By Hafed Al Ghwell and Karim Mezran
After a decade, the upheaval unleashed across the Middle East and North Africa by the winds of the Arab Spring only seems to have a woeful lasting legacy: civil wars, counter-revolution movements, and instability caused by widening regional ideological rifts. Read More
By Jalel Harchaoui
A first agreement has helped to overcome the divisions that have affected Libya for years. New leaders have been appointed. Who are they? Will they have the means to set the country on the road to reconstruction? Read More
Siyaset, Ekonomi va Toplum Arastirmaalari vakfi (SETA Brussels), a foundation for political, economic and social research has organised a web-panel entitled “Libya’s Political Transition Process” on Tuesday, 23rd of February 2021. Read More
By Rabia Golden
When the 17th February revolution first began, I was living in the United Kingdom with my ex-husband and kids, they were mostly grown, some married and some preparing for getting married. Read More
By Alex Kassidiaris
The shadowy Russian Wagner Group has drastically affected the course of the conflicts in Libya and Syria. While the Group cannot be clearly identified as a mercenary force or a private military company, its activity in war-torn countries continues to pose a serious threat to regional stability. Read More
On 5 February, Libyan delegates attending UN-hosted political talks in Geneva nominated a new unified interim executive for their country, which has been split in two regions, each administered separately, since 2014. They chose eastern Libya’s Mohamed Mnefi to head a new three-person Presidency Council and a businessman from Misrata in western Libya, Abdulhamid Dabaiba, as prime minister-designate. Read More
Our new report shows how Libya appears to be losing millions of dollars a year through the fraudulent use of its Letters of Credit (LC) system, run by the Central Bank of Libya. While a vital cog in meeting Libya’s import needs, the LC system has been plagued by abuse, which our new evidence suggests is continuing. Read More
By Ferhat Polat
Without the support of key foreign states that sponsor Libyan actors, no political process will be able to succeed in bringing stability. Read More
By Declan Walsh
Erik Prince, the former head of the security contractor Blackwater Worldwide and a prominent supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander who was attempting to overthrow the internationally backed government, according to U.N. investigators. Read More
By Jonathan M. Winer
Five years ago, President Barack Obama characterized the failure “to plan for the day after” the U.S. intervention in Libya as his worst foreign policy mistake. Read More
Emadeddin Badi
The transformations witnessed in Libya’s security sector over the past decade largely reflect the violence that reshaped the country’s social landscape during the 2011 revolution. Read More
Stephanie Turco Williams and Jeffrey Feltman
Libyans can mark the 10th anniversary of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi (generally accepted to have begun on February 17, 2011) with something in short supply since Libya’s 2014 descent into division and civil war: hope. Read More
‘People were buried alive. Whole families were eliminated.’
By Sara Creta
Wadah al-Keesh is used to handling dead bodies; fighters and civilians abandoned on Libya’s front lines. But a decade after the violent revolt that unseated Muammar Gaddafi – and after yet another year of fighting – recovering people from mass graves in a town notorious for brutal violence against civilians is different. Read More
By Karim Mezran
The Libyan people’s hopes have been raised and lowered by a succession of events so often in the past decade that it seems foolish to get on a roller coaster of emotions again. Read More
By Borzou Daragahi
In early February, scores of Libyans gathered in Geneva to form yet another transitional authority, hoping to pave the way for yet another election and a government that could stabilize and unify the fractured North African nation. Read More
By Jeffrey Feltman, Federica Saini Fasanotti, Pavel Baev, Courtney Freer, and Ranj Alaaldin
February 17 marks the 10-year anniversary of the uprising in Libya that ousted long-time leader Moammar Gadhafi. In the years since, the country has descended into civil war. Read More
The Complex Interlocking of the Libyan Crisis
By Karim Mezran & Alessia Melcangi
After so many years of civil war, it has become evident that competition among various actors is principally over the country’s resources and control of its financial institutions.
Holding a referendum on the country’s draft constitution could delay Libya’s planned general elections beyond the stipulated date of 24 December 2021. Read More
By Kirill Semenov
While Russia’s preferred candidates lost in last week’s vote for interim leadership in Libya, Moscow still has a strategy for reinforcing its influence in the country. Read More
The Complex Interlocking of the Libyan Crisis
By Karim Mezran & Alessia Melcangi
After so many years of civil war, it has become evident that competition among various actors is principally over the country’s resources and control of its financial institutions.
By Cathrin Schaer
The North African nation has been split since a revolution unseated dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. But a truce has held, and hopes are high for a new unity government. Read More
By Stéphanie Khouri
By dedicating the victory of an unexpected list, the results of Friday’s poll appear to have hastily buried hopes for a process of national reconciliation between the east and the west of the country. Read More
By Florence Gaub
After a decade of violence, Libya appeared to be finally on track for stability. The agreement had only one major flaw: it left any security-related decisions for a later stage. Read More
By Emadeddin Badi & Wolfram Lacher
The new executive authority is unlikely to transcend Libya’s institutional divisions, nor break with well-established patterns of intense factional competition within the government. Read More
By Stéphanie Khouri
The new head of the Presidential Council, Mohammad Menfi, elected on February 5 in Geneva, met on Thursday with the strongman of eastern Libya in a village near Benghazi. Read More
Motasem A Dalloul
At the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum in Geneva on Friday, 75 members, including former statesmen and tribal leaders, elected a small Presidential Council and a prime minister to prepare the ground for fair and transparent presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 24 December. Those so chosen signed pledges that they will not stand in the elections for which they have been asked to prepare. Read More
Ten years after Libya’s NATO-backed uprising ousted and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi, the country remains wracked by conflict and chaos, its population bled dry despite the nation’s vast oil wealth. Read More
Fathi Al-Fadli
It is customary for the European Union, the US administration, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and most of the international community to equate the Russian intervention with the Turkish intervention in Libya, and some Libyan parties do so as well. Read More
Tarek Megerisi
Europe should support the UN process in Libya by working to ensure that the country’s upstart new government focuses on preparing for and holding the general election in December. Read More
Keeping Libya’s fragile peace process on track requires redoubled efforts by external stakeholders eager to see the conflict end. In this excerpt from our Watch List 2021 for European policymakers, Crisis Group urges the EU and its member states to support the UN-led economic dialogue and the creation of a Ceasefire Monitoring Mechanism. Read More
By rejecting candidates backed by Egypt, France and Turkey, Libyan delegates gave a firm repudiation to politics of the past. Read More
On Friday, 5 February, the Libyan Dialogue Forum finished off the final round of a voting process that elected Mohamed al-Menfi as the head of a three-man presidential council with Musa al-Koni and Abdullah al-Lafi as deputies and Abdul Hamid Dbeibah as prime minister. Read More
Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh
The great surprise occurred in Libya, and the counter-revolution was dealt a painful blow. Read More
By Mücahit Aydemir
Dbeibeh told Anadolu Agency Turkey was the only country to keep its airports open to Libyans during the war. Read More
By Hafed Al-Ghwell
After 42 years of Muammar Qaddafi’s autocratic rule, Libya has endured a chaotic decade marred by endless conflict, acrimonious divisions and tensions potent enough to split the country into two, sinking it into a bloody civil war. Read More
By Mona El-Mahrouki
The two leaders of the transitional executive authority in Libya chosen Friday by Libyan delegates in Switzerland are figures known for their loyalty to Turkey. Read More