Mauro Indelicato
Sooner or later it had to happen: when the situation in Libya becomes serious, oil is the first weapon used by armed groups to dictate their own law. Read More
Author - ab_mnbr
Shelby Grossman, Katie Jonsson, Nicholas Lyon, and Lydia Sizer
In this study, we use Libya as a case to assess how social media content about a polarizing, conflict-related event varies by the country of the information producer. We created a dataset of Facebook posts about a sHaftar’s attack on Tripoli in 2019. Read More
Thomas M. Hill
We asked a group of Libya experts for their views on recent events and what we might expect in the days and weeks to come. Read More
Mathieu Galtier
A year and a half after Khalifa Haftar’s offensive ended, and a little over a month before a possible presidential election, Tripoli has been reborn. However, this rebirth has not lessened the Libyan capital’s endemic ills. Read More
Simon Watkins
- The relentless oil price is causing economic havoc around the world, and Libya represents a major supply risk that could send prices even higher.
- The recent failed attempt by Bashagha to take power in Tripoli has heightened tensions in the country and could lead to significant supply outages.
- Until there is genuine progress on the issue of fair distribution of oil revenues within the country, this risk of major supply outages will continue to plague.
A new blockade of Libyan oil facilities has greatly reduced production levels, hitting an already tight global market and adding to fears an internal political stalemate could spark new fighting. Read More
Hafed Al-Ghwell
A troubling sense of deja vu has settled over Libya in recent months, following the escalations that capped the failure last year to hold general elections and finally end a senseless struggle between rival governments with self-proclaimed mandates over post-Muammar Qaddafi life in the country. Read More
A night of clashes between militias in the heart of a residential district of the Libyan capital Tripoli raised fears on Saturday of escalating violence in the conflict-riven country. Read More
Adam Ciralsky
While spooks, treasure hunters, and lawyers search for cash, gold, and antiquities, Libya offers a lesson—and 1,001 cautionary tales—about how to recoup loot from kleptocrats. Read More
Adam Ciralsky
While spooks, treasure hunters, and lawyers search for cash, gold, and antiquities, Libya offers a lesson—and 1,001 cautionary tales—about how to recoup loot from kleptocrats. Read More
Stefano Stefanini|
While the European spotlight is on Putin’s war in Ukraine, a powder keg threatens to explode a few miles from the Italian coast. Now is the time to deal with Libya. In your interest and ours. The comment of the ambassador Stefano Stefanini. Read More
Mary Fitzgerald
Libyans could be forgiven for feeling an uneasy sense of déjà vu in recent months. Last year many had hoped the country was finally moving on from a long struggle between rival authorities. But the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, or GNU, that was established in 2021 as part of the United Nations-led political process has been challenged since March by a rival government appointed through a disputed parliamentary vote. Read More
Adam Ciralsky
While spooks, treasure hunters, and lawyers search for cash, gold, and antiquities, Libya offers a lesson—and 1,001 cautionary tales—about how to recoup loot from kleptocrats. Read More
Oussama Romdhani
It took a failed attempt by Bashagha to force his way into Tripoli last month to draw international attention to the Libyan crisis after it had been dwarfed by the Ukraine war. Read More
Stefano Marcuzzi
Since 2011, the EU role in the Libyan conflict has been characterized by an almost acritical faith in soft power, and in a strict adherence to the principles of UN political leadership and Libyan ownership. Unfortunately, soft power proved insufficient to stabilize Libya, the UN was too often paralyzed by veto-players, and the local ownership principle turned out to be a double-edged sword. Early EU failures magnified intra-EU divisions, making EU action even less consistent. This allowed external players to expand into Libya and ultimately overshadow the EU. The Union can invert the trend only by deciding to play a stronger political role. Read More
Lisa Anderson
Over the last seventy-five years, the endlessly shifting coalitions on the chessboard of Arab regional politics seem to have played by the same rules of the game. Yet, as private interests have become a major source of political power, there have been major changes in the powers and purposes of the players. Read More
For many Libyans, the clashes that erupted in the capital of Tripoli last month, sporadically recurring ever since, were an all too familiar deja vu of street fighting, reverberating gunfire and people cowering inside their homes. A video circulated online showing a man shouting from a mosque loudspeaker “Enough war, we want our young generation!” Read More
Stefano Marcuzzi1
Since 2011, the EU role in the Libyan conflict has been characterized by an almost acritical faith in soft power, and in a strict adherence to the principles of UN political leadership and Libyan ownership. Unfortunately, soft power proved insufficient to stabilize Libya, the UN was too often paralyzed by veto-players, and the local ownership principle turned out to be a double-edged sword. Early EU failures magnified intra-EU divisions, making EU action even less consistent. This allowed external players to expand into Libya and ultimately overshadow the EU. The Union can invert the trend only by deciding to play a stronger political role. Read More
Shane Quinn
Gaddafi had managed to maintain the structure of the Libyan nation, since his assumption of power in 1969. Following Gaddafi’s fall, the Brazilian author Moniz Bandeira wrote that Libya as a state “had disappeared. Real power was represented by 60 sectarian and tribal militias, armed and in conflict with each other. Read More
Lord Aamer Sarfraz
In Ukraine, the West has received a much overdue wake-up call and is kicking its foreign policy back into gear. The fight for Ukraine is a microcosm of a larger fight, for our own security and for a rules-based international order that has an unrivalled track record in creating peace, stability and prosperity. The stakes have never been higher. Read More
Lisa Anderson
Over the last seventy-five years, the endlessly shifting coalitions on the chessboard of Arab regional politics seem to have played by the same rules of the game. Yet, as private interests have become a major source of political power, there have been major changes in the powers and purposes of the players. Read More
Elia Preto Martini
Like most of its North African peers, Libya has been grappling with rising wheat costs following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. Combined with the April blockade of a number of oil plants, the country is particularly vulnerable and unable to benefit from the global rise in oil prices. Read More
Samy Magdy
For many Libyans, clashes that erupted in the capital of Tripoli last month were all too familiar — a deja vu of street fighting, reverberating gunfire and people cowering inside their homes. A video circulated online on the day, showing a man shouting from a mosque loudspeaker “Enough war, we want our young generation!” Read More
Ufuk Necat Tasci
Armed clashes triggered by Sirte-based leader Fathi Bashagha’s attempt to unseat the UN-recognised Tripoli government highlight the volatility of Libya’s political crisis. Read More
On May 17 – five months after the cancellation of national elections planned for December 24—divisions in Libya worsened when supporters of rival governments established by leaders in the east and west clashed in Tripoli. Read More
Mary Fitzgerald
Libyans could be forgiven for feeling an uneasy sense of déjà vu in recent months. Last year many had hoped the country was finally moving on from a long struggle between rival authorities. But the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, or GNU, that was established in 2021 as part of the United Nations-led political process has been challenged since March by a rival government appointed through a disputed parliamentary vote. Read More
Chris Doyle
Former UN representative in Libya Ian Martin’s latest book offers an honest assessment of NATO’s US-backed intervention in Libya and, as the country continues to struggle for stability, whether things should have been done differently. Read More
The UN panel said it continues to investigate the deployment of Wagner fighters and the transfers of arms and related materiel to support its operations. Read More
Miral Sabry Al Ashry
Violent fighting took place inside the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and its streets witnessed clashes and exchanges of fire, with violent clashes erupting in the city of Al-Zawiya. Read More
Ufuk Necat Tasci
Science historians argue that the traces of Khaldun’s theories were found in the works of world-famous intellectuals like Karl Marx, Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Read More
Migrants ‘extremely vulnerable’ to human rights abuses carried out by foreign combatants and military groups, a UN report says.
Libya faces a serious security threat from foreign fighters and private military companies, especially Russia’s Wagner Group which has violated international law. Read More
Instability in the rest of Libya has effects deep in the desert.
Malik Traina
In the heart of the Libyan Sahara is a city known as the ‘pearl of the desert’ – built up around an oasis that has been a refuge for thousands of years. Read More
Naheil Abu Hamdah
In one of the most expensive countries to live in, a new expat may find himself forced to make a choice between what’s important and what’s necessary, between basic needs, luxuries, and the new obligations and responsibilities that fall upon him. Read More
Libya is once again stuck in a standoff between two rival executives. In this excerpt from the Watch List 2022 – Spring Update, Crisis Group urges the EU and its member states to host consultations among foreign ministers of countries engaged in Libya, push the UN Security Council to appoint a new special representative and encourage the opposing factions to reach agreement on a state budget. Read More
An UN-affiliated body working in Libya has offered a bleak outlook of a country that remains gripped by armed militias. Federico Soda, who heads the Libya mission for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), described a vicious cycle of abuse in the country. Read More
UN investigators say Wagner Group fighters did not mark mines’ positions and may have rigged bomb to teddy bear
Jason Burke
UN investigators say Wagner Group fighters did not mark mines’ positions and may have rigged bomb to teddy bear. Russian mercenaries in Libya systematically broke international law by laying mines in civilian areas without any attempt to mark their location or remove the lethal devices, UN investigators have found. Read More