby much reducing the LROR’s access to funding and initiating the body’s decline. Meanwhile, armed groups from Zawiya participated in the gradual escalation of conflicts that increasingly coalesced into a nationwide power struggle. In August 2013 and again in February 2014, they engaged in fierce fighting with groups from Warshafana, triggered by repeated abductions carried out by Warshafana-based criminal gangs.

That conflict, combined with the LROR’s close ties with Zawiya’s hard-line revolutionary parliamentarians, drove the city’s armed groups to join the escalating civil war. In July 2014, Zawiya’s LROR factions joined groups from Misrata and Tripoli in what soon became known as Operation Libya Dawn: they attacked Zintani-led militias in Tripoli, who were by then allied with Haftar.

The remainder of Zawiya’s forces entered the war in early August, after Zintani-backed groups from Warshafana attacked Zawiyan positions on the coastal road and seized the military base at Bridge 27 long enough to raze its walls. The attackers included a shadowy militia of former regime loyalists, which called itself the Army of Tribes and appeared to vindicate Libya Dawn’s claim that it was fighting against a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. More broadly, given the enduring commitment in Zawiya to the 2011 revolution, Haftar’s obvious ambitions to re-establish dictatorship provoked powerful opposition in the city.

Libya Dawn triggered large-scale mobilization in Zawiya, including that of men in their late teens and early twenties who had been too young to fight in 2011. Young field commanders entering the war established their own armed groups that would persist after the conflict de-escalated. The war thereby fueled a process of generational change, violent socialization, and organizational fragmentation that was exacerbated by the death of established leaders—the first, and most significant, being that of Kilani in September 2014.

Kilani was killed during Libya Dawn’s offensive in the Warshafana area, which eventually displaced much of that region’s civilian population. According to one formerly fervent revolutionary, Zawiya’s armed groups then turned to burning homes in the Warshafana area, ‘which Mohamed al-Kilani would have never allowed, had he been alive’. More generally, many local observers today trace the origins of what they see as Zawiya’s leadership crisis and the increasing ruthlessness of its armed groups to the disappearance of this unifying figure.

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Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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Armed groups and society in a western Libyan city

Wolfram Lacher

Executive summary

Armed groups from Zawiya, a coastal city that lies 47 km west of the capital, Tripoli, have come to play an increasingly important role in Libya’s power struggles. Conflict among these groups has been endemic, but has generally been limited to intermittent clashes, rather than escalating into sustained, all-out confrontation.

While national level politics has exacerbated these rivalries, they are fundamentally driven by competition over access to state funding and the city’s vast illicit economy: fuel, drugs, and migrant smuggling.

This Report offers a political economy analysis of Zawiya’s armed groups. By outlining the developments that shaped the nature of these groups and the city’s current security landscape, it shows how Zawiya’s armed groups gradually came to take on a particularly abusive and predatory character, compared to many other western Libyan militias.

The Report disaggregates these groups’ diverging business models and relationships with their social bases. This analysis also provides answers to the question of why clashes between the city’s rival factions have been frequent but generally short-lived, and have stopped short of all-out war.

This Report is primarily based on interviews conducted by the author during multiple visits to Zawiya in November 2022 as well as in February, June, and December 2023.

Interlocutors included commanders and members of Zawiya’s armed groups, and security officials, as well as academics, politicians, professionals, and other local residents.

Key findings

• Zawiya’s armed groups initially benefited from widespread local support for the revolutionary cause. Revolutionary leaders enjoyed a high standing in the years immediately after Muammar Qaddafi’s fall. A crisis in leadership and the city’s temporary political marginalization, however, prompted the rise of militias that were deeply involved in criminal activities, and came to be widely despised by the population.
• The 2019–20 Tripoli war allowed Zawiyan armed groups to regain influence in Tripoli and across the western coastal region. Zawiyan militia leaders became major players in regional and national power struggles. They exploited the rivalry between competing governments to their advantage, but in doing so also drew the city into a worsening security crisis.
• The four main forces in Zawiya today differ fundamentally from each other in their make-up, economic model, and relations with local society. While three are deeply involved in the illicit economy, the fourth—Brigade 52—relies entirely on state funding, and has gained a reputation for disciplined security provision.
• Since 2015, Zawiya has witnessed endemic violence, but never an all-out war between its main forces. Two aspects explain this restraint. First, since each faction fears the dominance of any single actor, alliances among the city’s armed groups constantly shift, maintaining a balance of power. Second, movement along the roads from Tripoli to the Tunisian border is central to Zawiyan groups’ ability to benefit from illicit activities, encouraging them to cooperate.
• Like other Libyan armed groups, Zawiya’s factions are seeking to refashion themselves as more legitimate, respectable entities, but their predatory activities remain central to their raison d’être. Their leaders now play a dominant role across Zawiya’s politics, the economy, and the administration; they are also key protagonists in the Libyan state’s capture by those wielding armed force.
• Popular mobilization against armed groups’ abusive and predatory behaviour in the first half of 2023 posed a temporary challenge to these groups, but their ability to play competing government officials in Tripoli against each other helped them in warding off such pressure. Zawiya’s militia leaders appear set to dominate the city’s political order in the long term, unless sustained civilian mobilization limits their power.

Introduction

The coastal city of Zawiya has assumed growing importance as a theater for Libya’s power struggles. The city’s strategic location as the gateway to the capital, Tripoli, 47 km to Zawiya’s east, emerged most clearly on 4 April 2019, when Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) launched a large scale offensive to capture Tripoli, and gain overall power.

Haftar had attempted to strike deals with armed group leaders in Zawiya and apparently expected them to allow his forces to enter the capital. But late on 4 April, Zawiyan forces captured more than 100 of Haftar’s soldiers at Bridge 27, between Zawiya and the Tripoli suburb of Janzur, thwarting the LAAF’s attempt to reach Tripoli. In the ensuing civil war, Zawiyan armed groups were a key component of the forces fighting Haftar. After the war ended in mid-2020, giving way to political struggles, they successfully converted their military power into political influence.

During the tug of war between the rival governments of Abdelhamid Dabeiba and Fathi Bashagha, in the first half of 2022, the balance of loyalties among Zawiya’s armed groups was yet again central to the outcome: Dabeiba prevailed. In addition to the political and military weight of its forces, Zawiya is also important economically. It hosts a major oil refinery and export terminal. Through the refinery’s petroleum products and particularly through the fuel imported and distributed from the refinery at heavily subsidized prices, Zawiya has emerged as a fuel smuggling hub.

At the same time, local armed groups have used the city’s shores to make money both from irregular migration towards Europe, and from the interception and incarceration of migrants. Fuel, migrant, and drug smuggling have all combined to raise the stakes involved in the control of roads linking Zawiya to its wider surroundings, including the Tunisian and Algerian borders.

Despite its significance, however, Zawiya has been largely neglected by researchers to date. No in-depth studies exist on its armed groups and their evolution. This lacuna is all the more striking given that the city has been the theater of recurrent clashes between its armed groups that have caused dozens of civilian deaths.

This Report is a primer on Zawiya’s armed groups and the political economy that sustains them. Libyan armed groups have, over the past decade, gradually consolidated into powerful state-sanctioned units that are likely to define the country’s security sector for the foreseeable future. Yet these groups vary widely in their aims and interests, finance models, and relations with local communities. Subsuming them under the blanket category of ‘the militias’, as is commonly done, suggests a uniformity that fails to capture their considerable differences. Understanding armed groups therefore requires analyzing both the national-level dynamics and the local conditions that shaped them.

This Report undertakes such an analysis for Zawiya. It should be read in conjunction with similar studies of armed groups in other local contexts, including a Briefing Paper on the Abu Salim district of Tripoli (Hakan, forthcoming). While there are also significant differences among Zawiya’s armed groups, most are particularly problematic compared with many other western Libyan militias in that they are politically opportunistic, deeply involved in criminal activities, indifferent to the human suffering they cause with those activities and with their recurrent armed clashes, and widely hated by the civilian population. This was not always the case: in the years immediately after 2011, armed groups in the city had revolutionary legitimacy and a relatively unified leadership that enjoyed considerable social standing.

To understand how armed groups in Zawiya took on the character they exhibit today, it is necessary to identify the turning points that defined their evolution. This Report proceeds in three steps. First, it shows how national-level and local developments combined to influence the trajectory of armed groups in Zawiya. Second, it focuses on the evolution of these groups’ financing strategies to demonstrate how criminal activities became central to the political economy of armed groups in the city. Third, it analyses how armed groups’ relations with civilians have evolved. It concludes with an overall assessment that draws out the implications of the analysis for future conflict dynamics.

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Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. His research focuses on conflict dynamics in Libya and the Sahel, and relies on frequent fieldwork. His work has been published in Survival, Mediterranean Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Washington Post, among other publications.

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Anna Borshchevskaya

The invasion of Ukraine accelerated strategic cooperation between Russia and Iran, including in the military sphere. This trend is likely to continue.

Multiple reports following the invasion hinted at a broader high-tech and defence partnership, and US officials began publically expressing concern. US National Security Council official John Kirby noted in late 2022, “Russia is offering Iran an unprecedented level of military and technical support that is transforming their relationship.”

Iran’s provision of Shaheed attack drones for use in Ukraine has received much attention and, to be sure, is important, as no country other than Iran has willingly helped Russia kill Ukrainians. But what Russia is providing to Iran deserves at least as much attention. At the end of 2023, Iran’s deputy defence minister told the Tasnim news agency that Iran had finalised arrangements to deliver Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and helicopters.

The Russians have yet to confirm the deal, but what is confirmed is the export to Iran of training aircraft, which would enable Iranian pilots to make the leap to the much more advanced Su-35. If this deal goes through, it would significantly increase Tehran’s ability to conduct offensive air operations by replacing its antiquated 1970s inventory of US aircraft, which the Shah purchased before the Islamic Revolution.

Iran remains a primary threat to the Gulf states, and the provision of Su-35s to Iran would shift the military balance within the region in Iran’s favour, causing the Gulf states to change their security planning. But even if the deal does not go through, a trend of strategic cooperation has already emerged, including through bilateral Russian-Iranian and multilateral Russian, Chinese and Iranian exercises, a pattern that goes back at least five years.

In late 2019, when Russia, China and Iran conducted their first trilateral military drills, Second Rear Admiral Gholamreza Tahani told Iran’s state-run Press TV that the drills were a signal that relations between these three countries had reached a “meaningful level,” and that it was the first time Iran held joint drills with two world naval powers on such a scale.

This trend has continued ever since. At the end of 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced progress on the Russian-Iranian treaty on a “comprehensive strategic partnership.” At the beginning of the year, Russia’s state-run TASS reported that the document is being finalised and is set to confirm bilateral respect for each state’s sovereignty.

With the increased frequency and intensity of diplomatic and military relations, as well as the associated information narratives, it is no wonder Iran is among the newest members of BRICS. The UAE has joined, while Saudi Arabia remains invited but has not formally accepted accession to the group. With Russia assuming the chairmanship on 1 January this year, it will be important to watch if Russia attempts to court many in the Middle East and Africa by dangling defence contracts.

Expanded Military Presence and Wagner

Achief Western strategic objective is to keep Russia out of the Mediterranean. This position allows Russia to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on the European Union and project military power into the Middle East and Africa while posturing on NATO’s southern flank.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has suffered debilitating losses. Still, the Russian Navy remains largely intact and can strike NATO targets with Kalibr land attack missiles across the Mediterranean.

If Russia were to enhance its position on the Mediterranean further, it would impact its ability to conduct its war on Ukraine, but as the West waffles in aiding Ukraine, the Russians may see even greater opportunity in North Africa and the Middle East. Thus, Moscow understands the strategic importance of this region and continues to vie for influence there.

Not only does Russia maintain its permanent bases in Syria, chiefly in Tartus and Khmeimim, but it continues to look for access to a naval base in Libya, which has been another focal point of Russia’s Middle East activities for approximately the last five years. Reports in late 2023 suggested that Russia is moving ahead with plans for gaining docking rights in a naval base in Eastern Libya, most likely in Tobruk, after Putin’s meeting on September 28 with eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar.

These plans do not appear to have been finalised, but Moscow is clearly working towards expanding its military influence in Libya. Tobruk is a deep-water port that would add to Russia’s logistical capabilities, especially with the shallow-water port of Tartus. Russia also continues to seek access to a naval base in Sudan on the Red Sea, with an eye towards permanent access to the Suez Canal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Peninsula.

Many of Russia’s efforts to expand its military influence have either been spearheaded by or maintained with the help of its so-called private military companies (PMC), such as the Wagner Group. This group has been an instrumental tool for the Kremlin. It has officially been rebranded in the aftermath of Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin leading a failed mutiny and subsequently dying in a plane crash in August.

Subsequently, the Russian defence ministry has taken over many of Wagner’s security, oil, and gold mining contracts and the group’s relationships with African leaders. In Africa, Wagner has been most recently rebranded as Afrika Korps; the takeaway is that the Kremlin needs a paramilitary force to continue carrying out foreign policy objectives, whether as Wagner or by any other name.

Taking the Long View of Russia

Some might look at Russia’s declining arms trade and sanctions on the Russian military-industrial complex that, if kept in place, portend the decline of Russia’s military capabilities and losses in Ukraine and conclude there is no need to worry about Russia’s influence in the Middle East. But this view is both myopic and misleading.

Russia continues to vie for influence in the region through cementing access to strategic ports and using paramilitary groups and proxies, all of which Russia can afford absent Western pressure to cease these activities. Its defence contracts are foundational to these efforts.

Within Russia itself, the war in Ukraine is not only a chief military and foreign policy priority but also the main driver of economic growth. Russia’s 2024 budget shows that for the first time in decades, military and defence spending is higher than social spending.

Indeed, the war has militarised Russian society. In the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict, if it needs to release pressure incurred by an excess of combat veterans, it may employ them abroad, especially through the use of paramilitary groups such as Wagner.

This will be far easier to accomplish now that the Defense Ministry fully controls the group. Thus, when it comes to Russia’s defence relationships in the Middle East, Western policymakers need to take a long view that accounts for both Putin’s strategic objectives and the implications of the Ukraine war, regardless of its outcome.

More to the point, if the US Congress continues to dither and delay aid to Ukraine, Russia may soon tip the scales decisively in its favour. If this happens, America’s standing in the world will be diminished, and its adversaries will grow emboldened.

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Anna Borshchevskaya is a senior fellow in The Washington Institute’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East.

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