Author - ab_mnbr

Kaan Devecioglu

The cooperation agreement signed between the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) and the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO), covering geological exploration in four marine fields, sits at the intersection of Libya’s post-war economic recovery and Turkey’s Eastern Mediterranean and Africa energy vision. This agreement has multidimensional meanings such as energy security, geopolitical sphere of influence and economic integration, rather than a technical discovery process.

In the process of restructuring the energy resources of a country like Libya, which is in the process of political transition, foreign partnerships are critical both in terms of increasing production capacity and re-establishing international trust. Turkey’s involvement in this process should also be considered as a reflection of past military, diplomatic and economic cooperation in the energy sector.

Benefits of the Agreement for Libya

and Turkey

Libya’s declared daily production target of 2 million barrels by 2024 is not only a technical capacity increase target for this country’s energy sector, but also the economic basis of its national reconstruction vision. The daily production level, which is currently around 1.2 million barrels, is considerably lower than in the pre-war period. Closing this gap and reaching the targeted level is not only possible with the rehabilitation of existing sites.

The discovery of new reserves is directly related to geological studies to be carried out, especially in marine (offshore) areas. The hydrocarbon potential off the coast of Libya, which has not yet been fully utilized, stands out as a sustainability element in this country’s energy strategy. The agreement signed with TPAO is a technical partnership model that can meet this need.

From Turkey’s point of view, this agreement has its counterparts on different levels. First of all, in Turkey’s energy supply security strategy, providing resource diversity and reducing import dependency stand out as a main goal. In this context, TPAO’s natural gas discoveries in the Black Sea have been expanded with the outward opening process that started with exploration activities in Somalia.

The agreement signed with Libya is a step that complements this enlargement both geographically and geopolitically. Turkey’s goal of consolidating its position in the Eastern Mediterranean within the framework of the Maritime Jurisdiction Areas Agreement signed with Libya in 2019 has gained a more concrete ground with the energy activities carried out in the field. In this context, the seismic research and possible drilling activities to be carried out by TPAO in Libyan waters should be read as a move that provides not only economic but also strategic depth.

TPAO-NOC cooperation has a meaningful place not only in the context of bilateral relations but also within the framework of Turkey’s African energy vision. Increasing energy demand in Africa has led to a reshaping of global interest in the continent’s natural gas and oil resources. Technical cooperation that will strengthen Turkey’s position in this field, where actors such as China, France, the USA and Russia are in competition, make strategic contributions in terms of both energy security and foreign policy diversification.

Such an energy-based partnership with Libya reinforces the energy pillar of Turkey’s multifaceted engagement strategy in the region, while at the same time adding economic depth to the geopolitical equation in the Mediterranean.

The Strategic Importance of

the Agreement for Libya and Challenges

Offshore power generation is a more costly and technically complex process compared to onshore generation. Considering the long-standing internal conflicts and inadequacies in Libya, high-cost investments are required for the sustainable progress of activities in this field. It is estimated that each deep-sea drilling can be carried out at a cost of approximately 60 to 120 million dollars, and if production is started, the total investment cost, including platform installations, transportation lines and processing facilities, can reach 3 to 5 billion dollars.

It is not possible for Libya to meet this level of financing alone. For this reason, establishing a partnership with an actor such as TPAO, which has a strong technical capacity, public support and long-term planning, provides a critical advantage for Libya. In addition, such partnerships mean a positive signal for foreign investors and facilitate the integration of fields into international markets.

It is clear that the agreement will not directly achieve Libya’s production target of 2 million barrels; Because the agreement is currently in the exploration and research phase, not production. However, this stage is the first and perhaps the most important link in the chain of production increase. Geological surveys will not only reveal the existence of new reserves, but also prove the economic feasibility of these fields.

This will not only mean an increase in technical capacity for Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), but will also support Libya to regain the image of a reliable producer country in the oil and gas markets. Therefore, such technical cooperation should be considered as structural investments that directly support Libya’s goal of increasing energy production.

On the other hand, there are difficulties in achieving the long-term success of such cooperation without taking into account the main structural problems faced by the Libyan energy sector. In this sense, political polarization is still one of the most important obstacles.

Although the tension between the Tripoli-based National Unity Government in Western Libya and the Benghazi-based House of Representatives in the East over the sharing of energy revenues and control over oil fields threatens the sustainability of field work, it can be said that the relations developed by Turkey with all parties within the framework of the “One Libya” policy are the main determining factor in overcoming these difficulties.

In addition, the lack of energy infrastructure, aging refineries, an unregulated power grid and security risks seriously undermine Libya’s ability to attract investment. The intervention of militia groups in energy facilities or the use of production areas as an element of political pressure causes foreign investors to approach the projects in Libya at a distance. In this context, in addition to technical support, Turkey should also contribute more to Libya’s institutional capacity building, security sector reform and energy infrastructure modernization.

As a result, the cooperation agreement signed between TPAO and NOC is an important tool that will contribute to the reconstruction of Libya’s economic and technical capacity. This agreement will not only produce seismic surveys and drilling data; It will serve to remap Libya’s energy resources, improve the international investment climate, and increase Turkey’s regional influence through energy diplomacy. However, the success of this process is not only technical; At the same time, it necessitates a holistic approach in political, legal and institutional dimensions.

Otherwise, the strategic gains expected to be obtained from the sea may face difficulties such as structural weaknesses on the coast. For this reason, it is in the common interest of both countries to maintain Turkey-Libya energy cooperation with a long-term and multidimensional strategic vision.

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Sean Mathews and Oscar Rickett

Sudan’s army chief and de-facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan accused Libya’s eastern commander Khalifa Haftar of not being honest. Egypt hosted direct talks between Sudan’s army chief and de-facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Libya’s eastern commander Khalifa Haftar this week, in a bid to mediate between two allies on opposing sides of Sudan’s war, multiple sources told Middle East Eye.

Underscoring the sensitive nature of the talks, the Egyptian government released separate photos of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi meeting first the Libyan delegation and then the Sudanese delegation in what appeared to be the same room in the Mediterranean coastal city of el-Alamein.

Privately, however, Burhan and Haftar, along with their delegations, held face-to-face talks as part of an effort by Sisi to manage tricky relations between two important partners. Egypt backs both Burhan, who is fighting a brutal war against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and Haftar, the commander who controls eastern Libya. According to a Sudanese intelligence source, the meeting between the two leaders did not go well.

Extremely worried by the prospect of Sudan’s war spilling over into Egypt and by the disruption of trade in the volatile triangle border region that takes in Libya, Sudan and Egypt, Sisi was hoping to broker a peace deal between Burhan and Haftar. Instead, the Sudanese army chief accused the eastern Libyan commander of smuggling weapons to the RSF, and of working with the United Arab Emirates to assist the paramilitary of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo in other ways, the sources said.

Haftar, who had one of his sons with him, denied the accusations. Burhan told him that he was not being honest, and that the Sudanese had proof of his involvement. The Sudanese delegation mentioned that Sadeeq Haftar, Khalifa’s son, had been in Sudan before the war began in April 2023, and had met with Dagalo, the RSF chief better known as Hemeti. 

Days after the war began on 15 April, MEE reported that Sadeeq had flown to Khartoum on a private jet and donated $2m to a football club connected to Hemeti, before breaking his fast with the RSF leader at his home in the Sudanese capital. According to the Sudanese intelligence source, the meeting between Burhan and Haftar ended badly, with Sisi also not happy about the conversation.

Border trouble

Sudan, Libya and Egypt’s borders all meet in the vast, lawless, triangle desert region. When fighting between Burhan’s army and the RSF first erupted in 2023, Haftar sent military supplies by truck and planes to the RSF. Those supplies tapered off as the RSF turned to a more convenient route through neighbouring Chad.

More recently, forces in southern Libya loyal to Haftar joined the RSF in attacking border posts controlled by the Sudanese army. The RSF’s seizure of the border triangle alarmed Cairo. Now, the Sudanese intelligence source said, the RSF had taken over Maaten al-Sarra airbase in the Kufra district of southern Libya. This base is integral to the supply of weapons to the paramilitary in Sudan and to the export of gold out of the country from the mines of Darfur, which are owned and controlled by the Dagalo family. 

Egyptian officials have blamed Haftar’s youngest son, Saddam, for the raid in the triangle region. Saddam serves as chief of staff in his father’s army and controls militias, including Islamists, in southern Libya. He is increasingly seen as the successor to his 81-year-old father and has been courting support in Washington and Ankara.

One regional analyst, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject, told MEE that Khalifa Haftar was losing power as he gets older, with control now taken on by his three sons. The relationship between Saddam Haftar and the RSF is “a problem”, the analyst said. Egypt works with Sadeeq Haftar, but Saddam and Khaled Haftar control the “Islamist groups that work with the RSF” in the triangle border region.

According to the sources briefed on the meeting in Egypt, both Saddam and Khaled Haftar attended the meeting with Sisi. Egypt’s director of general intelligence service, Major-General Hassan Rashad, was also at the talks.

Egypt, Libya, Sudan

Egypt has played an outsized role in Libya since the Nato-led ousting of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country descended into civil war, which became a proxy conflict with Russia, the UAE, Egypt and France backing Haftar and Turkey supporting a rival government in western Libya. Like in Libya, Sudan’s ruler Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in 2019, having taken power in 1989. Four years later, fighting broke out between Burhan’s army and the RSF, a paramilitary once loyal to Bashir and allied to the army.

Egypt supports Burhan and his army, though this support is, for the most part, just logistical. At the onset of the conflict, Egyptian pilots flew planes supporting Sudanese army operations against the RSF. The longstanding relations between Egypt and Sudan’s armies and its support for Burhan in Sudan’s ongoing war have been a problem for relations between Cairo and its powerful Gulf ally, the UAE, which is the RSF’s main patron.

External monitors have documented military shipments emanating from the UAE to the RSF. Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab recently reported that Chinese-made drones “consistent with FH-95s” bought by the UAE had been flown into RSF-controlled Darfur. In May, Amnesty International found that the UAE, which continues to deny supporting the RSF, was sending Chinese-made weaponry, including GB50A guided bombs and 155mm AH-4 howitzers, into Darfur despite an ongoing UN arms embargo.

Gold continues to flow out of the Dagalo family’s lucrative gold mines in Darfur, with Hemeti stashing much of his wealth in Dubai. Some of the gold also finds its way to Russia, which is continuing to play both sides in Sudan’s war – the Russian government offers support to Burhan’s army while the Africa Corps, the successor to the Wagner Group, continues its partnership with the RSF.

Sudan and Libya underscore the convoluted web of alliances and counter-alliances that have come to define the region since leaders like Gaddafi and later Bashir were removed from power. The old ideological fault-lines that emerged in the post-2011 Arab Spring era have become murkier. Egypt and the UAE both supported Haftar in 2019 in his bid to conquer Tripoli, the seat of Libya’s internationally recognised government. At the time, the RSF sent fighters to bolster Haftar’s ranks.

Haftar still enjoys support from the UAE, but Saddam Haftar has been courting Qatar and Turkey more recently – two of the UAE’s traditional foes. Likewise, cash-strapped Egypt has received billions of dollars in investments from the UAE and continues to back Haftar, but is opposed to the RSF.

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Hafed Al-Ghwell

The sobering reality facing Libya far surpasses mere political stalemate; it embodies the active calcification of a partitioned state. Two distinct centers of power now operate with parallel bureaucracies, military structures, and international recognition circuits, each solidifying its control over significant territory and resources. This is no theoretical fragmentation typically subject of erudite observations by scholars, but an operational division measured in concrete terms.

One administration commands the capital and its international legitimacy, while the other dominates about 60 percent of the nation’s landmass, including the lion’s share of proven oil reserves — Libya’s primary economic lifeline, responsible for over 90 percent of state revenue. Each entity fields its own armed forces, estimated in the tens of thousands collectively, backed by rival foreign patrons whose military footprints are expanding.

The division even extends beyond security; separate legislative bodies pass laws for their respective zones, while reconstruction efforts have devolved into competing, regionally siloed projects. An entrenched reality has settled, where daily governance functions independently on either side of a virtual iron curtain, reflecting a partition actively constructed and resourced, rendering the notion of a unified Libyan state increasingly unlikely.

Tripoli’s authority, nominally the UN-recognized Government of National Unity, is visibly fraying under the weight of its own internal power struggles and widespread popular rejection. Its attempt to violently purge rival militias in May, triggering intense urban warfare and displacing civilians, culminated in the resignation of influential ministers. Ultimately, Tripoli’s “fausse paix” was shuttered by urban combat spanning 72 hours and 11 districts, including the affluent Dhat El-Imad towers and seafront — zones historically insulated from conflict.

The clashes also displaced 2,500 civilians, halted operations at Mitiga International Airport for 48 hours, and stranded foreign nationals. Critically, the resignations of finance and economy ministers, architects of a state budget dependent on $20 billion in annual oil revenue, exposed the government’s evaporating fiscal control. The spectacle of rival militias, some state-funded while others operate extortion rackets, engaging in pitched battles across the capital also cast a glaring spotlight on the fragility of Tripoli’s control of its affiliated militias.

Now, the GNU’s sovereignty has become a facade maintained by force, not legitimacy, with its institutions hollowed out via state capture and endemic corruption, with multibillion-dollar state companies becoming battlegrounds for rival kleptocratic networks. Militias now treat state parastatal coffers as mere plunder, with one faction having seized control of Libya’s Post, Telecommunications & Information Technology Company, a $3 billion state entity, in a firefight that killed eight civilians and left 58 bodies abandoned in a militia-controlled hospital.

On the other hand, parallel security structures are a further mockery of governance: 27 officially funded militias operate in Tripoli alone, yet the state cannot mobilize 500 coherent troops without triggering inter-militia warfare. Worse yet, foreign backers compound the chaos. This duality, where “state” forces assassinate rivals in extrajudicial executions while citizens burn tires in protest, frames partition as simple arithmetic, as Tripoli’s authority dwindles, reaching no further than its allied militias’ checkpoints.

On the other side of the divide, Benghazi has meticulously constructed a de facto state apparatus in the east, seemingly achieving some level of internal cohesion and international normalization unimaginable just a few years ago. Exploiting Tripoli’s chaos and legitimacy deficits, the rival administration has leveraged relative stability and a unified military command structure under its Libyan Arab Armed Forces to attract wary international partners. The ensuing diplomatic shift is palpable: Over the past year alone, Benghazi hosted delegations from the US military, the Italian Interior Ministry and intelligence chief, Turkish generals, Philippine diplomats, the Vatican ambassador, French NGOs, and British trade missions.

It has not escaped notice that a dedicated “foreign ministry” in the east has since chronicled over 100 diplomatic engagements across 12 months via more than 200 official social media posts, averaging one every four days. Such expanding engagement signals institutional permanence, not temporary rebellion, and since then, military normalization has only accelerated with the participation of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces in the US-led African Lion 2025 joint exercises, while hosting Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunusbek Yevkurov five times since August 2023.

Clearly, dual approaches, where 31 countries now treat eastern institutions as viable partners, proves partition transcends rhetoric. When foreign embassies relocate staff to Benghazi citing “prosperity and security,” and reconstruction contracts bypass Tripoli’s hollowed ministries, the de facto statehood of the east becomes irreversible arithmetic, and idyllic aspirations for Libya’s reunification remain just that — ideals.

Given the prevailing dynamics, it is possible to draw a fairly unambiguous picture of international actors no longer being mere observers of Libya’s debilitating bifurcation. They are now actively enabling and profiting from it. Previous models of exclusive recognition for Tripoli’s revolving door interim authorities have ceased to exist.

This “dual-track” engagement, replicated by Rome, Paris (hosting the eastern leader at the Elysee), and even Washington, reveals a cynical international consensus. Stability, narrowly defined as the absence of all-out war and the preservation of self-interested aims (migration “control,” construction contracts, oil and gas, Sahel access, and transnational networks), is prioritized over the messy pursuit of genuine national unification, democratic legitimacy, or the removal of foreign mercenaries.

What remains is an accelerating drift toward a redrawing of Libya’s map rather than a temporarily frozen conflict. Each faction now monopolizes force within its domain, while foreign fighters answerable to external powers bolster both sides, further eroding national sovereignty. What constitutional processes and fleeting hopes for elections that still remain are indefinitely postponed — deemed too destabilizing by elites and their international backers who benefit from the current rent-seeking arrangements.

However, average Libyans, suffering in a state on the brink of total collapse, see their demands for unity and accountable governance ignored by domestic warlords and foreign powers alike. Their protests, while newsworthy, lack unified leadership or international backing to overcome an entrenched militarized duopoly. Now, the global community’s comfort with this enforced status quo, prioritizing manageable instability over risky democratic restoration, is the most powerful engine of partition.

Without a fundamental shift from this external calculus of short-termism and economic opportunism toward a concerted, impartial push for inclusive elections, disarmament of militias, and the removal of foreign forces, Libya’s map risks being definitively redrawn — not by the will of its people, but by the interests of its fractured elites and their global enablers.

***

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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Filippo Sardella 

Risks to state stability

The rise of armed groups such as RSF in key areas of cross-border networks can threaten the authority of sovereign states in the region. Egypt, in particular, is exposed to a potential increase in infiltration, illicit trafficking and instability in its southern provinces. Libya, still without a unified central authority, risks a new destabilization in the southern areas already marked by military fragmentation. More generally, the multiplication of non-state power centers undermines the ability of governments to exercise a monopoly of force and to manage cross-border dynamics.

Intersection of war and crime

The overlap between armed conflict and criminal networks transforms the area into a hybrid of war and illegal business. The RSF could take advantage of the strategic position to combine military control with illicit economic activities, creating a de facto system of governance that escapes any institutional regulation. This hybridization of militia and crime poses a long-term threat to regional security, hampering peacemaking and institutional reconstruction efforts.

Humanitarian and local instability

The progressive territorial expansion of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), particularly in the border region between Sudan, Libya and Egypt, aggravates a humanitarian crisis that is already classified among the most serious in the world. The ongoing armed conflict has generated an extremely high number of internally displaced persons and external refugees, in a context already marked by economic fragility, the collapse of civilian infrastructure and the absence of a functional state authority.

Increased pressure on displacement

With more than 13 million people already forced to flee their homes due to the violence, the strengthening of RSF in strategic areas risks producing further waves of displacement. Access to escape routes through the northern borders can encourage forced migration to Egypt, Chad and Libya, with destabilizing effects both on the logistical level (refugee camps, health and food management) and on the political level, for the destination states. In particular, poorly equipped border regions are at risk of collapsing under sudden demographic pressure.

Compromise of humanitarian access

The instability generated by the armed presence of the RSF and the progressive emptying of state structures significantly reduces the ability of humanitarian agencies to operate safely. Supply corridors are being disrupted, food warehouses looted and hospitals occupied or destroyed. Widespread insecurity also undermines the distribution of essential goods, such as drinking water, medicines and foodstuffs, especially in rural areas and secondary urban centres.

Food crisis and famine risk

Many of the conflict-affected areas are already acutely food insecure. Agricultural activities are severely reduced or completely stopped, local markets dysfunctional and galloping inflation has made primary goods inaccessible for most of the population. The expansion of hostilities to new production and trade transit zones could aggravate a pre-existing crisis, pushing some regions over the threshold of famine. In the absence of coordinated action and lasting stabilisation, the material condition of the population is likely to deteriorate further in the short term.

Fragmentation of the social fabric

In addition to material impacts, war contributes to a deep fragmentation of the social fabric. Ethnic, tribal and territorial divisions are sharpening, fueled by the dynamics of forced recruitment, local revenge and survival logics that encourage the widespread militarization of communities. The RSF, operating as a de facto force in many areas, can establish parallel forms of government which, while able to guarantee apparent order, are often based on coercive practices and the subordination of the civilian population to military commands.

Role of the African Union and IGAD

The evolution of the Sudanese conflict and the expansion of the involvement of external actors greatly complicate the work of African regional bodies, in particular the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Both organizations have historically assumed a central role in the management of continental crises, but in the Sudanese case they find themselves progressively marginalized by geopolitical dynamics that surpass them in operational capacity and political influence.

Erosion of African diplomatic centrality

The growing presence of regional and extra-regional powers in the Sudanese theatre reduces the room for manoeuvre of African actors, who appear unable to impose an autonomous or binding negotiating agenda. The diplomatic initiatives promoted so far have proved to be fragmented, lacking a unified vision and often lagging behind the speed of events on the ground. The lack of coercive instruments and adequate financial resources prevents AU and IGAD from exerting a concrete influence on the parties to the conflict.

Conflict between neutrality and influence

The principle of non-interference, a pillar of post-colonial African diplomacy, clashes with the growing reality of a war in which the main African powers are already deployed, directly or through an intermediary. Egypt, a member of the AU, openly supports the Sudanese Armed Forces; at the same time, other countries in the Horn of Africa, albeit in a more discreet way, are ambiguous in their position. This heterogeneity of interests undermines the effectiveness of multilateral initiatives and places the AU in an ambivalent position: on the one hand it promotes peace, on the other it is unable to guarantee the equidistance necessary to manage the negotiations.

Risk of diplomatic substitution

In the absence of strong and legitimate regional leadership, the negotiating space tends to be occupied by external actors, often animated by divergent strategic interests. The real risk is that diplomatic processes will be moved outside the African sphere and entrusted to global multilateral platforms or bilateral agreements decided by Middle Eastern or Western powers. This scenario would further reduce Africa’s political sovereignty in managing its internal conflicts, paving the way for externally imposed solutions that are potentially unsustainable in the long run.

Need for reform and strategic

repositioning

To regain a central role in the management of the Sudanese crisis, AU and IGAD should undertake a structural reflection on their operating methods. Greater integration between preventive diplomacy and the capacity for political pressure would be needed, accompanied by a professionalization of the negotiating bodies and a strengthening of cooperation with the European Union and the United Nations on an equal basis. Without a renewed protagonism, the risk is that the continental institutions will become mere observers in a crisis that is played out on their own territory.

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Filippo Sardella 

The seizure of the Sudan-Libya-Egypt triangle by the RSF is not just a military fact. It is the turning point of a conflict that is regionalizing, getting out of hand and turning into a platform for trafficking, proxy wars and out-of-control humanitarian crises.

Logistics line and RSF reinforcement

The conquest of the border triangle between Sudan, Libya and Egypt represents for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) not only a military success on a territorial level, but a decisive qualitative leap on a strategic level. In a conflict increasingly marked by the logic of proxy warfare, the control of this geographical crossroads – known to be a historic hub of smuggling and armed trafficking – allows the paramilitary group led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemetti”) to build a real external military logistics line.

Libya as an armed rear

The axis with eastern Libya controlled by General Khalifa Haftar is consolidating. Militias linked to the Libyan National Army (LNA), and in particular the Subul al-Salam Brigade based in Kufra, act as facilitators of the logistical network.

The latter, historically involved in the trafficking of weapons, fuel and migrants, operates under the umbrella of Haftar’s power, and is suspected of receiving direct funding from the United Arab Emirates – a key element in the triangulation of weapons to the RSF.

Operational effects

The corridor allows the direct supply of ammunition, light armored vehicles and tactical drones, bypassing the central areas still controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

In addition, the north-western Sudanese border becomes a safe rear, capable of accommodating training camps, fuel depots and evacuation corridors.

There is a growing risk that the RSF could host Libyan or Chadian mercenaries in exchange for opportunistic compensation or alliances.

The Emirates-Libya-RSF triangulation

The UAE, already suspected of supporting Haftar in Libya and the RSF in Sudan, seem to be pursuing a strategy of “proxy dominance” in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

Through an opaque triangulation (Dubai → Benghazi → Kufra → Darfur), weapons and capital reach the heart of Sudan, eluding international controls and fueling a system of perpetual war.

Military implications

The logistical superiority now available to the RSF could overturn the balance of forces in the medium term, especially if access to the border with Chad were to be consolidated.

The presence of drone warfare, tactical satellite support and new mercenary recruitment lines contributes to a “decentralized militarization” that challenges the containment capacity of Sudanese regular forces and regional partners.

Foreign involvement: Libya, UAE, Egypt,

and Turkey

The Sudanese conflict has now gone beyond national borders, turning into a regional arena where the strategic interests of different actors intersect, often indirectly but decisively. The seizure of the tri-border corridor by the RSF has further heightened the concerns of neighbouring countries, which are involved — directly or by proxy — in the ongoing conflict.

Libya (Haftar’s LNA)

Eastern Libya, under the control of the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar, represents a central node in the logistical reorganization of the RSF. Although Haftar’s command denies any direct involvement, the evidence of logistical, military and territorial collaboration with Sudanese militias leaves room for strong suspicions. Control of eastern Libya allows the RSF access to a stable rear through which weapons, vehicles and personnel can transit. The ambiguous relationship between Haftar and the RSF is indicative of a dynamic in which political and military support can be exercised without official statements, while maintaining a margin of strategic deniability.

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

The Emirates represent an extra-regional but highly influential player, with a well-established posture of strategic projection in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. The logistical and financial support offered to Khalifa Haftar in Libya has paved the way for an indirect triangulation in favor of the Sudanese SFRs. The possible supply of war material through opaque channels and non-state intermediaries strengthens the operational capacity of the RSF, allowing them to maintain pressure on the ground and expand their zones of influence. The UAE’s objective appears to be twofold: to contain the influence of Islamist actors in the region and to consolidate its role as a Middle Eastern power capable of influencing African conflicts.

Egypt

Cairo has historically maintained a strategic alliance with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), by virtue of geographical contiguity, bilateral military cooperation and a common aversion to radical Islamist movements. The advance of the RSF towards the Egyptian border represents a direct threat to Egypt’s national security, both in military and migratory terms. The risk of destabilization of the Egyptian South, combined with the possibility that armed non-state actors gain control of the traffic routes to the Mediterranean, could lead Egypt to become more involved in the conflict, even if only in the form of logistical support or intelligence in favor of the SAF.

Turkey

Ankara adopts a strategy of regional influence based on support for moderate Islamic parties and electorally legitimized governments in the context of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. The expansion of the RSF — perceived in some Turkish circles as spurious military entities, backed by regional rivals — raises concerns about the possibility of Salafist groups or anti-Turkish extremist networks strengthening their position in the Libyan and Sudanese theaters. Although Turkey is not directly involved in the Sudanese conflict, the overlapping of interests with Egypt, the Emirates and Libya could push it to take a clearer position if the Sudanese civil war threatens its strategic assets in north-east Africa or its economic interests in the Red Sea.

Regional security and cross-border crime

The Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) control of the border triangle between Sudan, Libya and Egypt introduces a critical variable in the regional security balance. This area, characterized by poorly controlled territories and a long tradition of illicit trafficking, represents one of the main nodes of instability in the Eastern Sahel. The acquisition of this space by a paramilitary actor outside state control risks multiplying the threat vectors for neighboring states and for the entire Mediterranean region.

Organised crime and informal networks

The border triangle has historically been associated with established networks of smuggling fuel, small arms, goods and, above all, human beings. The ability of the RSF to exercise effective control over these routes can result not in an interruption, but in an informal and militarized regularization of criminal activities. The militias, in fact, could exploit these networks to obtain funding, strengthen their local alliances and consolidate territorial control through forms of economic and social co-optation.

Unregulated migration flows

The absence of recognized state control over the Sudanese desert corridor opens new channels of irregular migration to the north. The Sudan-Libya-Europe route becomes particularly exposed to an increase in illegal passages, both for economic reasons and to flee violence. This dynamic could accentuate the pressure on the Egyptian and Libyan borders, and subsequently on the European ones, making the migration containment strategies implemented by the countries on the northern shore of the Mediterranean more complex.

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Federica Saini Fasanotti

Rome’s migration deals with Tripoli may unravel as militia influence grows and stability deteriorates.

In a nutshell

• Italy’s deals with Libya rely on militia-controlled governance structures
• Realpolitik compromises threaten Rome’s credibility and regional influence
• Meloni slowed migration, but challenges in Tripoli could undo the gains

Since her rise to power in 2022, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has displayed a strong focus on foreign policy – at times even overshadowing her own foreign minister, Antonio Tajani. Among the top priorities of her international agenda is Africa, and more specifically, Libya. In light of the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the increasingly political (rather than purely demographic) nature of migration flows, Libya has regained strategic relevance for Rome.

Prime Minister Meloni’s vision was clearly laid out in the “Mattei Plan for Africa,” an international cooperation project officially launched at the end of 2023 and inspired by Enrico Mattei, founder of Italian petrochemical giant Eni. It envisions an equal, mutually beneficial partnership between Italy and Africa. The plan is divided fundamentally into six areas of investment: energy (renewables, gas, rural electrification), infrastructure (ports, roads, water networks), health (hospitals, medical training), education and vocational training, agricultural development and food security, and, of course, migration management.

Key Italian companies cooperating with Rome on the African engagement plan include Eni, national aerospace champion Leonardo and natural gas system operator Snam. The primary beneficiary countries are Libya, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Ivory Coast, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

What deserves attention now is Italy’s approach in one of these target countries: Libya, where violence is on the rise, short shrift is paid to human rights by those holding power and making deals, and an unraveling of existing power structures is possible.

What Italy has achieved with Libya

Italy – through Eni – in January 2023 signed an agreement worth 8 billion euros with Libya’s National Oil Corporation and the Government of National Unity in Tripoli, chaired by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh. Over the ensuing two years, the Libyan Coast Guard has been strengthened through the supply of Italian patrol boats, while detention centers for illegal migrants on Libyan territory continue to operate and are run by local militias. These efforts have resulted in a sharp drop in illegal immigration to Italy; last year migrant arrivals were down 60 percent compared with the previous year.

In October 2024, the Italy-Libya Business Forum took place in Tripoli, during which agreements were concluded in strategic sectors such as energy, fishing, healthcare, infrastructure and professional training. The countries also announced resumption of direct flights between Italy and Libya.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni (left) welcomes Libyan Government of National Unity’s Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibeh at the Italy-Africa conference at the Italian Senate in Rome in January 2024 to announce the Mattei Plan. © Getty Images

While these agreements appear reliable, it must be noted that dealing with the current Libyan leadership presents significant problems of various kinds. Since the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, Libya’s governance has been unstable and the country is split in two, each half under the control of a rival administration.

In the west is the Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli, which is aligned primarily with Turkey and enjoys support from the United Nations, Qatar, Algeria and Pakistan. It stands accused of maintaining ties to Islamist extremism and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Government of National Stability (GNS), located in the country’s eastern city of Benghazi, is led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar with support of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, along with the Libyan National Army and foreign powers such as Egypt, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

The militia problem

While the GNU − with whom Rome has made agreements to stem northward migration − ostensibly holds power in the country’s western half, the reins of power are contested. At a political meeting in Tripoli on May 12, Abdul Ghani al-Kikli, leader of the Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), one of western Libya’s strongest militias, was shot dead at the headquarters of another important militia, the 444th Brigade, which in turn is commanded by Mahmoud Hamza, who is also director of military intelligence for the GNU. Leading figures from the GNU’s security establishment as well as leaders from the Misratan Brigades, which is one of the country’s largest armed factions, were all present at the meeting.

The bold assassination paints a stark picture of who really holds power in Tripoli: Al-Kikli was shot dead in the presence of a deputy defense secretary and an interior minister. After the killing, the city descended into chaos before calm returned. Yet since then, mass graves have been uncovered, indicating that the Libyan regime that Rome cooperates with turns a blind eye to torture and extrajudicial killings.

February 22: A demonstration in Naples against the cooperation of Italian Prime Minister Meloni with Osama Almasri Najim, a suspected Libyan warlord. © Getty Images

Additionally, as power is contested, another large militia, the Special Deterrence Force (RADA), has entered the fray. This group is commanded by Abdurrauf Kara, a person linked to Osama Almasri Najim, who was at the center of an international scandal. Mr. Najim was arrested in Turin on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but in January he was released from Italian custody and returned to Libya on an Italian state flight.

This decision sparked outrage within Italy, with critics accusing the Meloni government of bypassing international justice and collaborating with criminal militia networks in Tripoli.

Mr. Najim, notably, at that time served as head of Libya’s Judicial Police. Ironically, it was not Italy’s Justice Minister Carlo Nordio but Libya’s Prime Minister Dbeibeh himself who, on May 15, made a surprise announcement accepting the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and pledging to hand over Mr. Najim and other non-compliant militia figures. Mr. Dbeibeh’s televised statement was unequivocal when he claimed that certain militias “had grown excessively, to the point of controlling the entire political, financial, economic, and even social landscape.” This marked a turning point in GNU internal politics and has complicated Ms. Meloni’s efforts in northern Africa.

Italian connections and a realpolitik

dilemma

What makes the situation more problematic for the Italian government is that al-Kikli was spotted in Rome as recently as March, two months after the Najim affair. He was accompanied by Ibrahim Dbeibeh, the prime minister’s advisor and nephew. They went to visit Libya’s Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Adel Jumaa, who was admitted to the European Hospital in Via Portuense after being injured in a gun attack in Tripoli.

This public appearance sparked outrage in Italy’s opposition and highlighted the controversial ties between the Italian government and Libyan warlords. Historically, al-Kikli played a key role in the “Volcano of Rage” military campaign defending Tripoli against the 2019 offensive led by Field Marshal Haftar. Al-Kikli’s SSA militia, originally approved by the Presidential Council, had been integrated into Tripoli-based institutions such as the interior ministry. He gradually extended control over areas west and east of Tripoli (Gharian and Zliten), arguably becoming too powerful.

Many observers interpreted his elimination as the first major shift in Tripoli’s security dynamics since August 2022. This underlines the fundamental issue faced by the Meloni government: how to engage with Libyan authorities and militias without undermining Italy’s credibility.

Since the 2017 Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding (initiated by then-Interior Minister Marco Minniti), successive Italian governments – left and right – have partnered with local militias to curb smuggling and migration. While migrant arrivals dropped, so did Italy’s moral standing, with accusations of strengthening militias at the expense of Libya’s institutional stability. Today, under Prime Minister Meloni, Italy appears to be making similar trade-offs – once again in the name of realpolitik.

The issues at stake now are similar to those of the past: namely, the control of migration routes, which are a strategic node in human trafficking toward Italy and are currently overseen by the militias named above. The fragility of local interlocutors consistently undermines the durability and effectiveness of any agreement between Italy and Libyan decision-makers. Rome’s approach has been marked by ambiguity, as it has engaged both with Prime Minister Dbeibeh’s Tripoli-based GNU and with the eastern-based authorities in Tobruk, including General Haftar.

This dual-track diplomacy has weakened Rome’s leverage in the eyes of more assertive players such as Turkey and Russia – recently joined, at least rhetorically, by Belarus. The results speak for themselves. Moreover, the endemic instability of Libya, as well as that of other countries of the Mattei Plan (notably Ethiopia, but also the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mozambique), threatens to undermine the very foundations of Italy’s long-term cooperation strategy in Africa.

Scenarios

Italian political engagement with Libya in the years since the death of strongman leader Qaddafi have been characterized by a conflict between pragmatism and ethics. Consequently, the real question is whether Prime Minister Meloni will be able to navigate a medium- to long-term strategy that is economically productive, reduces migration and at the same time is respectful of human rights.

Unlikely: Meloni succeeds as a power player by reducing migration

The most challenging scenario, albeit the most appealing, sees Italy rise to the role of true international mediator, accompanied by progress in the internal political dialogue in Libya, an improvement in migration flows and in the conditions of the exiles themselves. However, such progress would require significant stabilization in Libya, which currently resembles more a “proto-state” – fragmented and feudal – than a functioning democracy. As such, this outcome is unlikely.

Likely: Meloni fails to realize her vision and migration may soar again

The more likely outcome is that despite a superficial calm in Tripoli, the risk of renewed violence is real. If Mr. Dbeibeh’s government collapses under militia pressure, which is a real possibility, existing migration agreements would unravel. That would leave a power vacuum that might be filled by General Haftar – forcing Italy to renegotiate deals under less favorable terms and risking further reputational damage.

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Amid renewed relations with Libya, Russia is relying on the Al-Khadim base near Benghazi to strengthen its military presence in the Sahel region of Africa. RFI journalists were able to trace the itinerary of a Russian cargo plane from Syria to Libya, one of many flights operating on this route.

The airbase in Hmeimin in the Latakia province of Syria, along with the naval base in Tartus are key military outposts for Russia. The overthrow of longtime Syrian ruler and Russian ally Bashar al-Assad in December cast the future of these bases into doubt, with Western countries hoping to pressure Damascus into closing them.

Russia, whose military backing helped Assad cling to power, has sought to retain the two bases and has begun discussions with the new interim leadership under former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa. In the meantime, reports show that Russia has begun shifting some of its equipment to other bases – notably in Libya.

Using satellite imagery and flight radar information, RFI’s investigative unit Info Vérif was able to trace last month’s voyage of a Russian Antonov-124 plane, which took off from the Hmeimin base and arrived at the Al-Khadim base in Libya.

The Antonov-124 is designed to carry heavy, bulky loads (up to 100 tonnes), but it requires long, concrete runways for lift-off. In total, there are an estimated 20 aircraft of this type still in service worldwide, mostly used by Ukraine and Russia.

RFI journalists focused on an Antonov-124 (RA-82030) operated by a logistics company known as 224 Flight Unit, a subsidiary of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Numerous clients, both private and state-owned (including the French army), used its services for special air transport missions, before the unit’s fleet was placed under international sanctions. Their website’s mission history has not been updated since 2014.

10,000km round trip

Among the aircraft in its fleet is the aircraft coded RA-82030, registered as a civil aircraft. At the end of May, as indicated by data from the tracking website Flight Radar 24, it completed a journey of nearly 10,000km between Syria and sub-Saharan Africa.

Its first stop was the Libyan base of Al-Khadim, located around 100km east of Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica – a region in the hands of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by Russia. The Russian cargo plane initially appeared on screens on 16 May, 2025, at 3:17pm, a few dozen kilometres from the Russian base in Syria.

The speed and altitude at the time the data was transmitted to online open-source tracking sites confirmed that the plane took off from the Hmeimin base. But less than an hour later, the sites lost track of it before it reappeared north of Egypt, heading southwest. An aeronautical engineer who wished to remain anonymous told RFI that it is not unusual in some cases for location data to suddenly disappear.

“The transponder’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast [AIS] function can be cut off, which isn’t very prudent if the crew is flying in the United States, the European Union, and a few other countries. But it’s not illegal as long as the transponder’s Mode S [aircraft communication mode] is maintained,” he explained.

“It could also be that the plane is simply flying through dead zones in terms of ADS-B receivers connected to tracking platforms. In this case, it looks very much like an intentional disconnection. It’s quite typical. Moreover, the plane is over the Mediterranean and the airspace is not congested, so no one is going to come and protest,” the expert added. To confirm the exact whereabouts of the Antonov 124 plane, RFI contacted Maxar, a North American company specialising in satellite images and Earth observation.

On 18 May, two days after leaving Syria, the aircraft was found parked on the Al-Khadim runway. No other aircraft of the same type had been reported in the area at the same time. According to flight logs, the aircraft continued its journey, stopping in the Malian capital Bamako and Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso between 20 and 26 May, before finally heading back to Russia.

It is not clear what type of equipment was unloaded or loaded on this particular flight, but the aircraft’s cargo bay is large enough to carry several aircraft or armoured vehicles without having to completely dismantle them. In the past, these large carriers have delivered aircraft, helicopters, radars and surface-to-air systems to countries in the Alliance of Sahel States.

RFI’s investigative unit analysed the records of previous flights to get an idea of the scale of Russian activity in the region. They found that the same plane took off from Syria on 4 May, departing from Syria and reappearing later in the vicinity of the Al-Khadim base. Several open-source reports suggest that similar activities have been happening at this base in recent months.

Telegram messages

Earlier this year, French newspaper Le Monde documented eight flights between December 2024 and January 2025 between Hmeimin and Al-Khadim. RFI reviewed several Telegram channels close to the paramilitary Wagner Group and the Kremlin-controlled Africa Corps, and found references to Russian weapons deliveries to Al-Khadim – including heavy weapons and armoured vehicles of the same type as those used by Russia in Syria.

One Telegram post reads: “New organisations. New technology. Old places. Remember your roots!” The author is likely referring to Wagner’s first deployments in Libya in 2018, or to the Cold War era in which the Libyan army fielded Soviet equipment. RFI was able to geolocate this video, which was filmed in front of the hangars at the Al-Khadim base. Another video broadcast on Telegram, taken from the cockpit of a transport aircraft, confirms the use of this area by Russian cargo planes.

Diplomatic moves

For Lou Osborn, of the All Eyes On Wagner collective, this presence can be explained by a rapprochement between Moscow and Benghazi. This became more apparent following the death of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose plane crashed in August 2023 shortly after he led a rebellion against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria also sped up a push for stronger diplomatic ties elsewhere, Osborn said. “We saw a kind of logistical ballet of Russian planes towards Libya. There is a fairly strong rapprochement, political and military, between Haftar’s Libya and the Kremlin.”

Moscow has also tried to forge ties with the officially recognised government in Tripoli, through the opening of embassies, Osborn added, saying that there have also been overtures in Algeria and Tunisia – “countries that are very aware of what is happening in the region, with military attachés, particularly in Algeria, who travel back and forth to Libya”.

The flight of the RA-82030, which was also tracked in early June, is one of many signs that Russia appears to have successfully restructured its overseas presence, and is able to rely on a network of bases in Africa – ensuring the growth of the Africa Corps, and broader support for Moscow’s regional allies.

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This article is based on an original report in French by Olivier Fourt and Grégory Genevrier and has been edited for clarity.

Simon Watkins

Libya aims to boost oil production to 2 million bpd by 2028, with new bidding rounds attracting major global energy firms. Rising political instability, including the recent assassination of a militia leader, threatens new oil blockades and production disruption. Eastern-backed forces may challenge Tripoli’s control over oil revenues, risking a repeat of costly shutdowns unless a revenue-sharing deal is reached.

Given that around 97% of its government revenues come from oil, it might seem obvious to all Libya’s principal factions that increasing production is a very good idea. There is plenty of scope to do so, as before the removal of long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 it had easily been able to produce around 1.65 million bpd of predominantly high-quality light, sweet crude oil. Additionally positive back then was that production had been on a rising trend, up from about 1.4 million bpd in 2000.

Further increases were on the horizon to push output close to the circa-3 million bpd achieved in the late 1960s, with the National Oil Corporation (NOC) planning to roll out enhanced oil recovery techniques at maturing oil fields to that effect. Up until very recently, new plans were progressing well from the ‘Strategic Programs Office’ (SPO) to boost oil production from the current 1.4 million bpd level up to 1.6 million bpd within a year or so and then to 2 million bpd by 2028/29. However, rising political unrest again threatens not only to derail this process but also to see the imposition of widespread blockades on Libya’s existing oil output as well.

At the beginning of this year, oil minister Khalifa Abdulsadek stated that the country still required US$3-4 billion to reach the 2026/27 1.6 million bpd production target. Towards this end, early March saw Libya announce plans to launch its first oil exploration bidding round in over 17 years, with 22 areas up for grabs across the country, which still has 48 billion barrels of proved crude oil reserves in place — the largest in Africa. These include major sites in the Sirte, Murzuq, and Ghadamis basins as well as in the offshore Mediterranean region.

According to an update from the Oil Ministry in the middle of last month, the bidding had already attracted more than 40 applicants, including some of the world’s biggest and most technologically advanced oil firms. U.S. supermajor ConocoPhillips is one firm that has voiced its interest in expanding its operations in Libya, in which it currently runs the Waha concession. Other interest is likely to come from major firms from Europe, for which Libya has become one country targeted to substitute for lost supplies from Russia due to sanctions resulting from its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order.

These may well include Italy’s Eni, Spain’s Repsol, Austria’s OMV, and the U.K.’s BP, OilPrice.com has been told by sources close to the bidding process. Each of these firms were quick to resume exploration activities in Libya following blockades last August that halted around 700,000 bpd of oil production, despite a 10-year hiatus in their activities beforehand.

That said, it may be that their patience will be tested again very soon as the possibility of new blockades rises sharply following the 12 May assassination of Abdul Ghani al-Kiklii – a militia leader and head of the Presidential Council-affiliated Stability Support Apparatus (SSA). According to a source who works closely with U.S. diplomatic initiatives in the country, spoken to by OilPrice.com last week, al-Kiklii was specifically targeted as retaliation for the shooting of Salaheddin Elnajih, chairman of the Libyan Post Telecommunications and Information Technology Company and an appointee of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) Prime Minister, Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

The GNU is the successor to the previous Government of National Accord (GNA). More broadly, the killing has been seen by rival factions as part of ongoing manoeuvres by Dbeibah and his supporters to consolidate his power through the elimination of key rivals in his main opposition groups. Following all this, it remains to be seen precisely how these opposition groups will react, but it is unlikely to portend well for the GNU government’s plans to boost oil production.

One group in particular may believe that the timing is right to launch another major offensive, political, economic and/or military, against the GNU, and this is Libya’s alternative government – the Government of National Stability (GNS), based in the east – which in turn is backed by Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the Libyan National Army. Early signs of trouble ahead was a report on 28 May that the NOC’s headquarters in the GNU-controlled Tripoli had been stormed by gunmen, although the NOC later bizarrely said that this had only been “a limited personal dispute”.

Nonetheless, shortly after the GNS’s Haftar threatened to declare blockades of key Libyan oil fields again due to such attacks on institutions such as the NOC and suggested that its headquarters be moved into the eastern area – controlled by the GNS and his army – which would be “safe”. He has made it clear since an agreement signed on 18 September 2020 that there can be no reconciliation in Libya between the opposing GNU and GNS governments so long as there is no sustainable equitable way for the country’s oil revenues to be distributed between the rival groups.

More specifically, at the time of signing the 2020 agreement that ended an economically devastating series of oil blockades across Libya, Haftar and his opposite number from the then-GNA at the signing, Ahmed Maiteeq, made an in-principle agreement to look into establishing a commission not only to determine how oil revenues across Libya are distributed but also to consider the implementation of several measures designed to stabilise the country’s perilous financial position.

The blockade from 18 January to 18 September cost the country at least US$9.8 billion in lost hydrocarbons revenues. Key to this tentative agreement was the formation of a joint technical committee, which would – according to the official statement: “Oversee oil revenues and ensure the fair distribution of resources… and control the implementation of the terms of the agreement during the next three months, provided that its work is evaluated at the end of the 2020 and a plan is defined for the next year.”

In order to address the fact that the then-GNA – and now GNU — effectively held sway over the NOC and, by extension, the Central Bank of Libya (in which the revenues are physically held), the committee would also “prepare a unified budget that meets the needs of each party… and the reconciliation of any dispute over budget allocations… and will require the Central Bank [in Tripoli] to cover the monthly or quarterly payments approved in the budget without any delay, and as soon as the joint technical committee requests the transfer.”

Due to the influence of various domestic and international disruptive elements – notably Russia – since that idea was mooted it has never been properly implemented. However, there is still hope from several quarters – including the U.S. and U.N. – that such a deal could work well, and indeed that it might still be able to solve the ongoing impasse over the country’s oil and gas revenues. In the meantime and in the absence of such a deal, it looks highly likely that Libya will remain subject to further oil blockades and shutdowns as part of the ongoing struggle its warring factions for control over Libya’s oil resources.

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Laila Wyatt 

Challenges to the Potential Pivot 

Libya’s prospects as a launchpad for Russia’s African operations have downsides beyond logistical concerns. Assad’s international isolation allowed Russia to operate more freely in Syria. While Russia is Haftar’s primary backer, the general retains a good relationship with France, complicating Russian negotiations and theoretically requiring a more conditional presence in comparison to Syria. Further complications abound due to the sheer number of other international players in Libya, including Italy, the UAE, Qatar, and Egypt.  

Türkiye retains a presence in Libya, intervening in support of the GNU to secure resources and favorable maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean. Türkiye agreed with the GNU in November 2019 to extend Turkish maritime boundaries to Derna and Tobruk, complicating a potential Russian permanent presence and resulting in a wary coexistence in a sensitive strategic area.

Despite their agreement, the GNU resents Türkiye’s presence, leading to Turkish troops rarely leaving bases and maintaining a lighter footprint. Russian troops reportedly do the same. In December 2023, an official ceremony was held by a Haftar-controlled unit at the Russian al-Qardabiyah airbase to give the impression it was under LNA control.  

Russia will have to operate in a much more covert manner in Libya than in Syria, and Libya cannot be a stronghold of Russian geopolitical strength and influence projection like Syria. Libya’s political instability limits the space for an unobstructed Russian presence. GNU Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh voiced resistance to a heightened Russian presence in December 2024. If Haftar accepts an improved relationship with Russia, his relationship with France could deteriorate, though his position could be strengthened with increased Russian materiel support. 

A larger Russian military presence could further destabilize Libya, especially with the pass-through presence of natural resources Russia is extracting out of Africa, particularly gold. Russia extracted $2.5 billion worth of gold from Africa from 2022 to 2024, which is likely to have helped fund its war in Ukraine. Gold provides the Kremlin with a portable, easily laundered, vital backstop for the Russian Central Bank amid sanctions and currency pressures. In Niger, Russia was attempting a form of energy blackmail by blocking France’s access to Niger’s uranium mines. About a fifth of France’s uranium used in nuclear energy is imported from Niger.  

Moreover, increased engagement from Russia could encourage Türkiye to strengthen its presence in western Libya, potentially escalating the conflict to civil war levels. However, Sadam Haftar, the son of the general, met with senior Turkish officials in early April, signaling a potential step toward reconciliation. Despite the possibility of deepening competition by foreign actors, shifting troops to Libya remains viable for Russia in case it loses influence in Syria. 

Russia could also simply stay in Syria. Comments made in February by Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra indicated Russia could retain its bases if it would benefit Syria. This statement could be motivated by Israeli incursions into southern Syria after the collapse of the post-2018 deconfliction mechanism between Russia and Israel that prevented this.

The new interim government lacks any capacity to defend against Israeli strikes, due in part to earlier Israeli strikes on Syria’s key military hardware. Israel, Assad, and local forces had previously formed a delicate security arrangement in 2018, partly ensured by Russia.  

This agreement limited the Golan Heights to Syrian forces and specifically banned Iranian or Hezbollah troops from having a presence there, disincentivizing Israel from invading further into the Golan Heights and beyond. Recently identified documents, known as the “Moses Documents” showed close coordination between an Israeli operative code-named “Mousa,” former Syrian Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Ali Mahmoud Abbas, and former National Security and Military Advisor to Assad Ali Mamlouk.

This mechanism became obsolete following the fall of Assad. However, a continued Russian presence at a base close to the border could regain such a deterrent. This could lead to Russia retaining a presence in Syria, diminishing potential American outreach. Furthermore, an Islamic State resurgence is likely in the probable event of a full U.S. withdrawal from Syria. U.S. President Donald Trump has called for the Syrian government to take over Islamic State detention camps, despite doubts that the government possesses the necessary security capacity. 

Conclusion 

The U.S. has been losing ground to Russia and China in the Sahel, predominantly due to a lack of engagement under former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration and the more recent USAID cuts. Groups like al-Shabaab are poised to exploit vacuums created by both the cuts to health care funding in Africa and reduced service of AFRICOM.

The Trump administration is additionally considering merging AFRICOM with the U.S. command in Europe, potentially fueling vacuums of instability. Therefore, an expensive and time-consuming move to Libya by Russian forces could challenge Russian influence in not only Syria but also Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Russia retaining its presence in Syria would hamstring American security considerations both in Syria and across Northern Africa.  

The lifting of U.S. sanctions on Syria would lead to increased resources at the Syrian government’s disposal, but a further delay could destabilize the security situation and push Al-Sharaa into reliance on Russian forces. The U.S. should engage the new Syrian regime to counter Russia and enhance stability across the region. This aligns with the Trump administration’s priority of detangling U.S. forces from regional conflicts, and removing Russian forces from Syria would undermine Russian influence across Africa and the Middle East through strategic diplomacy rather than direct military confrontation. 

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Laila Wyatt is an analyst researching on the Middle East and Northern Africa, particularly concentrating on Russian private military and mercenary structures in regional states.

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Laila Wyatt 

Russia’s legacy of supporting Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s regime could either lead to its eviction from Syria or its voluntary withdrawal, considering the fluctuating Syrian security landscape and the recently opened door for U.S.-Syria engagement. If the interim Syrian government vetoes a permanent Russian presence, Moscow sees Libya as workable replacement. In north and central Africa, the U.S. and European powers have faced dwindling influence while Russia has swooped into the vacuum. As the Middle East has experienced intensified escalation between Iran and Israel, Russia may seek to exploit international distraction and fulfil its goal to expand influence in Libya and Africa. 

A year ago, the Kremlin would not have viewed Syria as the weak link in Russia’s geopolitical ambitions. Syria was the central bastion of Russia’s foreign outposts. Russian military flights stopped at Khmeimim, the Russian-operated airbase in Latakia, to refuel, carrying loot, goods, and fighters perpetuating Russia’s neo-colonialist efforts across Africa. Russia’s naval base at Tartus has been an essential strategic position and the only point on the Mediterranean where Russia could both service its vessels and deter NATO’s presence. Meanwhile, Russia played a major role in the Syrian Civil War. Its drone strikes and private military contractors helped regime forces regain large swathes of territory before solidifying the front line. 

This situation changed dramatically in late November 2024 when a constellation of opposition groups, led by Sunni Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, toppled Assad’s regime. Russia’s loss of a key ally in Assad embarrassed it internationally and could lead to the loss of crucial military installations.  

Syria is still the best option for Russia as the linchpin for its activities in Africa. Its eastern location generally meant less NATO oversight and access to the Bosphorus Strait, a key maritime chokepoint and deterrent to Türkiye. It was a crucial maintenance and repair hub for the Russian navy, with the port able to both accommodate four medium-sized vessels, including submarines, and replenish warships via helicopter. Without Tartus, Russian vessels must travel to Novorossiysk without refueling. With the last submarine departing Tartus on Jan. 2, some analysts have gone as far as to call the base irreplaceable.

With the potential loss of Syria, Russia likely will prioritize the preservation of its activities in Africa by pivoting to Libya to springboard fighters and units into “partner” countries. Because this pivot involves significant adjustments and financial investment, Russian supply lines will be strained, and its influence in Africa will be shaken. Therefore, it remains in the United States’ interest to apply pressure for Russia’s withdrawal from Syria to destabilize Russia’s African network. 

Russian Influence in Africa 

Khmeimim’s 3½-hour flight time from Moscow makes it a perfect refueling stop for Russian forces headed to Africa. From Syria, it takes a further 5½ hours to Bangui in the Central African Republic, where the former Wagner Group, now rebranded as Africa Corps, acts like a neo-colonial entity. Africa Corps promotes the Kremlin’s interests in Northern and Central Africa through a “survival package” to leaders: providing military capacity and political disinformation operations in exchange for favorable economic contracts and embedded Russian influence.

Africa Corps fighters comprise personal bodyguard units and protect Russian investments in extractive sectors, besides fighting insurgents and opposition forces. Syria’s location as the gateway of influence extends Russia’s reach into Africa. Russia’s partner countries in Africa with active front lines, such as Mali and the Central African Republic, will face increased pressure on supply lines, equipment, and unit rotations until an alternative logistical hub to Syria is secured. This is especially crucial in countries where Russian fighters provide leaders’ personal security, or during the run-up to elections, such as in Mali. 

Putin also faces a crisis of Russian influence in North and Central Africa with the fall of Assad. His armed mercenaries and Africa Corps-linked entities are the chief component promoting and protecting Russian interests in Africa. Partner governments like Niger and the Central African Republic will be concerned about whether Russia will withdraw support in a crisis, and the overthrow of Assad may be seen as a warning sign. Russian-aligned governments could seek a new security partner, particularly with continual Russian setbacks in Mali and stagnation in Sudan.

The Wagner Group particularly struggled to combat jihadist militants in Mali and experienced a humiliating defeat in late 2019, suffering significant fatalities against an Islamist insurgency led by Al-Shabaab. These underlying cracks make this a crucial moment to disrupt Russian activities amid Moscow’s growing influence across the Sahel. The Wagner Group particularly struggled to combat jihadist militants in Mali and experienced a humiliating defeat in late 2019 in Mozambique, suffering significant fatalities against an Islamist insurgency led by Al-Shabaab. These underlying cracks make this a crucial moment to disrupt Russian activities amid Moscow’s growing influence across the Sahel.  

A recent wave of military coups in the Sahel, fueled by anti-colonial sentiments, expelled French, U.S., and U.N. forces. Russia and China have stepped into the vacuum with respective security forces and investment. The region has considerable natural resources such as oil, lithium, uranium, and natural gas, but it is also strategically located between North and sub-Saharan Africa.

The head of AFRICOM, Gen. Michael Langley, recently called Burkina Faso the “global epicenter of terrorism,” where growing jihadist insurgent elements are ramping up their ability to attack the United States. Indeed, the Sahel now accounts for over half of global terrorism deaths.  Groups include the al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, Islamic State in West Africa Province, and Boko Haram.  

Contemptuous of any western influence, Niger’s ruling junta revoked the military accords allowing U.S. military personnel in the country, and the U.S. lost its drone base in Agadez, withdrawing in August 2024. Russian troops immediately moved in. The base had served to monitor violent extremist activity across the Sahel.

Additionally, the Sahel is increasingly becoming a major drug trafficking corridor, made worse by the involvement of jihadist insurgents operating in the area. With these insurgents controlling vast swathes of territory and with a Western withdrawal from the region, there is the potential for narco-terrorism to emerge. Overall, the decline of U.S. influence in this key strategic region has been to Russia’s gain. 

Clinging to Syria 

A top-level Russian delegation has been negotiating for continued use of their bases in Syria. While the Russian company Stroytransgaz’s port lease at Tartus was canceled, other aspects of Russia’s relationship with Syria’s new administration have been slightly warmer. Russia’s close alignment with Assad and provision of a place of refuge is still a point of contention, but pragmatism has guided Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s government so far. Internationally imposed sanctions had forced the interim government to maintain a relationship with Russia. The new government simply could not afford to alienate any country willing to open relations. Russia previously flew in desperately needed banknotes, and civilians even sheltered at Russian bases during the coastal violence in March.  

However, the United States’ lifting of sanctions reduces the need for continued Russian engagement, particularly considering that Russian airstrikes caused 24,000 Syrian civilian deaths during the civil war. Russia’s support of Assad could lead to its eviction from Syria or its voluntary withdrawal, considering both the changeable Syrian security situation and the recently opened door for U.S.-Syria engagement. 

Libya as a Russian Alternative 

A potential replacement for a significant Russian logistical headquarters is Libya. Many analysts have speculated that Russia could move operations there, with satellite images indicating Russian reinforcement of their Libyan airbases. Russia has backed Libyan Gen. Khalifa Haftar of the Government of National Stability (GNS) since 2015, reportedly to secure Russian access to significant energy investments and base agreements. However, Russia’s military support did not come until the Wagner Group joined the GNS for its UAE-financed 2019 Tripoli offensive.  

Russia appears to have hedged its bets by continuing relations with the internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU), hosting diplomatic talks between the two sides in January 2020. More recently, following U.S. military maneuvers in Libya, a top-level Russian diplomat visited Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh in Tripoli to assert strengthening bilateral relations.  

The GNS controls most of the east, including Benghazi, enabling Russian control of four Libyan bases, including the al-Khadim airbase near Benghazi and the al-Qardabiyah base close to Sirte. The Telegraph’s analysis of such bases in December 2024 discovered Russian military transport planes, upgraded runways, strengthened perimeter defenses and improved infrastructure. This expansion was made possible by four maritime deliveries in April 2024 via GNS-held Tobruk, indicating a growing partnership with Haftar. While Russia reduced its Libyan-based personnel due to its sudden need for fighters for the war in Ukraine, its presence recently re-expanded and is now estimated at 2,000 personnel.  

Libya would be a workable staging post for Russia. Compared to Syria, it takes an extra hour to fly from Moscow to Benghazi, while a flight from Benghazi to partner African countries is still in range for most cargo planes. Russia’s most-flown military cargo plane, the Ilyushin Il-76, can fly roughly half-loaded for 2,700 miles without stopping to refuel, while the An-124 Ruslan has a max-payload range of 2,300 miles. However, the An-72, which is also used a significant amount, only has a range of 1,243 miles at max payload and is unable to travel the 1,826 miles between Moscow and Benghazi. By comparison, the distance between Moscow and Latakia is 1,385 miles. While Libyan airbases could rapidly reach Khmeimim’s operational capacity, flying half-full planes is more costly and will limit Russia’s expansion of activities. 

Tobruk in eastern Libya, however, could be a replacement and provide Russia with a NATO deterrent as well as a deep seaport and servicing point on the Mediterranean. Some analysts have questioned Tobruk’s capability to accommodate significantly higher traffic and large military vessels, but Tartus could provide a blueprint for Tobruk. Developing Tobruk’s capacity to service and refuel diesel-electric powered submarines and service nuclear-powered submarines would be crucial to Russian aims in the region. However, Russia may not currently possess enough spare resources for such significant development because of the economic fallout from the invasion of Ukraine. 

***

Laila Wyatt is an analyst researching on the Middle East and Northern Africa, particularly concentrating on Russian private military and mercenary structures in regional states.

______________________

Alessandra Bajec

The shift by Haftar to potentially ratify the 2019 maritime deal reflects how Turkey has expanded its influence across both sides of Libya’s divided politics.

Media reports surfaced earlier this month that Libya’s eastern-headquartered parliament, which is aligned with General Khalifa Haftar, was considering ratifying a maritime agreement with Turkey that grants Ankara access to a vast economic zone in the Mediterranean.

In 2019, Ankara and the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli signed the demarcation memorandum of understanding (MoU), which sparked significant controversy with Greece and other regional actors for excluding them from exclusive economic zones.

At the time, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt, along with Libya’s eastern-based authorities, strongly rejected the pact as illegal, arguing it breaches international maritime law and infringes on their territorial waters.

Tobruk-based parliament speaker Aguila Saleh previously declared the Turkey-GNA boundary deal “null and void” since it was not approved by the assembly, calling it a violation of Libyan sovereignty. But reports claiming that the Libyan House of Representatives (HOR) is set to review the disputed agreement suggest a potential shift in position.

The signing of the Libyan-Turkish memorandum on maritime sovereignty came amid increased tensions as forces loyal to Commander Khalifa Haftar launched a renewed campaign to seize the capital, Tripoli.  At the time, the GNA signed another security pact with Ankara, allowing Turkey to provide military support to repel the offensive, an offer the Tripoli government accepted.

In an interview with The New Arab, Tim Eaton, a senior MENA research fellow at Chatham House focusing on Libya, observed that while the deal was initially a political move, since then Turkey has expanded its ties in eastern Libya and now maintains broad relationships across the divide.

“This shift reflects a broader political reality: Turkey is no longer seen with hostility by the east, but as a partner to court and influence,” he said.

A rethink of the maritime accord by General Haftar and his allies could bring eastern Libya in line with Ankara’s maritime claims.

More than a tactical adjustment, the eastern bloc’s renewed stance on the agreement seems to show Turkey’s ongoing efforts to build up its relationships with eastern partners over time, Eaton indicated.

Although Haftar-controlled eastern Libya has long opposed Turkey’s influence, backed by Egypt and the UAE, ties between the military strongman and Ankara have begun to ease in recent years.

Turkey deepens roots in Libya

Turkey has been stepping up its engagement with eastern Libyan authorities in recent months. In early April, Haftar’s son, Saddam, was received by the Turkish defence minister and other top military officials. Saddam’s visit to Ankara marked the peak of Turkey’s evolving strategy in Libya since the cessation of hostilities in mid-2020, starting with outreach to the legislature in the east and the swift revival of Turkish trade in Benghazi.

Turkish construction firms have gradually returned to eastern Libya, signing contracts with the Haftar-run Libyan Reconstruction and Development Fund. The Turkish consulate in Benghazi was reopened late last year. Turkey’s expanding presence in the east reflects both economic ambition and a shifting geopolitical calculus.

“They’ve been courting each other,” Anas El Gomati, founder and director of the Tripoli-based Sadeq Institute, told The New Arab, referring to the Turkish-east Libya thaw. “The relationship is about insurance, not a true rapprochement. The Turks are hedging their bets in case the government in Tripoli collapses,” he contended.

Haftar’s self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) have provided relative stability in the east and south, home to much of Libya’s oil wealth, whilst the Turkey-aligned western camp lacks a unified military command and political leadership and remains fragmented.

This has driven Turkey’s pragmatic pivot toward eastern Libya and its de facto recognition of the LAAF as a legitimate military actor while maintaining ties with its allies in the west of Libya. By engaging both eastern and western camps, Ankara is consolidating its foothold in Libya to protect its interests and assert itself as a key regional player.Turkey’s overtures to Haftar and the LNA appear aimed at countering Egyptian and Greek influence in the Eastern Mediterranean [Getty Images]

Talking to The New Arab, Rhiannon Smith, director of the think-tank Libya-Analysis, explained that the HoR’s reconsideration of the maritime accord is linked to recent political unrest marked by clashes between rival militias in the Libyan capital in mid-May.

As protests followed in Tripoli against PM Dbeibah, head of the now Government of National Unity (GNU), and calls for his resignation grew, the HoR seized on public pressure by intensifying its efforts to appoint a new prime minister to lead a unified governing body.  

“If a new government can guarantee the Turks their same strategic interests -military bases in western Libya and the maritime agreement – Ankara has little reason to remain tied to the GNU if it becomes untenable,” Smith stated, suggesting that a revaluation of the deal by the Libyan parliament is aimed at convincing the Turks to relinquish their support for the Dbeibah administration.

Yet, the eastern authorities seem unlikely to move forward with enacting the protocol as their U-turn appears to be a tactical manoeuvre in an ongoing internal power struggle.

“Aguila Saleh is dangling the idea to lure Turkey away from supporting Tripoli’s embattled prime minister,” Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told TNA, pointing out that eastern factions are courting the Turks as they sense weakness in Dbeibah’s government.

Harchaoui also claimed that the HoR’s speaker has a long record of floating schemes he never enacts, and said he expects no imminent ratification.

Similarly, Smith believes the parliament is using the agreement as leverage to pressure Turkey to withdraw support for the GNU amid ongoing political uncertainty.

“It’s more about signalling a willingness to reopen talks with Turkey,” the Libya analyst said. She indicated that the authorities in the east might try to renegotiate or amend it, and validate a revised version to soften its impact.

Observers see these overtures as part of a broader strategy to cement Turkish influence in Libya and secure rights over energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The step by Libyan authorities in Tobruk to reevaluate the maritime deal is anticipated to bolster Turkey’s push to position itself as the leading maritime power in the region while entrenching its presence across Libya’s political fault lines.

Sadeq Institute’s head emphasised that Ankara is seeking to guarantee long-term leverage in Libya as well as to reap a “dividend” from the accord as a regional energy broker, therefore a geopolitical actor. “That would reposition Turkey not only as a prime player in Libya but as a kingmaker in the East Mediterranean,” he affirmed.

He also remarked that Libya’s east-west standoff is shifting toward a scramble for new realignment whereby Turkey aims to land a “diplomatic coup” by securing eastern Libya’s backing on the maritime memorandum. That way, Ankara would claim the MoU is no longer unilateral but endorsed by both sides.

Energy vacuum in the Eastern

Mediterranean

On the other hand, such a development would directly challenge Athens’ bilateral maritime agreement with Egypt. The Greeks would view it as a betrayal and attempt to undermine the credibility of the Turkish interpretation, while Cairo may push back.

Smith said that moving forward with the deal could spark controversy and mark the start of a renegotiation or rebalancing, as shifting dynamics begin to reshape regional relations and impact the Eastern Mediterranean energy space.

“With Turkey and Libya eager to advance energy exploration, tensions are likely to grow in the coming period,” the Libya researcher anticipated.

Greece, which in 2020 signed a rival maritime delimitation accord with Cairo in response to the Turkey-Libya arrangement, is now reportedly preparing to lobby Egypt to help stop Haftar or eastern Libya’s parliament from endorsing the 2019 MoU with the GNA.  

As recently as 2019, Turkish President Erdogan refused to recognise the legitimacy of his Egyptian counterpart Sisi, however, ties have since improved. A push by Cairo to rally against the contested memorandum could therefore strain this fragile détente.

Chatham House’s Eaton noted that while players like Greece and Egypt, who oppose the deal with Turkey, lack influence in Libya, Ankara may capitalise on their disunity or inattention to push its interpretation of the MoU as a de facto reality, leveraging its prominent role in the North African country.

“Libyan power brokers see building strong relations with Turkey as key to advancing their own goals,” the MENA researcher said, stressing there is closer coordination with Ankara in Libya’s east. “Turkish support is considered critical by anyone seeking control in Libya,” he added.

El Gomati highlighted the transactional nature of alliances in Libya, claiming that Haftar will side with the Turks if he sees a better deal, and has obtained all he can from the Egyptians and the Emiratis.

He also mentioned that passing the maritime pact could also legitimise broader involvement in the Eastern Mediterranean energy space, as more countries would seek to tap the region’s natural gas reserves.

The Libyan analyst criticised the realignment of regional powers involved in Libya’s conflict in the last few years, noting it does not signal a reset but rather underscores the unlikely prospect of such actors coexisting while backing opposing sides.

“It’s a deeper reflection of how paralysed and divided the country is,” he argued. “If the same regional states have truly reset ties, why do their rival forces, mercenaries, and military bases remain in Libya?”

***

Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist currently based in Tunis

____________________________

Vassilis Nedos

Greece’s fragmented foreign policy in eastern Libya contrasts with Turkey’s methodical approach of the region.

Before the end of June, Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis will travel to North Africa again. This time, he will make two stops – one in Tripoli and one in Benghazi, to meet with both Libya’s United Nations-recognized government in the west of the country, under Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, as well as with the eastern-based House of Representatives, under Aqila Saleh and the Libyan National Army (LNA) of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who has appointed his son, Saddam, as the leader of the armed forces.

Until recently, the difference between the East and the West Libya, at least as far as Greece was concerned, was that the eastern part of the country was firmly anti-Turkish. This offered Athens extra reasons to reject the 2019 Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement as the deal had not been ratified by the national assembly initially based in Tobruk and now in Benghazi.

Haftar now appears open to discussing it, as Turkey has taken several steps to approach Benghazi, in a methodical manner. The Turkish charm offensive was facilitated by Greece’s failure to follow a foreign policy that would provide results, from the very next day of Haftar’s visit to Athens in January 2020 onwards, despite some initial activity.

The first two years were marked by highly symbolic steps. Greece, as of July 2021, was one of only three countries to have a consulate in Benghazi (along with Egypt and Italy). Benghazi started making a series of requests, most of which Greece failed to satisfy. Haftar’s side had requested some old-style ammunition (artillery and bullets), which Athens was hesitant to provide.

There had been some further discussions on economic cooperation, most notably covering some of Eastern Libya’s needs for consumer goods, through ships that would travel from Greece to the port of Benghazi. In fact, Greece financed, through the UN’s World Food Program, the rehabilitation of part of the port of Benghazi (a container warehouse and a corridor connecting two piers), as an entry point for humanitarian aid to the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa.

There were attempts to revive contacts with eastern Libya on a commercial level, initially with a proposal for a coastal ferry connection, or an airline to Crete or Athens, but these efforts have also failed.

The failure in the Greek government’s efforts over the past five years to revive trade or other economic relations is largely due to the Greek business community, which is extremely skeptical of taking risks in a country that is divided into two. In addition, there are unpaid debts that Libya owes to Greek businesses since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi and the early years of the civil war.

Especially after February 2023 and the gradual normalization of Greek-Turkish relations, which made it look like investments in hydrocarbon exploration by American giants in the southwest of Crete would continue, Athens somewhat relaxed contacts with Libya. 

It is also a given that Greece’s failure to assist Benghazi when Storm Daniel swept through eastern Libya in 2023 destroying the city of Derna and leaving thousands of dead, also played a very important role. Greece at the time attempted to organize a small aid mission, which ended in the death of three Greek soldiers and Angela-Moira Mandalios and Philip-Antonios Mandalios, two local young Greeks, on September 17, 2023. On its side, Turkey sent tankers with about 400 personnel, set up mobile hospitals and supported Haftar’s faction intensively.

Then, in November 2024, Turkey reopened its consulate in Benghazi, with a much larger presence than before. Many Turkish construction companies are active in the country, while last April saw the first visit of Haftar’s son, Saddam, to Istanbul. The Turks have also expressed their willingness to train soldiers from the militias of Eastern Libya, which Greece has also been extremely hesitant to do.

Lieutenant General Saddam Haftar, is also seen by the West as the official representative of the armed forces of Eastern Libya, which is why last Monday, June 2, he was in Toulon, following an invitation from his French counterpart, General Pierre Schill, Chief of Staff of the French Army, to a symposium of his Mediterranean counterparts. In his speech, Haftar did not mention Greece’s role but had many positive things to say about Turkey.

Since the beginning of last month, Tripoli has asked the UN Security Council not to renew resolution 2733, which provided for the surveillance of the movement of ships to Libya, to comply with the arms embargo. To this end, the European Union had launched a naval mission in the Mediterranean Sea, dubbed Irini, aimed at enforcing the arms embargo. Turkish ships had repeatedly bypassed or even refused to be inspected by warships of EU member states.

In mid-May, the French proposed to Dbeiba that the mission receive a technical rollover of six to nine months, something the Italians also agreed with.  Turkey is the only country to have deployed land, sea and air weapons systems in Libya, while it has been training Tripoli’s forces since 2019. For Ankara, this is about acquiring significant experience in intelligence gathering missions, as well as promoting the value of its weapons.

__________________________

Hafed Al-Ghwell

Fourteen years since the revolution, Libya’s institutional framework has undergone near-total dissolution, as evidenced by the state’s effective surrender of responsibility for core sovereign functions to nonstate actors.

Clashes in Tripoli last month, triggered by the assassination of a militia commander in circumstances under the guise of negotiations, resulted in nine documented civilian fatalities and 47 injuries, all with absolute impunity for the perpetrators, reflecting a systemic pattern in which violence has been monetized by the ruling elites. This incident was not an anomaly but the inevitable byproduct of a rentier political economy dominated by kleptocratic networks and external sponsors.

Despite generating $50 million daily from the export of 1.2 million barrels of oil, Tripoli remains fractured, split into militia fiefdoms in which any nominal state authority depends entirely on 120-plus armed groups. These factions control informal and illicit economies, including human trafficking corridors that funnel thousands of migrants each year to Europe, municipal extortion rackets and parallel “customs” operations at ports such as Misrata.

Hydrocarbon revenues subsidize militia salaries and systems of patronage instead of funding public services, creating a self-perpetuating war economy in which institutional collapse is not a failure but a design feature to enable elite capture.

The Tripoli-based government’s fumbled “purge” last month constituted a predatory realignment, not a much-needed change or institutional reform. When state-aligned forces eliminated a rival militia commander during a purported negotiation, they seized control of Abu Salim, a district that controls vital central bank access points that are responsible for processing an estimated $1.8 billion a month in hydrocarbon revenues.

The maneuver exposed the Government of National Unity’s existential paradox: it exterminates competing factions while relying entirely on aligned militias such as the 444th Combat Brigade, which receives $15 million to $20 million a month from state coffers for “security services.”

The inevitable urban warfare last month demonstrated the ways in which violence services the competition between elites for dwindling resources. Libya’s $6 billion quarterly oil revenues remain captive to this cycle of predation, with the militias systematically diverting more than a third of the proceeds through fuel-smuggling syndicates that move more than 100,000 barrels a day. Meanwhile parallel “customs” operations at the Port of Tripoli impose a 25 percent “tariff” surcharge.

Taking control of Abu Salim alone secured illicit revenues worth $300 million a month, confirming militia consolidation as a resource grab mechanism through which state collapse enables elite enrichment.

Meanwhile, foreign engagement in Libya operates as a transactional marketplace in which external powers exchange military capital for access to resources, with zero regard for Libyan sovereignty or stability.

Turkiye’s 5,000-troop garrison and drone bases near Tripoli oversee hydrocarbon-rich maritime zones, while Russian mercenary forces at Al-Qardabiyah Airbase guard Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar’s eastern oil terminals and are repaid with crude oil allocations worth about 80,000 barrels a day.

Such engagement fuels fragmentation, a strategy that Washington has also co-opted as part of its rather puzzling policy on Libya. On the one hand, the US expresses explicit support for the Tripoli-based parallel authority. On the other, it simultaneously makes diplomatic overtures to the eastern-based rival government — which is actively mobilizing troops toward Sirte, positioning it to seize $50 million per day in oil revenues — and holding joint military exercises that lend it legitimacy.

With more than 12 foreign military bases now established, the disintegration of Libya is not collateral damage but the intended outcome of resource access opportunism masquerading as diplomacy.

Beneath this warlord calculus, there simmers the prospect of societal collapse as a result of deliberately engineered scarcity; 200 percent inflation eviscerates household purchasing power, while 18-hour-a-day electricity blackouts cripple critical sectors and industry, despite the billions of dollars of hydrocarbon revenue flowing in each year.

This systematic deprivation fuels mass dissent, as evidenced by the 4,000 citizens who chanted “neither east nor west” during protests last month, serving as a direct indictment of all ruling factions after 1,400 days of undelivered election promises.

Meanwhile, youth unemployment stands at a staggering 40 percent, reflecting generational abandonment, compounded by resource-hoarding by elites — such as the millions in embezzled dam maintenance funds, a direct result of which was the Derna dam collapses in September 2023 that resulted in at least 5,000 preventable deaths, a figure exceeding the number of front-line combat deaths.

As a consequence, public fury is on the rise, as evidenced by the nightly burning of tires and occupation of ministry buildings, protests that are often met with live militia fire.

Beyond Libya’s own borders, the disintegration of the country actively metastasizes into regional instability, with militia-controlled coastal networks dispatching thousands of migrants each year across the Mediterranean.

This human commodity market intersects with the implosion of Sudan, where 9 million displaced persons have fled conflict zones, alongside the funneling of small arms into and out of Libya through porous southern borders.

The concern, therefore, is that a renewed Tripoli-Benghazi civil war could trigger immediate and very grave consequences that would dwarf even the descent into conflict of neighboring Sudan. It would not only be a matter of the potentially unprecedented scale of human suffering it might cause, but the domino effect on the global economy of disruption to oil exports in a country that contains about 41 percent of Africa’s total proven reserves, while also accelerating refugee flows.

Appointments of UN envoys and ceasefire agreements remain largely performative when global powers are actively fueling conflict. The collapse of the Government of National Unity and the ascendance of Haftar prove that Libya’s “leaders” prioritize personal enrichment over the establishment of a credible and sustainable social contract.

With international diplomatic missions now fleeing Tripoli for Tunis and militias stockpiling weaponry, the question now is not whether the violence will escalate but when the spillover will force a reevaluation of the international complacency and a recalibration of approaches.

In the meantime, an accountability vacuums persist. Without the prosecution of those accused of embezzlement or war crimes, the demilitarization of cities and an end to foreign arms flows, Libya’s frozen conflict will thaw into a regional conflagration.

A forensic auditing process must commence before the next dam breaks because, every 3.6 seconds, another barrel of oil adds more funds to this engineered chaos, while the spark of regional ignition draws ever closer.

***

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.

________________________

Basma El Atti

Haftar authorities severed phone and internet services at the western Sirte checkpoint, leaving the Gaza convoy’s participants stranded in the desert.

Libyan security and military forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar’s eastern administration stopped a Gaza-bound convoy, known as the Somoud convoy, late on Thursday at the east entrance of Sirte, some 450 kilometres from Tripoli, demanding additional security clearance and cutting off internet services across the area where participants have since camped.

The convoy, consisting of 150 vehicles and approximately 1,700 activists, arrived at the Haftar-controlled checkpoint around 8 p.m. Local security officials told the convoy’s organisers, the Joint Action Coordination for Palestine, that they must await formal approval from authorities in Benghazi before proceeding.

Faced with the unexpected blockade, organisers decided to halt and camp by the roadside overnight. Checkpoint officials requested lists of participants’ names and passports, which were promptly provided; however, they have yet to issue a response. Seventeen hours later, the convoy remains stranded in a remote desert area.

In a public appeal, organisers called on Libyans for logistical support, including tents, water, and portable toilets, warning of the harsh conditions facing those who were forced to camp out. Meanwhile, authorities aligned with Haftar severed phone and internet services at the western Sirte checkpoint, forcing participants to move in shifts westward in search of connectivity to share updates and images.

“Some officials say we will be allowed to pass after a few hours; others claim that Egypt is refusing, and that passage is impossible. We have no clear information”, said Wael Naouar, a lead organiser. Initially, Libya’s eastern government welcomed the convoy in a statement early 12 June, praising the “brave initiative.” However, it requested the respect of “Egyptian regulations” governing visits to the volatile border region near Gaza.

On 11 June, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that any visits to the area must be conducted through official channels, with prior approvals secured through Egyptian embassies or the ministry itself. Naouar said the group submitted an official entry request on 19 May and had met with Egypt’s ambassador in Tunis, accompanied by a Tunisian official close to the Egyptian government, prior to their departure.

While the convoy set out before receiving a final answer, organisers stressed that Egyptian authorities were informed of their plans. Since Wednesday, Egyptian authorities have detained and deported more than 200 activists upon their arrival at Cairo airport or from hotels in downtown Cairo, according to multiple participants who spoke to The New Arab.

Haftar, a warlord whose family wields significant political power in eastern Libya, is backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia. Cairo views Haftar as a crucial barrier against Islamist groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, which it opposes domestically. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has regularly voiced support for Haftar’s campaign to “combat terrorism” and stabilise Libya.

A divided Libya challenges convoy’s

progress

The convoy’s organisers have carefully avoided political messaging about the Libyan authorities governing regions they traverse, urging participants to do the same. Libya remains deeply fractured following the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

The country is divided between a UN-recognised government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east controlled by Haftar’s faction. Organisers had anticipated delays crossing from western to eastern Libya due to heightened security and political tensions, but now worry that the internal conflict is seeping into the convoy’s camp.

“We have started noticing provocations from some Libyan individuals insisting on staying in the camp and causing disturbances,” said Ghassan Benkhelifa, an activist travelling with the convoy. “One repeatedly tried to board a bus despite opposition from the organising committee. We have complained to security personnel at the camp, but the behaviour continues. There are also frequent patrols by officers in uniform and civilian clothes.”

As of now, the convoy’s organisers continue to negotiate with Benghazi authorities. Meanwhile, in Egypt, authorities has tightened security at the Libya border, especially at al-Salloum, according to TNA’s correspondent in Cairo. Egyptian state-aligned media have persistently called for banning the convoy, and dismiss it as a “PR stunt designed to embarrass Egypt”, often associating it with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Composed mainly of activists from across the Maghreb, the convoy is part of a broader grassroots effort to challenge Israel’s blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. It departed from Tunisia on 9 June and was planned to follow a route through western Libya, Sirte, Benghazi, and the Sallum border crossing. The goal was to reach the Rafah crossing by Sunday. “We are determined to move forward. We will not turn back or give up. Our goal is to reach Rafah, not to be stopped in Libya, Egypt, or anywhere else,” Naouar said.

____________________________

Sean Mathews 

Libya’s Tripoli-based government has been riven by militia fighting, while Saddam Haftar courts senior US intelligence officials

US envoy Massad Boulos is set to make his first official visit to Libya next week amid rising tensions in the capital city of Tripoli and neighbouring Sudan, a US official and an Arab source told Middle East Eye. 

Boulos, who is Trump’s senior advisor to Africa, was supposed to travel to Libya earlier this year, the sources said, but Egyptian officials complained, saying they wanted him to visit Cairo first. 

Boulos met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, Hassan Rashad, in May. Egypt is one of the main external powers in Libya. 

Ties between Egypt and the US have become strained over Washington’s reassessment of military aid to Cairo and Trump’s call earlier this year for a forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, MEE previously reported. 

In Libya, Boulos is expected to visit Tripoli first, home to the United Nations-recognised government, and then travel to Benghazi in eastern Libya, which is controlled by a parallel government backed by General Khalifa Haftar and his sons. 

Boulos’s office did not respond to MEE’s request for comment. The envoy’s visit comes as Libya’s powerful militias and politicians jostle for power. 

In May, Tripoli was convulsed by fighting between rival militias that killed at least eight people. The clashes started after the 444 Brigade loyal to Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah killed the leader of a rival group. The 444 Brigade then launched attacks on a Salafist militia called the Rada Deterrence Force, which controls Tripoli’s main airport. 

Dbeibah was appointed president in 2021 as a consensus candidate with a mandate to usher Libya into elections. The vote never took place. There have been regular protests against Dbeibah. 

Boulos has been in discussions with Dbeibah’s top advisor about unlocking billions of dollars in sanctioned frozen wealth funds, MEE was the first to reveal. The two sides discussed putting some funds into investments with US companies in Libya.

NBC later reported that in exchange for releasing the funds, the Trump administration pressed the government to accept up to 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli assault since 7 October 2023, after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.

Saddam Haftar comes to the fore

The instability in Tripoli has allowed Khalifa Haftar’s family to lobby for support. 

Khalifa Haftar is 81 years old. His son Saddam is being cultivated as a likely successor, US and Arab officials tell MEE. Saddam’s stock is rising with the new Trump administration, especially in national security circles, the US official and Arab source told MEE.

Saddam made a high-profile visit to Washington in April, where he met Boulos at the State Department. More importantly, he held a meeting with several senior US intelligence officials in Washington, the sources told MEE. That meeting has not been previously reported. 

Saddam has also been making overtures to countries traditionally closer to the government in Tripoli. He has visited Qatar and Turkey for support. This week, he visited Italy. 

Libya has been divided since the Nato-led removal of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The civil war became a proxy conflict with Russia, the UAE, Egypt, and France backing Haftar and Turkey supporting the government in Tripoli. 

In 2019, Trump gave his tacit approval for the elder Haftar’s bid to take over Tripoli. The attack failed when Turkey intervened. The battle lines in Libya have become more convoluted in recent years. 

Sudan spillover

A case in point is the competing interests among external powers in Sudan. Although Egypt and the UAE both support Haftar’s government, they are backing opposing sides in the Sudanese civil war. Egypt has thrown its support behind Sudan’s army along with Iran and Turkey, while the UAE is backing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Haftar has facilitated the shipment of arms to the RSF. 

Boulos has been trying to mediate a ceasefire between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Egyptian officials want Boulos to make progress on preventing a spillover of the Libyan and Sudanese conflicts, an Egyptian official told MEE.

However, following their May meeting, the Egyptians assessed that his influence would be limited, the source said. Politico reported in May that Trump has curbed Boulos’s influence. The US and Arab sources told MEE that expectations for Boulos’s trip were low on all sides. 

The RSF said on Wednesday it seized a strategic zone on the border with Egypt and Libya. The announcements came a day after forces loyal to Haftar launched a cross-border attack alongside the RSF, the first allegation of direct Libyan involvement in the Sudanese war. The attack is likely to strain ties between Haftar and Egypt.

_______________________

Summary

• Armed clashes among forces of the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli benefit the Tobruk-based eastern administration dominated by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army.
• Russia and Türkiye are taking advantage of a divided and unstable Libya to improve their geostrategic positions in Africa and the Mediterranean.
• Russia is cementing its ties to Haftar with major weapons deliveries and deployments, whereas Türkiye is making inroads to Tobruk through the use of soft power.
• Türkiye’s ties to all major Libyan factions position Ankara to potentially broker unity in the country, after years of failed efforts by U.N. mediators.

***

In mid-May, Libya’s continuing division into two rival administrations – a U.N.-backed Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) and a Tobruk-based, Haftar-dominated House of Representatives (HOR) government – manifested as violent clashes that caught civilians in the crossfire. Violence in Tripoli broke out when allies of GNU Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah put down a revolt by one of the armed militias his administration relied on – the Stabilization Support Apparatus (SSA).

U.N. officials reported that the Tripoli combat killed eight civilians, and another 58 bodies were later found in a hospital under the SSA’s control. The head of the SSA was killed in the battle. Hanan Salah, Libya researcher and associate director in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told Deutsche Welle: “The sheer recklessness of the warfare that Human Rights Watch documented in the middle of civilian neighborhoods shows the blatant disregard these armed groups have for the life and livelihoods of civilians.” The fighting ended with an undisclosed agreement between the militias and Dbeibah’s administration, but it was followed by popular protests and the resignation of several ministers who supported protesters’ calls for Dbeibah to step down.

The SSA revolt was sparked by Dbeibah’s effort to consolidate his control over all western militia forces, which he judges necessary to match the degree of control Haftar exercises in eastern Libya. Haftar long ago consolidated control over the various militias within his territorial sphere of influence, ruling with an iron fist. The elected HOR (parliament), which nominally runs the eastern administration, is loyal to Haftar, as is the appointed Prime Minister Ossama Hammad.

With backing from Russia, as well as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Haftar’s forces nearly captured Tripoli in 2019 before Turkish military shipments and advice helped the western forces repel the attack. Since then, U.N. officials have been visiting the country continuously, in what has thus far been a fruitless effort to persuade both administrations to dissolve, form a unified national government, and ultimately yield to leaders chosen in new national elections.

Western powers, including France, Italy, and the United States, have supported U.N. conflict resolution and unification efforts, but Russia and, to a lesser extent, Türkiye have taken advantage of Libya’s divisions to promote their separate geostrategic interests. Moscow has largely ignored U.N. stabilization efforts and instead expanded its military relationship with Haftar, viewing his territory as an ideal platform to compensate for its diminished influence in and access to post-Assad Syria.

Russia’s arms deliveries to the LNA and access to the bases it controls provide Russia with strategic depth in Africa and the ability to project power into the Sahel. There, Russia seeks to capitalize on Western setbacks, including the forced French withdrawals from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Senegal, and the U.S. departure from Niger. The Kremlin not only wants to displace Western influence in Africa, but also to control key resources, including Libyan oil, Sudan’s deposits of gold, and uranium mining in Niger.

Moscow also sees Haftar as an avenue to build a permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean – a long-standing Kremlin ambition that requires year-round port access and the ability to deploy naval assets. Naval basing, as well as other deployments, will help Russia control or influence transit routes from Libya, positioning Russia to pressure Europe over vital energy and infrastructure routes.

Eastern Libyan leaders in Tobruk have cited the coastal city as a potential location for a new Russian naval base. In February, satellite imagery showed Russia’s development of the Maaten Al Sarra airbase in southern Libya, where it had shipped S-300 and S-400 air defense systems. Nearly 1,000 Russian military personnel have also relocated to Libya from Syria since Assad’s collapse.

The added forces complement the former Wagner mercenaries—officially incorporated into Russia’s military as the Africa Corps following Wagner founder Yevgeny Prighozin’s death in 2023—already embedded within the LNA. For his part, Haftar views the Russian military deployments – which provide the LNA access to Russia’s logistical networks and its military installations in the country – as leverage against Tripoli. 

As a sign of the expanding strategic relationship, Haftar and his son and heir apparent, Saddam, visited Moscow in early May to attend ceremonies marking victory in World War II.  On May 12, the Kremlin press service announced simply that, “The president (Vladimir Putin) met with the commander in chief of the Libyan National Army, Khalifa Haftar.” Haftar’s delegation also met with Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, who is said to have praised his “critical efforts” in curbing terrorism and “preventing further instability.”

At the same time, Haftar’s unbridled ambition to control all of Libya has led him to begin building ties to Türkiye, Moscow’s rival for geostrategic positioning in the eastern Mediterranean.  Ankara has long been bereft of influence in eastern Libya – viewed exclusively as the military guarantor of the GNU in Tripoli, which it still arms and advises, and an ally of the GNU-linked Islamist militias that are anathema to Haftar’s anti-Islamist forces. However, more recently, Haftar has been willing to respond to Ankara’s overtures, in the process enhancing his leverage over Moscow.

Haftar and his allies appear to appreciate Türkiye’s use of “soft power” to build influence in the east – a clear contrast to Moscow’s military-centric approach. After Storm Daniel and the collapse of Derna’s dams in September 2023—described as “Libya’s 9/11”—Türkiye provided swift humanitarian assistance and opened channels of communication with authorities in the East. In April, Ankara hosted a visit by Saddam Haftar for meetings with the Turkish defense minister and other military officials in Ankara, where they discussed supplying equipment and providing training to LNA forces. By engaging both sides of the Libya divide at the highest levels, Türkiye appears to be positioned to engineer the political solution to Libya’s divisions that has thus far eluded U.N. negotiators.

Türkiye’s expanding engagement with eastern Libyan leaders has begun to pay dividends for Ankara’s geostrategy. The nominal governing authority of the east, the House of Representatives, is reportedly preparing to ratify a controversial maritime agreement with Türkiye. This development could significantly alter the strategic balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean in Ankara’s favor.  A 2019 memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Türkiye and the GNU delineated maritime boundaries and granted Türkiye access to a vast economic zone in the Mediterranean. However, the deal was challenged by Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and the eastern administration in Tobruk, which does not recognize the GNU’s authority to sign pacts with outside powers on behalf of all Libyans.

Speaker Aguila Saleh of the HOR previously denounced the agreement as null and void and a violation of Libyan sovereignty. Recent reports suggest the HOR has formed a committee to review and potentially ratify the agreement. Approval of the accord would align all major Libyan factions – in both the west and the east – with Türkiye’s maritime claims, in the process countering Greece’s bilateral maritime deal with Egypt. In the view of many analysts, the potential ratification of the maritime agreement by Libya’s eastern parliament might prove pivotal in ongoing disputes over Mediterranean energy resources and regional influence.

The Türkiye-Libya maritime agreement, if ratified by the HOR, would not necessarily put Moscow and Ankara at odds. The two powers have established in Libya what analysts characterize as a “managed rivalry” or “adversarial collaboration,” as previously seen in other theaters where their interests simultaneously collide and overlap, such as Syria and the South Caucasus.

On the other hand, the expanding Turkish and Russian influence in Libya has caused experts to question whether Washington has ceded influence in North Africa to other powers, Russia in particular. Perhaps in part to reassure its allies in Europe and in the Middle East, in March, the U.S. Air Force conducted a “training visit” in Libya, including by B-52 bombers. The visit represented an effort by U.S. generals to present Libyan leaders, particularly Haftar, with a strategic alternative to hosting an ever-increasing number of Russian troops stationed in LNA-controlled bases in Libya.

__________________________

 Alessandro Borgato

Turkey is seeking to expand its footprint in the region and the situation in Libya could represent a window of opportunity for Ankara. However, other actors such as Egypt and Russia, may try to limit the Neo-Ottoman expansion of Ankara.

Turkish posture in Libya has grown significantly in recent years. The main changes came with Ahmet Davutoglu, who stressed the importance of Turkey, extending its influence in the “near abroad”. He defined Libya as the heart of Ankara’s geopolitical strategies and the future of Turkish influence in the region. In 2011, Ankara participated in the NATO’s operation in supporting of the Libyan opposition and gradually increased its aid for the revolutionary and Islamist groups in Tripolitania.

In the beginning, Turkey used a mixture of socio – religious ties to exert influence. Between 2011 and 2014, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) created a network among the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood members, together with Qatar. By 2014, the situation escalated to a second civil war, characterized by the presence of two rival governments: One based in Tripoli (Western Libya, backed by Turkey) And one in Tobruk (Eastern Libya supported by Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA)

After 2019, the Turkish government decided to strengthen its presence, following the LNA offensive. The intervention of Ankara was motivated by the US withdrawal from Libya in 2019, as well as the possibility of targeting Russian and United Arab Emirates ambitions. Moscow is considered the main competitor of Turkey in the country and the UAE has demonstrated its hostility to the Muslim Brotherhood, which prompted Erdogan to distance himself from Abu Dhabi. 

In 2019, Turkey signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the GNA in order to organise the next steps, with a focus on security and military cooperation. Since then, Ankara’s strategy has changed from indirect to direct intervention, backing the GNA, through deployment of weapons systems and Syrian mercenaries. Among the military support, Erdogan transferred military personnel and Bayraktar TB2 UAVs. The intervention shifted the war in favour of the GNA.

Furthermore, Turkey has strengthened its presence with the Naval base in Misrata and the Air base in Vatiyya. Subsequently, the Maritime Deal of November 2019, signed by the GNA and Turkey, aimed to expand Turkey’s claims from 41,000 to 148,000 square kilometres in the Mediterranean and to allow the exploitation of resources. Protests came from Cyprus, Egypt and Greece, as it has been seen as a Turkish move to consolidate its presence in Libya. On the other side, actors such as Russia, Egypt and UAE gave their support to Khalifa Haftar’s troops and offensive. Cairo tried to break the ceasefire in 2020 but failed. In addition, these countries viewed the intentions of Ankara to stay as a concern for their interests, especially for what this could have implied for the Libyan unification.

In 2020, Egypt signed a maritime agreement with Greece with an exclusive economic zone between the two countries, mirroring of 2019 deal. The tensions between Ankara and Cairo arise from the coup d’etat in 2013, when Turkey sided with Islamists aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and cut diplomatic ties with Cairo. However, the recently restored relationship between the two countries reflects their willingness to collaborate in shaping Libya’s future. 

On 5 February 2021, the new Libyan interim government, formed by the Libya Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF), appointed Abd al-Hamid Dbeibah as interim Prime Minister. Under Dbeibah, Turkey and the GNU have signed in 2022 a Memorandum of Understanding on oil and gas, building on the 2019 MoU. However, the Turkish approach also included an adaptation to the Libyan political context. Ankara established relations not only with the western but also with the eastern Libyan factions, including the Haftar family. This underlines the shift from direct confrontation to cautious diplomacy, as Turkey’s objective is to remain involved for the long term.

Turkey and Egypt from clashing to

rapprochement on Libya’s dossier 

Following the meeting of September 2024, which constituted a turning point in Egyptian-Turkish relations, the two countries announced the establishment of a bilateral Strategic Cooperation Council. The aim is to coordinate mutual regional objectives in order to prevent potential conflicts. 

The results of the rapprochement have been reflected in Libya’s political dynamics. Cairo and Ankara expressed their willingness to collaborate and work together to stabilise the troubled political environment in Libya and push the two governments – the Bengazi government led by Haftar and the GNU – to resolve their disputes. These efforts could also boost hydrocarbon production in Libya and represent a chance for both countries to consolidate their influence in the region. 

However, during his visit in Cairo in early September 2024, Erdogan reiterated Turkish intentions to institutionalise relations with Tripoli, an aspect that risks destabilising the newly restored relations with Egypt.,The MoU signed in August between the Turkish government and Dbeibah confirmed the consolidation of Turkish military presence in Libya. This agreement gives the Turkish armed forces access to Libyan territory, airspace, and territorial waters.

The following day, Egypt invited Osama Hamad, head of the eastern government. Tripoli authorities interpreted this as a provocation and expelled two Egyptian diplomats. Nevertheless, Turkey maintained its strategy of cautious diplomacy. In the eastern part of Libya, Ankara made numerous investments, including the Turkish steel company Tosyali, which announced plans to build the largest iron and steel production plant in the world in Benghazi. In November, the Turkish military attaché to Libya traveled to Benghazi to meet with Lieutenant General Khairi al-Tamimi, the secretary of the general command of the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army.

Why does the current situation

benefit Turkey?

The current situation in Tripoli, which emerged on May 12 after the killing of Al-Kikli, (known as “Gheniwa”), head of the Stability Support Authority (SSA), has thrown the country into renewed chaos. Clashes erupted between militias aligned with the GNU.

This situation could strengthen Dbeibah – backed by Turkey and the GNU – following several attempts to replace him. In addition, factions that are under the Defence Ministry, particularly the 444 Brigade under Mahmoud Hamza, the 111 Brigade and the Joint Force from Misrata, could gain more power and consolidate their positions. The 444 Brigade is known for its close ties to Turkey. Furthermore, Ankara favours a less fragmented security landscape in Tripoli and the removal of Gheniwa could foster a more unified and secure environment.

Future perspectives

 Following the fall of the Assad regime in Syria – which represented a window of opportunity for Turkey to expand its regional footprint – Ankara may attempt to do the same in Libya, albeit with a different approach. Turkey’s ability to operate on multiple fronts, and to capitalise on regional instability, could push it to further consolidate its presence in Libya. However, the presence of other key players, such as Russia and Egypt, must not be overlooked.

Their manoeuvres in the region will be critical. On one hand, they stress the importance of restoring governmental cohesion in Libya; on the other, they will not refrain from pursuing their own interests. Russia is present in Libya with military bases and maintains strong ties to the eastern government, having repeatedly supported Haftar. Although the war in Ukraine has somewhat loosened Moscow’s regional grip, its presence remains significant.

The same goes for Egypt, which despite re-establishing communication with Ankara, seeks to retain its influence over Libyan affairs. It cannot be ruled out that these actors – particularly Turkey and Russia – could exploit the current context to pressure Europe on migration issues. This tool has often been used, as demonstrated in Syria, to shift the balance of power. In the event of a deterioration of the situation – though less likely but still plausible – a new confrontation could arise, this time with different and potentially more serious consequences.

________________

Platon Nikiforov

The Kremlin found itself in new foreign policy constraints due to further manifestations of nepotism among its Libyan ally.

Since mid-May, Tripoli, the capital of western Libya, has become a battleground for various factions supporting the UN-recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) led by Abdel Hamid Dbeibah.

Paradoxically, the crisis was triggered by the prime minister’s attempt to consolidate power, a move urged by international actors. However, Dbeibah’s steps toward centralization were clumsy and lacked the finesse of backroom deal-making—essentially achieved through the killing of Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, who led the militarized «Stability Support Apparatus» in Tripoli.

Following al-Kikli’s death—whether accidental or the result of a deliberate ambush—forces loyal to the GNU’s Ministry of Defense, primarily Mahmoud Hamza’s 444th Brigade, began seizing the Apparatus’s facilities in Tripoli’s districts. This led to armed clashes, public protests, and a new wave of political turbulence in a region where the official security apparatus of the internationally recognized government essentially consists of formations resembling private military companies, which periodically clash with one another.

Against this backdrop, another Libyan power center, represented by Khalifa Haftar and his family, began moving units of the Libyan National Army (LNA) closer to western territory—from Benghazi to Sirte. Given Haftar’s past tactics of exploiting divisions among western Libyan forces through pressure, renewed attempts by the LNA to avenge its 2020 defeat are not unlikely.

However, external forces play a significant role in stabilizing the situation—Turkey, which previously saved Tripoli from LNA capture, and Russia, which has unofficially established a presence at nearly all eastern Libyan military sites.

For Moscow, still struggling to maintain a semblance of influence in post-Assad Syria, new attempts by Haftar to seize full control of Libya could have severe consequences, potentially undermining the already faltering «African Corps» projects across the continent. Yet, even without a new military adventure by Haftar, Moscow’s medium-term presence in Libya lacks clear prospects.

Volatile Perspectives

Over the past decade, Russia’s stance on Libya’s internal power dynamics has shifted repeatedly: Moscow has at times openly aligned with Khalifa Haftar, only to later balance this tilt by intensifying contacts with Tripoli’s authorities.

This zigzag foreign policy trajectory was tied to battlefield successes and failures in Libya, where, after the LNA’s failed Wagner-backed offensive on Tripoli, the Kremlin hurriedly adjusted its actions to favor the internationally recognized authorities. Additionally, internal divisions within Russia’s elite—the Foreign Ministry advocated dialogue with Tripoli, while the Defense Ministry backed Haftar, and the Kremlin’s «towers» lacked consensus—created further policy fluctuations.

Among Russian military experts, it is believed that the infamous conflict between Yevgeny Prigozhin and then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu first escalated due to Libyan events.

Initially, Prigozhin’s «trolls,» followed by sociologists, political strategists, and mercenary fighters, bolstered the positions of regular Russian forces in eastern Libya. However, the «tail soon began wagging the dog,» demanding recognition of Wagner’s «hard» and «soft» power experience on the ground.

This conflict generated a wealth of information, but Wagner’s story in Libya ended in a lesser-known way. In September 2023, after Prigozhin’s elimination, Russian mercenaries at Libyan bases threatened to strike nearby Russian Defense Ministry facilities if the military did not urgently allow a Wagner-operated transport plane—carrying over 100 of Bashar Assad’s security personnel from a «Libyan assignment”—to land in Syria.

This was likely the final straw, after which Wagner mercenaries were fully withdrawn from Syria and Libya, replaced by the Defense Ministry’s fully controlled «African Corps.»

Following the fall of the Assad regime and the reduction of Russia’s presence in Syria (with the Tartus and Hmeimim bases effectively demilitarized), Libyan facilities have become a key stronghold for projecting Kremlin influence in Africa and the Middle East. The supply and rotation of the «African Corps» in West Africa (primarily Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali) cannot logistically occur without relying on facilities in Haftar’s domain.

Haftar’s visit to Moscow in May 2025 was likely intended to officially mark a new phase in the Kremlin’s Libyan policy. Despite the LNA’s questionable legitimacy, Haftar observed the Victory Day parade alongside other countries’ presidents (though some, like Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore, came to power through coups).

Prior to this, Haftar held talks with Shoigu, now Security Council Secretary, surrounded by military intelligence (GRU) leadership.

On May 10, Haftar was received by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and later—likely after receiving assurances from the president—by the current Defense Minister, Andrei Belousov.

Yet, Moscow’s position remains ambiguous: Russia’s embassy in Libya is located only in Tripoli, and the Foreign Ministry has consistently obstructed the opening of a consulate in Benghazi, despite the significant presence of Russian military personnel in eastern Libya.

The escalation in Tripoli amid eastern stability could push Moscow toward clearer support for Haftar. However, this is unlikely, as Moscow, despite its investments in Haftar, is well aware of the «ticking time bomb» in eastern Libya—one it cannot defuse even if it wished: 81-year-old Haftar faces health issues, and the transition of power to his sons could follow an unpredictable path.

Nepotism in Governance

Concerned about the impending power transition, Khalifa Haftar has long sought to delegate authority to his sons, primarily Saddam and Khaled.

Saddam Haftar is considered the primary contender to lead the LNA and the «eastern empire» as a whole.

From 2016 to 2024, he rose from cadet to head of the LNA’s ground forces. Initially, Saddam commanded the Tariq bin Ziyad Brigade, still regarded as one of the LNA’s most combat-ready units. However, international human rights groups have repeatedly accused the brigade of crimes against civilians.

As head of the ground forces, Saddam controls other capable units—battalions and brigades that are well-equipped and trained by local standards. The Tariq bin Ziyad Brigade primarily consists of Madkhali Salafists, which makes Haftar’s claims of fighting «takfirists» absurd and undermines the Russian Defense Ministry’s media campaign, built on supporting regimes purportedly combating «Islamists.»

Another of Haftar’s sons, Khaled, was appointed in 2024 to lead the LNA’s security units, centered around the 106th Brigade, which also relies on various Salafist groups. The distribution of military power between the two brothers (Haftar’s other children have lesser political ambitions for various reasons) allows the Haftar family to control eastern Libya but creates risks: it remains unclear how Saddam and Khaled will act in the event of their father’s death or incapacitation.

The situation is complicated by the stance of southern tribes, with whom Haftar has always managed to find common ground in tough times. For them, Saif al-Islam, Muammar Gaddafi’s reclusive son, would be preferable to Haftar’s sons.

While Libyans are weary of civil wars—a factor that could be significant during a power transition—the issue of resource distribution may outweigh the desire for swift stabilization.

The central issue, however, is consensus within the Haftar family. In Libya and among leading experts, there is a prevailing view that Haftar’s current display of family harmony is a facade, with serious competition between the brothers in reality.

Moreover, it is uncertain whether Saddam, in the event of his father’s withdrawal, could convince loyal brigades and battalions to remain faithful. The LNA’s ongoing purge, which in 2024 alone led to the dismissal of nearly 3,000 officers and generals, is unlikely to pass without consequences during a power transition.

Among the younger generation that has rapidly advanced in recent years, some may be dissatisfied and tied to the «old guard,» sidelined not only from power but also from income sources.

Experts are well aware of the shadow economy in eastern Libya, where oil smuggling intertwines with drug and human trafficking, with proceeds laundered through construction projects managed by two key funds: the National Development Agency, overseen by Saddam, and the Libyan Development and Reconstruction Fund, headed by another son, Belkasem.

The current security equation in eastern Libya relies on extensive international ties maintained by Saddam and Khaled—with allies like Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, as well as adversaries like Turkey, the US, Israel, and others.

Turkey’s role in modern Libya is particularly paradoxical: a few years ago, Ankara was the Haftar family’s main opponent, contributing to the LNA’s military failure to control the entire country, but now Turkish construction companies are involved in numerous infrastructure projects in the east.

There are reasons to believe that Saddam and Khaled are seeking support from different players: the former from NATO countries, the latter primarily from Russia and Belarus. Rumors suggest that the secrecy surrounding construction at the Maaten as-Sarra airbase, conducted for the «African Corps,» is tied to Khaled’s efforts to demonstrate his ability to provide Russia with a key logistical hub for transferring goods and personnel to Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Sudan, even in a region tightly controlled by Saddam. If this power dynamic is accurate, the prospects of the «African Corps”—a project meant to replace Wagner’s remnants in the region under GRU control—may be in jeopardy and heavily dependent on whether the Haftar family can reach any consensus. Even if a consensus is achieved, the external actors it relies on will matter greatly.

Moscow would prefer that the competition between Haftar’s sons is a tactical game of «good cop, bad cop,» aimed at securing concessions from all sides and demonstrating the Haftar family’s indispensability, if not for the entire country, then at least for its eastern half.

However, the Kremlin likely dismissed expert warnings that Assad’s victory in the Syrian civil war was an illusion and his regime’s collapse was almost inevitable. The consequences of that miscalculation are well known.

***

Platon Nikiforov – Political analyst specializing in the Middle East.

_____________________

Milad Elharathi

The National Road Map

In the main time, there is need to draft a national road map to transform these concepts to tangible practical plans that can be implemented according to the available budget. Accordingly, all concerned ministers put down their proposals concerning these resources.

Each proposal has objectives for the program and its component, and a definition of the strategy to achieve these objectives, with a timetable and explanation of the obstacles that each program may face and how to overcome them.

It is important to devise a system for accountability to give warning indications monitoring the stages of implementation and development priorities that will offer benefits to all citizens.

The Major Development Priorities

Good governance: and improving responses and accountability as well as the services that are provided by the government or the institutions, besides the local governments bodies.

– Participation and social integration, which leads to the individuals and societies’ ability to participate in the decisions that affect their lives.

– Health: improving the quality of health care and access to the services that aim at promoting the health of those who are physically, mentally and socially marginalized.

– Education: quality of education that improves the ability of formal and informal educational institutions to provide educational opportunities that contribute in alleviating

poverty, and giving priority to provide job opportunities, alleviate poverty, decrease cost of living, and combating corruption.

– The Judiciary’s Independence: Independence of the Libyan Judiciary system means that the Judicial Power should be isolated from any other powers of the government. That means that courts should not be subjugated to any influence of any institution, body or council in the state or any persons or parties.

There are several means to realize that, including selection of the judges and their appointment for life so as to enable them to concentrate on establishing justice and to judge in all cases according to the rules of the law, and according to what their conscience dictates, even if their judgments were not popularly accepted, or did not serve interests of certain groups or persons.

However, national development priorities differ from Libya to another state, but Libya should be confined, as a whole, to abolishing unemployment, providing job opportunities, alleviating poverty, reducing living costs, combating corruption, availability of food, combating crime and violence, combating narcotics, treating political instability, providing daily services such as drinking water, electricity in terms of securitization approaches, health care for all family members, endorsing equal rights between men and women, speech freedom in press, radio and television, and in seminars and conferences.

Furthermore, establishing security and acceleration of economic development is one of the priorities in rebuilding Libya after the revolution, and building a safe and stable society where the people own the country’s wealth.

As a result, it is necessary to aim all classes of the society with fixed programs by providing real job opportunities that maximize the role of human resources in upgrading productivity and good quality to be able to export the surplus of products.

It is vital to convince members of the society by the Media and seminars that development is done for their own interests and that will be asserted by asking every individual to play a role in that development, and to equally benefit of its results.

No doubt, putting citizens’ basic needs at the top of the national development priorities, broader popular participation in decision-making process, exposing economic, social and cultural policies to more studies through open public debates will lead to the best use of human resources, and make access to data and information, provide transparency in economic transactions, limelight all aspects of flaws and inefficiency in governmental departments and economic institutions and combat of corruption.

All these should be done in a framework of democracy. Development process is not only affected by democracy but it also affects it. Democracy avails the framework that constitutes an intensive development.

Economic growth, which includes a high degree of industrialization and value added, contributes in transformation to democracy much more than selling or exporting raw material.

Returns of raw oil sales do not per se lead to that transformation in the required speed and depth. Oil returns are accumulated by the state, and consequently increase the state’s power and bureaucracy as happens in some oil producing and exporting states. Politically oriented, Libya, in the first election, after half a century to elect the members of the General National Conference (GNC), the results of the Libyan election was in contrast to the expectations of most analysts who betted on the Islamists’ victory as happened in both Egypt and Libya, as the general trend of the Arab Spring was in favor of the Islamists.

In contrast, the Libyan results came to rectify the political comps and correct the course of the whole Arab revolts, and proved that the Islamists were not the only ones in the ground.

These elections returned confidence of followers of the democratic civil state, stressing that not Libyans are in favor of the Islamic rule. They are looking forward to a prosperous future for the modern Libya state: the state of institutions, a democratic constitution, a rule of the law, justice, rationality and living in peace with themselves and the world, as a state of stability, construction and development.

Conclusion

To conclude, Libya’s agony is not caused so much by the civil war, as it is by the internal problems left unresolved by Muammar Kaddafi. The war simply revealed a series of weaknesses and vulnerabilities, which had remained more or less dormant for decades.

And it’s almost impossible to solve these problems anytime soon, especially since the House of representatives does not have too many human and financial resources, so we can expect a weak, divided and on the edge-of-survival Libyan state for many years to come.

In short, Libya will be the most predisposed to internal divisions and instability. At the same time it’s also the only North African state to have failed to do away with the ethnic and tribal barriers and to create a national identity.

The main barrier to achieving this goal has been and still is geography and wealth along with the tribal segmentations in the country.

***

Milad Elharathi – Visiting Fellow, at Clare College, University of Cambridge UK

________________________

 Sean Mathews and Ragip Soylu

Eastern Libya’s parliament endorsement of a 2019 maritime deal would challenge Greece’s deal with Egypt.

Greece is expected to ask Egypt to intervene to dissuade the government in eastern Libya backed by General Khalifa Haftar from ratifying a maritime agreement with Turkey, Middle East Eye can reveal. 

Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis is expected to raise the issue with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty on Wednesday, two regional officials with knowledge of the matter told Middle East Eye. 

Libya’s internationally recognised government in Tripoli signed a contentious maritime demarcation agreement with Turkey in 2019 that ignored Greece’s claims to exclusive economic zones, including via major Greek islands like Crete and Rhodes. 

Greece countered that maritime agreement the next year by signing its own deal with Egypt. Haftar-controlled eastern Libya has opposed Turkey’s ambitions for years and is backed by Cairo along with the UAE. 

Any move by eastern Libya to endorse Turkey’s position would represent a sea change for the eastern Mediterranean, where regional actors hope to develop potentially lucrative natural gas deposits.

It would be a major boost for Ankara’s bid to assert itself as the dominant maritime power in the region as it would put all of Libya’s factions in line with Turkey’s claims.

If the deal is pursued it could reawaken maritime tensions in the region which saw Greece and Turkey edge close to conflict in the summer of 2020.

Greece and Cyprus are already alarmed. But any recognition of Turkey’s maritime claims could also irk Israel. Greece, Cyprus and Israel want to develop gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean and build a subsea electrical inter-connector, but those projects have stalled. 

If Haftar-controlled eastern Libya ratifies the maritime deal, it could provide cover to Syria’s new government to strike its own accord with Ankara that includes Northern Cyprus, a breakaway region whose independence is recognised only by Turkey, one of the regional officials told MEE. 

Saddam Haftar opens dialogue

with Turkey

Eastern Libya would also find itself in direct confrontation with the Egypt-Greece maritime agreement.

Cairo did not recognise all of Greece’s claims to exclusive economic zones via its islands in that 2020 agreement, but a wide swath of it contradicts the Turkey-Tripoli deal.  

The Tobruk-based Libyan House of Representatives in June established a committee to review the deal Tripoli endorsed. 

Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for Haftar-controlled eastern Libya to consider signing a maritime deal with Turkey. The shift represents just how fast the region is reordering itself. 

In 2019, Haftar launched a months-long offensive to take Tripoli with the backing the UAE, Egypt and Russia. Turkey successfully intervened to defend its ally, sending mercenaries, soldiers and drones.

But Khalifa Haftar is now courting Turkish support. In April, his son and potential successor, Saddam, paid a landmark visit to Ankara.

A Turkish source familiar with Libya’s relations with Ankara told MEE that Haftar and his sons are currently aiming to deepen their relationship with the Turkish government, and would likely keep this issue in limbo rather than approving or declining the maritime deal right now.

Libya’s eastern and western governments are jockeying for influence and access to the country’s oil riches – the largest in Africa. The government in Tripoli is led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh. Eastern Libya is led by Haftar, and its parliament in Tobruk is headed by Aguila Saleh. 

Bilgehan Ozturk, a non-resident research associate at the Global Institute for Strategic Research (GISR), said that the move by the government in eastern Libya wasn’t likely to produce any concrete results. 

Ozturk told MEE that Aguila Saleh was seeking relevance as Dbeibeh and Haftar renewed their international engagements.

“The likelihood that Saleh’s manoeuvre will have international consequences is very slim,” he said. “These are manoeuvres aimed at the internal power struggle.”

Greece was able to lean on Egypt in 2020 to counter Turkey because ties between Ankara and Cairo were strained. Libya was just one flashpoint in the relationship. 

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi came to power after leading a 2013 military coup, that overthrew Egypt’s democratically elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi. He was an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As late as 2019, Erdogan refused to recognise Sisi’s legitimacy. However, in recent years Ankara and Cairo have patched up ties. 

Any effort by Egypt to lobby eastern Libya against the Turkey deal could inflame tensions in the recently thawed relationship.

________________________

Vijay Prashad

A fragmented Libya faces internal violence, funded by foreign powers interested in controlling Libya’s future oil production.

Commander of the Stability Support Authority (SSA), Abdel Ghani al-Kikli, also known as “Gheniwa” was assassinated during a meeting at the base of the 444th Combat Brigade. Sparking massive clashes between government and paramilitary forces across the capital. Photo: X

On May 12, 2025, Abdul Ghani al-Kikli, known to everyone in Libya as Ghnewa al-Kikli, was killed during a meeting inside a militia facility run by the 444th Combat Brigade in Tripoli. Ghnewa, as he was called, led the Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), which had ruled parts of Tripoli, and indeed sections of northern Libya, with an iron fist.

The leader of the 444th Brigade, Major General Mahmoud Hamza, celebrated his troops for “overthrowing the Ghnewa Empire”. Hamza, although rooted in his militia, is the director of military intelligence of one of the several governments that claim to be the official government of Libya. The death of Ghnewa opened a new round of violence across Tripoli, as the SSA fighters took to the streets in distress at the death of their leader.

As the SSA dissolved in despair, the 444th Brigade went into its vacated posts and properties to claim them. At this point, as if Libya needed more trouble, the RADA Special Deterrence Forces, led by the Islamist leader Abdul Raouf Kara, attacked the 444th Brigade. Kara’s al-Radaa or RADA forces are rooted in the Madkhali salafi tradition that is favored by sections of Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood, and while the name of their force appears governmental, it is just another glorified militia outfit that spends its time going after non-Islamic political forces in Libya.

The clash between the 444th Brigade and the SSA, and then with the RADA Special Deterrence Forces, provoked another round of handwringing about tribalism and Islam in Libya. That was how the Western press and think tanks reported what had happened in Tripoli. But this is utterly misleading. Major General Hamza responded to criticism that his 444th Brigade operates as a militia for parochial purposes on his Facebook page: “For years, we have always been keen on the security and protection of citizens, preventing bloodshed and stopping the armed conflict.

We were not advocates of war, and keen on the sanctity of the blood of innocent people and the protection of lives, property and honors. Our intervention in the past years to stop armed conflicts is evidence of the sincerity of our intentions.” He hastened to meet with the Prime Minister of Libya’s Government of National Unity, Abdul Rahman al-Dbeibeh and told him that the 444th Brigade had secured the major intersections in Tripoli, such as at Salahaldeen and Ain Zara. All seemed back to normal.

What NATO created

When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) exceeded the mandate of United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 in 2011, it did not provide a no-fly zone or prevent bloodshed in Libya, but it destroyed the institutions of the Libyan state and provided air cover to various militia groups. These militia groups, funded by a range of actors (Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the United States), worked together against the remnants of the Libyan state, but had nothing to unite them. The moment that they brutally killed Muammar al-Qaddafi and claimed Tripoli, they turned on each other.

A hasty parliamentary election called for 2012 brought some of these factions into stark conflict: the Muslim Brotherhood coalesced by and large around the Justice and Construction Party (led by a former hotel manager, Mohamed Sowan) and the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (led by a long-time exile, Mohamed el-Magariaf), the salafi Homeland Party (led by the cleric Ali al-Sallabi and the al-Qaeda fighter Abdelhakim Belhadj), and then the neoliberals of the National Forces Alliance (led by the US-backed Mahmoud Jibril).

The pro-Qaddafi forces had been banned. No political leader emerged in parliament with a majority, while Islamist and other militias began to tear apart the country as the state’s monopoly over armed force vanished. Prime Minister after Prime Minister followed each other, but none had real power. The entire situation created by NATO in 2011 exploded into what is now known as the Second Civil War, which went on from 2014 to 2020.

Three centers of power emerged. The Government of National Unity and the  Government of National Salvation operate in Tripoli, while the Government of National Stability is in Tobruk and Bayda. Guns blared with ex-CIA asset General Khalifa Haftar trying on several occasions to seize Tripoli from the east and provide a military solution to the political disorder. But no one was able to prevail. Libya became chaotic, the oil wells clogged up, theft was rampant, and government institutions deteriorated.

None of the major political forces could make a claim to being Libyan, with the result that no-one could rise above their parochial origins (leaders of this or that militia from this or that town) or of their limited power base (head of this group or that group with gunmen able to defend this or that neighborhood or town). In the absence of any national force (a military or a political project), Libya spent the past decade bathed in violence and despair.

Ghnewa was a perfect example of the kind of man who dominated Libya. He was born in Benghazi, but his family comes from Kikla, a town in the western Nefusa Mountains, about 150 kilometres southwest of Tripoli (where his body was returned to be buried on May 14). Ghnewa owned and worked in a bakery in Tripoli’s Abu Salim working-class district in 2011 when Gaddafi was overthrown. He had already become part of the local muscle in the tough neighborhood, and shaped that experience into building a militia that increasingly took over parts of the economy and life of Tripoli.

It was the SSA that ran many of the prisons in which migrants had been detained, tortured, and then sold into enslavement (recently the International Criminal Court framed a warrant for the arrest of Osama Elmasry Njeem, the head of one of these prisons; rather than hand him over, the Italian government, which had Njeem in custody, sent him back to Libya).

While it is tempting to imagine that his death is part of an attempt to clean up the militia groups, it is in fact part of a broader internal struggle between the militias that characterized the Second Libyan Civil War. Social media shows the movement of militia groups from Warsehfana and Zawiya in western Libya toward Tripoli, perhaps in support of Kara’s RADA group. There is no immediate optimism about the situation in the aftermath of Ghnewa’s death. The baker lived by the gun and died by the gun. His life since the NATO war has been characterized by violence and corruption – dangerous ingredients that characterize Libya today.

Dangerous tremors

A few days after the death of Ghnewa, Libya’s mufti, Sheikh Sadiq al-Ghariani went on Tanasuh Television to call for “people to take to the streets in their tens of thousands to call for elections and an end to the transitional phases”. Al-Gharani, a salafi preacher, had emerged in the chaos of the NATO war to claim this important seat and from there began to offer fatwas against Qaddafi and later against anyone who went against his view of the world.

He remains very powerful, with close links to some of the Islamist forces in the country. Meanwhile, General Khalifa Haftar took advantage of the anniversary of what is called the al-Karama (Dignity) uprising of 2014 to offer his view that the military is the most important institution in Libya and should be saluted for its bravery and commitment to the nation. Between al-Ghariani and Haftar lie the two sources of power within the country, those who wield the Quran and the Gun, for political purposes. Even they are fragmented, though.

But the real source of power lies elsewhere. Since 2011, the United Nations has forty-four times passed resolutions calling for stability in Libya and for no outside interference. The ceasefire of 2020, rooted in the Berlin II process, created several platforms for stability and sovereignty, including the Security Working Group, the Economic Working Group, and the 5+5 Joint Military Commission.

These groups have become vehicles for the intervention of foreign powers, from the United States to Turkey, that are interested in Libya’s future oil production. They simply will not allow Libya to breathe because that will mean that it might make decisions for the oil that do not please the outside forces. In each of these groups and the many others that have been set up since 2012, Libyan representation has been minimal, largely because Libya is itself fragmented and disoriented.

The guns are again firing in Libya. Money pours in from outside with the hope that one day Libyan oil will allow money to move in the opposite direction. In the shifting sands of Libya’s interior, hope is minimal. The desire is for no more conflict, but that is unlikely. There are so many men with guns across the country. And they have so many bullets.

***

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of Left Word Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are On Cuba: Reflections on 70 Years of Revolution and Struggle (with Noam Chomsky), Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism, and (also with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of US Power.

_____________________

Jennifer Holleis | Mohamed Farhan

Recent violence in western Libya brought back the specter of renewed civil war. But observers say the fighting and ensuing protests may also offer a renewed chance to break the country’s political gridlock.

It may be comparatively calm this week but Libya’s western capital Tripoli remains in turmoil.

Earlier in May, violence broke out between armed groups and pro-government forces after Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah issued a decree ordering the dismantling of armed militias, including the influential Stabilization Support Apparatus, or SSA, militia. The head of the SSA was killed. 

According to the UN, the resulting violence killed eight civilians in Tripoli. Later another 58 bodies were found in a hospital under the SSA’s control,

“The latest fighting in Tripoli that resulted in civilian casualties is a strong indication of the fragility of the situation,” Hanan Salah, Libya researcher and associate director in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told DW. “The sheer recklessness of the warfare that Human Rights Watch documented in the middle of civilian neighborhoods shows the blatant disregard these armed groups have for the life and livelihoods of civilians,” she said.

Country split in half

Since 2014, Libya has been split into two, with opposing governments located in the east and west of the country. A United Nations-backed administration known as the Government of National Unity is based in Tripoli in the west and headed by Dbeibah. Its rival, known as the House of Representatives, is based in the east, in Tobruk and headed by Prime Minister Ossama Hammad. He is supported by former warlord-turned-politician Khalifa Haftar.

In the east, Haftar has managed to consolidate control over various armed militias under his command, ruling with an iron fist. In the west, Dbeibah has tolerated different militias competing. Observers say the recent fighting in Tripoli indicates that Dbeibah is now trying to do the same as Haftar and consolidate control over militias in the west too.

In mid-May, the fighting ended after a few days with an undisclosed agreement between the militias and Dbeibah’s administration. It was followed by popular protests. People demanded national elections as well as a return to the drafting of a constitution: Both were halted when a peace process under UN leadership failed in December 2021.Thousands also called for a Dbeibah’s resignation.

Dbeibah did not address those calls. In a televised speech he said, “we will welcome all those who choose to stand with the state… and we will sideline those who resort to blackmail and corruption. Our goal is a Libya free of militias and corruption.” 

Observers agree that Dbeibah’s key objective is likely to consolidate power and influence. 

Unsolved problems

“In recent years the conflict [in Libya] has been frozen as the spoils have been divided among the various actors,” Tim Eaton, a senior research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at London-based think tank Chatham House, said.

Over time, “these groups had been competing against one another to grab ever greater parts of the Libyan state,” he told DW.

In a recent piece for the think tank’s website, Eaton wrote that the contest had been exacerbated this May over “a dispute over control of a state institution, the Libyan Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology Company, which operates valuable monopolies in the telecommunications sector.”  

In his view, the current situation is very perilous. “There clearly is a threat of a slide into another bout of civil war,” he told DW.

But, Eaton and other experts say, there’s also some hope. 

“There is a real shot for the UN to capitalize on this moment to make some political progress,” Eaton told DW. “This set of actions also seems to present an opportunity to reinvigorate the political track. When there were other outbreaks of significant conflict in Tripoli in 2014 and 2020, political change did follow,” he pointed out. 

In 2014, fighting in Tripoli ended with the country splitting in half. In 2020, a UN-led political process to appoint a new government was started.

“So there is clearly an opportunity for such an occurrence to happen again,” Eaton suggested.

New UN roadmap

This month’s crisis could well “represent a significant opportunity to begin changing the course of events by moving toward holding parliamentary and presidential elections,” agrees Mohamed Dayri, a former foreign minister for the Tobruk-based government in the east. “The first step in this direction is the formation of a unified government that ends the institutional division currently plaguing our country,” he told DW.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, or UNSMIL, first launched in 2011 to help facilitate a political process that would lead to democratic elections in Libya, has published a new report that outlines four options which could serve as a roadmaptowards ending the country’s difficult transitional phase.

The options include conducting presidential and legislative elections simultaneously or conducting parliamentary elections first, followed by the adoption of a permanent constitution. They also include adopting a permanent constitution before elections, or alternatively establishing a political dialogue committee to finalize electoral laws and define executive authority and a permanent constitution.

“Libya’s parties have to come to a consensus,” HRW’s Salah points out. “The human rights crisis and political divisions in Libya will not be solved overnight,” she told DW. “Conducting free and fair elections is elusive today but at the end of the day, what option do the competing Libyan parties really have?”

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Oussama Romdhani

Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s meeting on May 10 at the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin drew attention once more to the Libyan strongman’s ever-growing ties to Moscow.

Visiting Russia to attend the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the country’s victory over Nazi Germany, the commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) also met with several top Russian military figures, including Defense Minister Andrey Belousov.

For a while, Haftar’s Russia connection has been a matter of great concern to the US and Europe, which led to a renewed focus on Libya and paving to way for an unprecedented flurry of US contacts with officials from western and eastern parts of the country.

In early May, the minister of defense of the Tripoli government, Abdulsalam Al-Zoubi, was received in the Pentagon. He was the first Libyan defense official to hold talks in Washington in years. Saddam Haftar, the son and presumably pre-ordained successor to Haftar, was also welcomed for a meeting with several senior US officials at the State Department, in late April.

During the same period, Haftar’s other son, Belqassim, was the guest of honor at a business forum in Washington. As part of a well calibrated effort to treat Tripoli and Benghazi as equals in the ongoing diplomatic-military dance, the USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20), a US 6th Fleet vessel docked last April in both ports of Tripoli and Benghazi.

In February, two US Africa Command (Africom) generals visited Libya where they met with leaders in Tripoli and Benghazi, including Khalifa and Saddam Haftar, as well as GNU Prime Minister Abdulahamid Dbeibah.

The State Department summed up Washington’s objectives as continuing “to engage officials from western and eastern Libya and to support Libyan efforts to unify their military institutions as Libyans secure their autonomy.”

Behind the US outreach, as explained by US Army Lieutenant General John W Brennan, Deputy Commander of Africom, there was before anything else a US desire “to defeat malign actors who threaten North Africa and US security interests.”

Fears of “malign actors” unmistakably

meant Russia

US re-engagement has in fact mirrored NATO’s realization, as expressed by the alliance’s May 2024 independent expert report about its southern neighborhood strategy, that “Libya deserves particular attention” in North Africa.

Part of that strategy was to court Haftar in the hope of weaning him away from relying on the Russians. Haftar’s ties to Moscow and his frequent meetings in Benghazi with Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov were a source of utmost concern.

The US even sent two B-52 Stratofortress bombers to “conduct Libyan military tactical air controllers” near Sirte. In August 2024, AFRICOM Commander, General Michael Langley, met Haftar in Benghazi. There is however a lot of skepticism about Washington’s ability to win over Haftar, considering his deeply-vested interests with Moscow.

Nevertheless the US seemed willing to takes its chances with the LNA commander as concerns about Russian encroachment mushroomed since Moscow started redeploying troops and materiel from Syria to Libya, in December 2024, hence making the North African country its de facto launch-pad for the rest of the continent.

With nearly 2,000 to 2,500 Russian “Africa Corps” troops reportedly present in several military bases in Libya, NATO saw a growing threat to the security of Europe especially that Russia’s military deployment was coupled with anti-Western disinformation campaigns, which could only make worse NATO’s image problem.

The Atlantic alliance was often blamed for the legacy of chaos and strife in Libya and the Sahel since it backed the uprising which toppled long-time ruler Muammar Gadhafi in 2011 but subsequently bailed out without a proper exit-strategy.

Now, Western strategists see a Russian threat in the Mediterranean including a naval presence in Libya and possible attempts to weaponize migration flows across the sea from Europe.

Moscow is also suspected of using Libya as a launchpad for activities south of the Sahara. During the last three years, the West’s position in the Sahel region has deteriorated while Russia moved in. France was pushed out of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Chad, while the US had to depart its anti-terrorism base in Niger.

The competition between international and regional powers comes with a cost to Libya which finds itself caught in the middle while its vantage point is rarely considered. The struggle for influence is dragging Libyans into fights that are not their own and is making the murky Libyan political landscape even murkier.

The Russian military bases (but also other bases that host foreign troops such as Turkey’s) do not project a sense of Libya’s sovereignty nor guarantee its peace. Outside military presence can only add to the fragmentation of Libya’s domestic scene by entrenching the already deep domestic divides around foreign actors.

Recent episodes have also shown that competition for influence between foreign powers can fuel factional strife within Libya.

The latest reports about the US intent to deport illegal migrants with a criminal record to Libya threw the country’s social media into a frenzy as people wondered if Washington was taking advantage of the muddled political scene and exploiting its vulnerabilities of to carry out a questionable agenda that could only further destabilize Libya.

On May 23, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio linked the leaked news reports of Washington’s attempted deportation of criminal elements to Libya and other parts of Africa to Libya’s upheaval saying they have emboldened rebel forces in Libya, igniting the worst street fighting in three years in the Libyan capital.
That particular episode has created many doubts over the US strategy in Libya as Washington seemed to be prioritizing a set of expedient objectives despite their predictably adverse effects on the North African country.

The uproar which erupted in the first week of May over the shocking video of kidnapped MP Ibrahim el-Dirsi (held with chains around his neck) was seen by many in Libya as an attempt by Haftar’s rivals to quash Washington’s overtures to the LNA commander.

Amid the turmoil which engulfed Tripoli at the end of May over the future of the Dbeibah government, Russia and Turkey tried to paint their encroachment in Libya “in order to prevent a new escalation that threatens to turn into a resumption of hostilities”.

Moscow and Ankara were clearly putting the best face on their more self-serving agendas. Most Libyans suspect foreign actors of being after the country’s oil, gas and vast underground riches. They believe Libya’s stability is at best a secondary goal for regional and international powers seeking to curtail the footprint of their rivals. But nobody consulted them before inviting foreign armies and their mercenary subordinates and none of the local sponsors is seriously discussing their removal.

It is true that the United Nations and some people of good-will have spared no effort to help Libyans steer the ship of state to safe harbor despite the stormy seas. But the complex web of intertwined interests between domestic and foreign stakeholders has so far caused an insurmountable headwind blocking any real progress.

Furthermore, the role played by foreign powers has been too often a measure of Libyan protagonists’ dependence on outside forces to ensure their own political survival and promote their selfish agendas in an environment awash in corruption and human rights abuses.

Not much headway towards a political process that would ensure the reunification of the country’s institutions is possible until vying Libyan actors themselves are convinced of the need to put Libya’s interests first. That might mean waiting for another generation of wiser and less greedy elites.

______________________

B. Recommendations

As a first step, the Security Council should consider reforming other elements of the LIA sanctions regime that curb its growth. Exemptions for the reinvestment of assets beyond those held in cash, provided that managers put the money in stable, low-volatility vehicles and the assets remain frozen, make sense.

Just as keeping LIA assets in billions of dollars of cash holdings was a sub-par solution, so, too, is maintaining holdings purchased before 2011 that no longer offer decent financial returns. As with the Council’s decision to allow the LIA’s frozen cash reserves to be invested, removing restrictions on other types of investment would require notification by member states to the Libya sanctions committee. 

For its part, the LIA could propose reinvesting the holdings that are no longer performing well in conservative, low-risk vehicles. The Council, after all, is more likely to approve safer bets.

In this respect, the LIA could follow the example of the Guyana Natural Resource Fund, that country’s sovereign wealth fund, which invests its resources exclusively in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – one of the twelve regional banks of the U.S. Federal Reserve System and historically known as a highly secure, reliable locus of investment.

Investing in the U.S. Federal Reserve has allowed the Guyanese fund to earn a stable interest rate of around 5 per cent per year, albeit without the potential rewards of a high-risk approach.

The LIA could explore other options that are considered safe in today’s financial environment and propose a reinvestment strategy to the Council. Demonstrating initiative and leadership in pursuing prudent financial plans would likely improve the Council’s perception of the LIA and make members more likely to greenlight the fund’s requests. 

Another option for reinvesting the fund’s holdings in better-performing financial vehicles is through a pilot project that allows the LIA to co-manage assets with a responsible third party.

Such a vehicle could give the LIA more experience in responsible asset management while maintaining safeguards; build Council members’ trust and confidence in the LIA, if it proves to be a responsible steward of the pilot; and use interest payments to finance development projects that are desperately needed as poverty climbs in Libya and leaders fail to reinvest substantial oil profits in the country.

The obvious vehicle for such a pilot is a World Bank or UN multi-partner trust fund, a well-tested and effective channel. The private sector also has experience managing such funds, although its tendency to put profit over public interest probably rules out that option. Going through the UN or the World Bank has benefits given their neutrality, independence and experience in handling complex fiduciary responsibilities. These funds are typically guided by a steering committee that defines the fund’s overall strategy, which is unique to each case, and oversees investment and disbursement. 

There are many examples of such funds, but two recent ones are worth highlighting as relevant to the Libyan case. A UN-managed fund designed for Venezuela, which never got off the ground due to political reasons, would have managed frozen assets derived from oil revenues and disbursed them to fund humanitarian aid and social and economic development projects.

Another UN fund for Uzbekistan is currently managing around $131 million in assets embezzled by the daughter of the country’s former president, Islam Karimov, and later seized by the Swiss authorities.119 The fund’s aim is to return the stolen assets to the Uzbek people through projects aligned with the UN development framework for Uzbekistan.

Developing a multi-partner trust fund for the LIA would probably require the investment authority to submit a proposal to the sanctions committee or the Security Council to ask the Secretary-General to establish such a fund. The risks for the UN involved in managing a fund for frozen assets, legal and otherwise, are not small.

The benefits of such a pilot, however, may make procedural hurdles and risks worthwhile. The LIA should also strive to take bold steps to build confidence in its abilities. Reinvigorating its efforts to comply with the Santiago Principles on sovereign wealth fund best practices, and producing credible and comprehensive financial statements, would increase Council members’ trust.

The LIA could make its annual reports and investment performance public, as other sovereign wealth funds do. Submitting regular, credible exemption requests to the Council, as well as licence requests to member states, would be another important step, even though the process is cumbersome. Better reporting is especially important in light of the Council’s disappointment with the quality of the LIA proposal submitted in 2024. 

Over the long term, the Security Council should determine realistic avenues for ending the sanctions regime. Over the long term, the Security Council should determine realistic avenues for ending the sanctions regime, given that elections, reunification and political stability are anything but imminent. For good reason, officials are hesitant to lift sanctions while Libya is in disarray, and they do not want to be responsible for making a decision that opens the door to graft. Yet even if the Council adopts reforms that lessen sanctions’ effects on the LIA’s growth, the restrictions will keep imposing major costs on the fund.

At a minimum, the Security Council should take note of the contradictions of keeping in place a sanctions regime that no longer aligns with its original purpose, even as Libya’s problems continue. Member states should consider other forms of diplomatic pressure to encourage Libyan authorities to adopt best practices when it comes to managing the sovereign wealth fund.

If nothing is done to change the status quo, the implications of the Council leaving sanctions in place are likely to go beyond Libya. On a broader scale, if Security Council sanctions are quasi-permanent, and hang on far past the circumstances they were intended to address, the Council risks damaging the credibility of this important tool – and, indeed, of the Council itself.

Unfortunately, the Libya sanctions regime is not the only one that jars with its original purpose. The UN Security Council’s sanctions on the Afghan Taliban, established under UN Security Council Resolution 1988, offer another example. That regime sets out delisting conditions that have become moot, in effect, since the previous government in Kabul collapsed in August 2021. Other examples abound. The Council should learn the lessons from the Libya case and take steps to ensure that all its sanctions are fit for purpose.

VI. Conclusion

The UN should not miss the chance to make further reforms to the Libya sanctions regime. Even if there is no immediate resolution of the country’s political divisions, there are ways to ensure that increasing the fund’s size and protecting it from misuse are not mutually exclusive goals.

Carefully gauged steps to free the fund from restrictions that are lowering its potential value, shield it where possible from corruption and help it grow are feasible. Libyan authorities must do their part by shoring up the LIA’s credibility and transparency, such as by enhancing compliance with best practices for sovereign wealth funds and producing credible and comprehensive financial statements. 

Over the long term, plans for winding down the sanctions regime will help enhance the credibility of Security Council sanctions and the Council more broadly. Building upon its moves in January 2025, the UN should do what it can to overhaul outdated sanctions as well as to ensure a brighter future for Libya.

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Emadeddin Badi and Wolfram Lacher

The eastern-based House of Representatives and its Tripoli-based counterpart, the High Council of State, are both widely discredited, having consistently perpetuated Libya’s crisis to keep themselves in office. The same goes for the Presidency Council, a toothless, three-member executive body formed under U.N. auspices along with Dabeiba’s government. When the fighting erupted in Tripoli, representatives of these three institutions predictably sought to harness the backlash, hoping to convert the wave of public discontent into a push to form a new government.

But their attempts likely did more to sap the public’s hope for genuine change and expose the risk of popular mobilization being hijacked for parochial ends. Equally predictable was the internal squabbling within all three institutions, which thwarted their attempts to propose a common plan to replace Dabeiba.

Such transparently cynical scheming helped the Dabeibas dismiss demands for the government’s resignation. Their efforts to shape narratives in the public sphere quickly bounced back, with Dabeiba portraying the conflict as a campaign to restore state authority and dismantle rogue militias. Evidence of Ghnewa’s crimes saturated Libyan social media, and the Dabeiba camp showed hints that it could discredit its opponents with damning imagery. 

Less overtly, the Dabeibas are also leveraging the identity politics underpinning the conflict. As fighting erupted, a narrative gained traction on social media: that Dabeiba was seeking to monopolize power with the backing of Misratan forces. This framing has echoed through the organized political activism demanding his resignation, much of it emerging from Tripoli’s Suq al-Juma neighborhood, the city of Zawiya and the Warshafana region — areas where his armed opponents are concentrated. In truth, Dabeiba has long been unpopular in Misrata, including among its armed groups, only a handful of which have backed his government militarily in Tripoli.

Yet by mobilizing against what they portray as a Misratan power grab, the government’s adversaries are inadvertently shoring up Dabeiba’s faltering support in his hometown. Privately, the Dabeibas have been messaging communal and armed actors in Misrata that the crisis is not merely about retaining office but about safeguarding the city’s political relevance in Tripoli.

Their calculus hinges on the belief that a decisive alignment from Misrata’s factions could fracture the already brittle opposition coalition — particularly in Zawiya, where rivalries among armed groups have historically undermined unity.

While this political battle over popular opinion and communal fears is unfolding, the truce in Tripoli remains extremely precarious. Both sides have strong incentives to escalate. For the SDF, the ceasefire simply freezes a battlefield disadvantage. Not only did it lose control of strategic positions, it has also been politically sidelined by Dabeiba’s government. Its only viable route to reclaim leverage is to rally support and apply pressure, whether through new alliances or renewed force.

Moreover, allowing the security situation in Tripoli to recover its normalcy risks strengthening Dabeiba’s claim that he is restoring order. If, as seems likely, political efforts to unseat Dabeiba falter or drag on too long, the SDF may conclude that escalation is the only way to regain influence in the evolving power balance.

For the Dabeibas, the same logic applies. The renewed talk of forming a new government, especially among eastern institutions and western Libyan rivals, raises the stakes. The longer this momentum builds, the more tempting it becomes to preempt it militarily — particularly by targeting groups trying to establish an alternative seat of power in Tripoli. The Dabeibas and their inner circle may therefore see renewed confrontation as the only way to assert primacy.

This backdrop of rising tension is compounded by a near-total collapse of trust among Tripoli’s factions. For years, militia leaders maintained a fragile arrangement underpinned by a mutual interest in managing spoils and preventing Haftar’s advance into western Libya. Disputes were often defused at the last minute, through personal relationships, negotiated understandings and implicit red lines.

But that informal modus vivendi has now crumbled. Only recently, Ghnewa had appeared smiling alongside those who conspired against him at an iftar dinner hosted by Ibrahim Dabeiba. His killing shattered the basic assumption that alliances offered protection, and sent the message that anyone could be next.

In that climate, the foundations for negotiation over ceasefires or institutional arrangements have significantly eroded. The current truce is not the product of mutual understanding but of hedging. Perhaps the most significant reason why it is still holding is the forceful messaging of a Turkish envoy who, in direct talks with key stakeholders, stressed the imperative to avoid renewed escalation.

This matters, coming from a country whose military presence weighs heavily in western Libya’s favor. But it may not be sufficient. With trust eroded and rivalries deepened, Tripoli is in a state of suspended conflict, primed for renewed violence. 

The scene of these maneuvers is part of a broader political theater. Both camps loudly warn that empowering their rivals would hand Tripoli to Khalifa Haftar. Dabeiba’s critics claim his destabilizing moves in Tripoli embolden the eastern commander.

The Dabeibas insist that a change in government would allow Haftar’s allies to reassert control through state institutions. But these warnings ring hollow. Both sides have shown they are willing to cut deals with Haftar and his inner circle when it serves their interests. The specter of Haftar does not function as a principled red line but has become a tool. 

Over the past years, power struggles in Tripoli have routinely opened space for the Haftar family to expand their influence, even without a military presence in the capital. By leveraging control over oil production and their grip on the eastern Libya-based parliament, the Haftars have extracted political and financial concessions from rivals in the west.

There is little to suggest that this round will break the pattern. The divisions and short-term calculations among Tripoli’s factions continue to serve eastern interests by default, regardless of intent.

Yet another scenario has become at least conceivable with these events: the possibility of Dabeiba emerging with greater centralized control in Tripoli. Surviving this crisis may open a narrow path toward greater authority, but it will come at a cost. Ghnewa’s death has unraveled an empire of institutional influence, giving Dabeiba space to maneuver and reconsolidate patronage networks.

Many of Ghnewa’s former affiliates now seek protection from groups aligned with Dabeiba — or face the prospect of being replaced by loyalists to the prime minister. Yet the armed groups Dabeiba depends on to consolidate control are not simply loyal followers; they are exploiting his moment of vulnerability to push for the appointment of their own affiliates, constraining his ability to build a truly loyal apparatus. Efforts to fill the power vacuum left by Ghnewa are in turn shaped as much by opportunism and coercion as by strategy.

The result is a landscape of conditional alignment, where armed groups back Dabeiba not out of fealty but calculation and, increasingly, caution. They are taking note not only of the risks of open defiance, but also of the precariousness of cooperation. Brigade 444, a core pillar of Dabeiba’s operation against Ghnewa and the SDF, emerged from this brief bout of warfare politically bruised and publicly blamed.

In his address defending government actions, Dabeiba singled it out for igniting the clashes, casting it as an undisciplined actor rather than a partner. That message has resonated beyond Tripoli: The more conflict-averse factions in Misrata, too, are increasingly wary — not just of being drawn into confrontations with other western Libyan groups, but of absorbing public backlash on behalf of a prime minister who struggles to unify his own hometown behind him. 

All in all, and against most expectations, the fallout may leave Dabeiba more dominant in the short term, but with even fewer trusted partners and growing unease among the militias he must still depend on. The effect would not be one of consolidation, but of reluctant drift, his position reinforced by a lack of alternatives, rather than a coherent coalition. The moral of Ghnewa’s story is now etched into the ethos of Tripoli: At this juncture, today’s ally can just as easily become tomorrow’s adversary or scapegoat. 

At a deeper level, however, the patterns underpinning Dabeiba’s tenuous hold on power reflect the broader stagnation of Libya’s political landscape. The transition remains stalled — not because Libyans lack a desire for reform, but because the incentives sustaining the current order remain deeply entrenched.

The absence of a shared sense of urgency among international actors only reinforces this paralysis: Without coordinated external pressure, there is little chance of a credible push to form a new government, let alone to sideline the House of Representatives and High Council of State, whose mutual veto power continues to block meaningful progress.

And even if a new government does emerge, it will inherit the same broken foundations: a fragmented security architecture, revenues monopolized by Haftar and a governance model that privileges militia leverage over institutional legitimacy. Until those structural dynamics are disrupted, moments of crisis will continue to serve as catalyst points for mutation, not transformation.

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Emadeddin BadiEmadeddin Badi is a consultant and senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Wolfram LacherWolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the author of “Libya’s Fragmentation”

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Emadeddin Badi and Wolfram Lacher

Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dabeiba has set off a series of events destabilizing western Libya, but the structural forces behind the country’s wider stalemate remain strong.

On May 13, Libya’s prime minister, Abdelhamid Dabeiba, and his closest allies were triumphant. The night before, Abdelghani “Ghnewa” al-Kikli, the city’s most powerful militia leader and, until recently, a key pillar of Dabeiba’s rule, was shot dead at a meeting with government officials. Within hours, Ghnewa’s forces collapsed, his lieutenants fled Tripoli and units aligned with Dabeiba seized his territory.

For a fleeting moment, it looked like Dabeiba had eliminated a key rival and taken a major step toward consolidating control in Tripoli. The next day, Dabeiba’s hold on power was at its weakest since taking office in 2021. Heavy fighting had engulfed the capital overnight, and Dabeiba was widely held responsible.

Libya’s capital has seen endless twists and turns since the demise of the Gadhafi regime in 2011. But this dramatic reversal was extraordinary even for Tripoli. In its wake, a fragile ceasefire took hold that could easily break down again. Dabeiba’s authority has been shaken to the core.

He long sought to present himself as the guarantor of stability and security in the capital. Indeed, clashes became increasingly rare after he warded off initial challenges to his rule. Now, the image he cultivated lies in tatters, and he is the focus of popular anger. Could the unintended consequences of Dabeiba’s power grab finally undo Libya’s political stalemate?

Until he was shot in the back of the head at the Tekbali military base on May 12, Ghnewa was among the biggest beneficiaries of Dabeiba’s rule. Dabeiba had been appointed as head of a unity government under a U.N.-led process in March 2021, ostensibly to oversee an interim period until elections that were scheduled for December of that year.

When those elections were canceled, Dabeiba’s western Libyan opponents allied with the warlord Khalifa Haftar, based in the eastern part of the country, to form a new government. But Dabeiba prevailed in Tripoli, confining the rival administration’s sway to Haftar’s territory. He did so by exploiting fears of Haftar taking power and by buying the loyalties of western Libyan armed groups. Key to this was Ghnewa, a former baker who had formed a militia in 2011 and gradually turned it into a major force. Ghnewa’s territory just south of Tripoli’s city center was a mere stone’s throw from the seat of the prime minister. 

In exchange for their support for Dabeiba, Ghnewa and a handful of other militia leaders received more than lavish funding. They gained unprecedented sway over state institutions by appointing figureheads to oversee the plunder of funds in ministries and state-owned companies. Alongside Dabeiba’s nephew Ibrahim Dabeiba — widely seen as the real power-broker behind the prime minister — they also built direct ties with Haftar’s sons and routinely brokered arrangements over key positions and institutions. 

Relations among the key players in Tripoli were not devoid of tensions. But most shared an interest in the survival of a government that enabled them to accumulate power and wealth. This required keeping the peace in the capital, allowing the prime minister to claim that he had delivered Tripoli from the recurrent clashes it had seen for years. Meanwhile, the city’s militias tried to build a reputation as professional security forces, with some succeeding more than others.

For several years, the Dabeibas juggled competing demands from Haftar and western Libyan militia leaders, allowing Ghnewa’s associates to take over security institutions such as the domestic intelligence service. As Ghnewa’s power grew, managing him became increasingly difficult for the Dabeibas and their allied commanders. In August 2024, Ibrahim Dabeiba relied on a force led by a Ghnewa lieutenant to oust the long-serving central bank governor.

But that force subsequently monopolized control of the central bank and protected the new governor, bringing him under Ghnewa’s influence, much to the Dabeibas’ dismay. Ghnewa also made outsized demands to place his proteges in key ministerial positions, threatening to throw his support behind the formation of a new government. Meanwhile, he aggressively expanded his share of spoils from fraud in sectors ranging from imports of medicine to oil and telecommunications. 

As Ghnewa’s relations with the Dabeibas soured, he mended ties with another major force in Tripoli: the Special Deterrence Force (SDF), headed by Salafi-leaning commander Abderrauf Kara. The SDF and its affiliates controlled the capital’s airport and vast swathes of eastern Tripoli, and exerted considerable influence within state institutions. Kara had played a key role in helping Dabeiba retain power at critical junctures, but he grew increasingly alienated over time, frustrated by what he perceived as meager returns for his support.

The Dabeibas had begun favoring leaders of other factions. Ghnewa was among them, as were Abdesselam Zubi of Brigade 111 and Mahmoud Hamza of Brigade 444 — the latter a former Kara lieutenant turned bitter rival. And these groups had begun to curb SDF influence, most drastically at the central bank, where the SDF had for years maintained a strong presence. 

The turning point came when Ghnewa compelled the SDF’s withdrawal from the central bank to assist the Dabeibas in ousting the governor. Ironically, that episode’s aftermath brought Kara and Ghnewa into an uneasy alliance, forged by their respective roles in derailing the Dabeibas’ bid to assert control over the central bank. By late 2024, the two had found a common purpose: to guard themselves against threats from the Dabeibas and their closest allies.

In April, the joint force from Dabeiba’s native Misrata began sending convoys of armed vehicles toward Tripoli. Its objective remained unclear, and rumors suggested it had prepared an attack on the SDF. Yet many dismissed the idea that Dabeiba would initiate hostilities and thereby shatter the capital’s tranquility he so cherished.

But in early May, tensions between Ghnewa and the Dabeibas escalated when Ghnewa’s men abducted two top executives at Libya’s state telecommunications holding, a cash cow that Dabeiba had used as a slush fund. In the following days, convoys began converging on Tripoli from Misrata, Zawiya and Zintan, foreshadowing an imminent escalation. 

On the evening of May 12, the news that Ghnewa had been shot dead spread like wildfire across Tripoli, along with pictures of his blood-stained body. It quickly emerged that he had been killed at the headquarters of Brigade 444, during a meeting to which Hamza had invited him. Hamza has since suggested that his killing happened after Ghnewa’s men raised their weapons at their hosts.

But the speed with which Brigades 444 and 111 took control of Ghnewa’s stronghold in the Abu Salim district right after the killing clearly indicates a well-planned operation. Dabeiba himself lauded the campaign for its success in speedily routing Ghnewa’s forces with minimal immediate harm to civilian lives or property. 

The ease with which they had eliminated a major rival must have surprised the operations’ architects themselves. The next day, they sought to build on the momentum to move against the SDF. To that end, Dabeiba issued a series of decrees dissolving units affiliated with both Ghnewa and the SDF. Among those targeted was the Judicial Security Apparatus, a powerful SDF affiliate led by Osama Njeem, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

Other units were integrated into the Interior Ministry headed by Emad Trabelsi — a close Dabeiba ally from the town of Zintan. The Ghnewa associate heading the domestic intelligence service was replaced by an appointee from Zintan and a deputy from Misrata. For Kara’s SDF and other armed groups in greater Tripoli, the message was clear: Dabeiba was centralizing control and empowering Misratan and Zintani actors at their expense.

Even as Dabeiba and his allies touted their victory against what they now described as rogue militias, a different picture took shape. Clips of looting in Ghnewa’s former stronghold of Abu Salim spread on social media. Many of the worst excesses were the work of the General Security Apparatus, a Zintani-led force commanded by the interior minister’s brother. The same force later looted Tripoli’s port and even attempted to break into the vaults of the central bank. Its acts galvanized public outrage and shattered Dabeiba’s narrative. 

This combination of overreach and misconduct directly strengthened the position of the SDF. Kara seized the opportunity to widen his coalition, reaching out to factions in several Tripoli districts as well as the neighboring city of Zawiya. Although most stopped short of open military engagement, many began hedging, positioning themselves to join the fray should momentum shift away from the government.

Instead of consolidating control, Dabeiba’s moves ignited urban warfare. Tensions came to a head on the evening of May 13, during the attempted handover of positions previously held by the Judicial Security Apparatus to Mahmoud Hamza’s Brigade 444. The transfer was a highly sensitive matter, as both forces had heavily clashed before, and Hamza’s long-standing animosity toward Kara was no secret. Fighters affiliated with the Judicial Security Apparatus backtracked on the agreement to surrender their positions, triggering localized clashes that quickly escalated across Tripoli.

The SDF began targeting Brigade 444, which was left to fend off its advances with little support from Dabeiba’s other key allies — Brigade 111 and the Misrata joint force. Within hours, Tripoli plunged into chaos: Street battles erupted in densely populated and affluent neighborhoods, improvised drone-borne explosives struck military camps, and the SDF and 444 rampaged throughout the capital. Forces from Zawiya entered Tripoli from the west, drawing Dabeiba-aligned forces into a defense on multiple fronts. 

For a brief moment, the fighting looked like it could escalate into a protracted urban war. But by noon the following day, a fragile ceasefire had been brokered, halting the clashes as suddenly as they had erupted. The shifts on the battlefield revealed a mixed picture. The SDF had defended its exposed bases in southern Tripoli but had been compelled to retreat from key positions in the city center, including the port. However, not all of the SDF’s lost territory was now held by forces loyal to Dabeiba. Neutral forces from Misrata had deployed to separate the opposing coalitions in some of the most critical locations, including around the central bank.

Far more consequential than the shifts in territorial control during the fighting was the latter’s political fallout. The sudden throwback to the capital’s worst days shocked Tripoli’s residents. Public dismay focused on Dabeiba and on Brigade 444, which had previously cultivated a reputation for disciplined security provision, but now bore the brunt of the blame for the clashes’ excesses. 

On Friday, two days after the ceasefire was reached, protests erupted on Martyrs’ Square. They reflected a volatile blend: genuine civic frustration with state failure and militia impunity, mixed with the calculated presence of provocateurs aligned with Dabeiba’s political rivals. For much of the day, the demonstrations remained peaceful and focused. But by dusk, the mood shifted. Provocateurs directed protesters toward the seat of the prime minister and attempted to storm it. They were dispersed with live ammunition. Meanwhile, ministers associated with the SDF and other anti-Dabeiba armed groups resigned, their announcements timed to trigger a domino effect that failed to materialize.

The crackdown on protesters was a turning point. On the one hand, it provoked another wave of public anger against Dabeiba. On the other, it allowed Dabeiba to portray the unrest as coordinated subversion. Clearly, however, the line between grassroots mobilization and factional manipulation had been crossed. With these events, the conflict shifted into a new phase — a battle of narratives.

For a moment after the protests, there appeared to be an opening, a chance to challenge Dabeiba’s power with both political initiative and popular credibility. But the moment slipped. The protests lost momentum, and the rival camp’s chronic weaknesses resurfaced. Divided by geography, ambition and deep mistrust, the opposition lacked the unity and the legitimacy to present a compelling alternative.

Dabeiba’s greatest strength lies not in the alliance backing him, but in the incoherence of those seeking to replace him.

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Emadeddin BadiEmadeddin Badi is a consultant and senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Wolfram LacherWolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the author of “Libya’s Fragmentation”

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Karim Mezran and Roberta Maggi

The past fortnight has shattered perceptions of stability in Libya, unveiling deep fractures within its political, security and economic state and non-state apparatuses.

The May 12 assassination of Abdul Ghani al-Kikli, prominent leader of the Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), triggered large-scale urban confrontations between rival armed factions, but this came as no surprise. The escalation occurred against the backdrop of powerful semi-state armed factions, duplicated executive and legislative institutions alive long past their mandate, an absent judiciary, a nationwide economic crisis, and pervasive corruption. 

Coalitions formed on the basis of affiliations to the Government of National Unity (GNU) on one side, and Special Deterrence Force (SDF) on the other, drew in militants from Tripoli and beyond, bringing to light grievances and mistrust accumulated over years of fluid, ever-changing, short-term security arrangements and international neglect.

Indeed, the notion that the dual status quo could endure since the 2020 Ceasefire Agreement between the military factions of the then-Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Benghazi-based Libyan Arab Armed Forces of Khalifa Haftar, with its multiplied leaders unchecked, can no longer hold in public discourse.

Countrywide divisions are also resurfacing as Tripoli grapples with its own, with chaos in Libya’s capital creating an ideal battleground for those seeking to achieve nationwide domination through military means.

Beyond the ballot box

Currently envisaged solutions to Libya’s crisis feel like a band-aid on a gunshot wound. Crisis appears to be brewing as tensions deepen and fears mount of further violent escalation in urban areas. The United Nations and the Presidency Council launched a truce committee to negotiate a local ceasefire and interim security arrangements in Tripoli, whose influence over peace enforcement in practice is, however, limited at best. At the same time, the House of Representatives, whose members were last elected in 2014 and have long overstayed their mandate, seized the opportunity of undermining the also-entrenched GNU and launched its own process for forming yet another executive.

The international push for elections in 2021 was seen as the most promising avenue towards stability. However, as the ballot box was never opened, the profound depth of Libya’s legitimacy crisis across all existing executive and legislative institutions perdures today. Indeed, no single individual or institution in Libya would be able to meaningfully bring the country to elections without due process and international backing.

What’s more, any attempt at the implementation of new political arrangements amid the current escalation risks resulting in more violence, including towards civilians. Peace enforcement, therefore, rises to the front as the utmost imperative for the international community in the short term, while paving the way for a complete political overhaul in the medium term.

While it’s clear that an international agreement is needed to support Libyans in reversing current negative trends and overall escalation, no single external actor can be a viable mediator without multilateral backing. While in other contexts, the United Nations could consider deploying an international peacekeeping mission, permanent members’ interests at the Security Council amid changing Mediterranean geopolitics would likely lead to a deadlock and the use of veto power(s) for such an initiative.

A way out of the current institutional blockage—Libyan and multilateral—must therefore rely on other pathways to multilateral cooperation.

With the United Nations gridlocked and unilateral interventions only deepening Libya’s divides, the question of who, if anyone, could credibly enforce peace looms large. Egypt, despite its strategic clout and dual membership in the African Union and League of Arab States, is too closely aligned with eastern factions to lead.

Turkey is disqualified on similar grounds, its deep entrenchment in Tripoli rendering it a partisan actor, despite recent meetings suggesting a possible rapprochement with Eastern factions. While symbolically inclusive, the Union for the Mediterranean lacks both Libya’s full participation and any enforcement teeth.

The European Union, though equipped with resources, remains hamstrung by internal divisions and a migration-centric agenda. Meanwhile, the Security Working Group—gathering key Western and regional actors—has political weight but no mandate. As Libya’s instability never stays within its borders, its African and European neighbors remain most exposed to renewed spillovers, while none of the major external backers, from Russia to Turkey, ultimately benefit from continued escalation.

Breaking the stalemate

This begs the question: What might peace enforcement look like in Libya’s current politico-security landscape? The question is complex, given the internationalized nature of interest-based politics hampering Libya’s stability.

Given these limitations, few paths can be deemed viable for the weeks ahead. For the proponents of traditional multilateral approaches to peacebuilding, the most viable path forward may lie in a time-bound African Union-led initiative, co-endorsed by the League of Arab States, and supported by a coordinated diplomatic and operational role for the European Union and Egypt.

The Security Working Group could serve as the core forum where such a framework is negotiated and designed, leveraging its existing membership and political clout. A hybrid mechanism of this kind, though likely to require extensive negotiations in its inception, could prove successful in beginning to reverse escalation and lay the groundwork for a more durable political—and peace—process.

For the proponents of rapid bilateral solutions, another path could be relying on a smaller coalition of involved States to intervene with the goal of keeping peace. A riskier but faster-to-deploy setup could for instance involve the likes of Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and a southern European State—one that is agreeable to the United States—in an interim entente of influence over Libyan stakeholders (and spoilers), each deterring them from further escalation until a new political process takes form.

While constraints faced may hamper its effectiveness, the United Nations and its support mission must remain central in any process, as the holders of Libya’s peace negotiations and guarantors of international legitimacy. Indeed, while both paths proposed may help break the current stalemate (albeit with different risk levels), they must be designed as a bridge, not an alternative, to a reinvigorated UN-led political track.

Given the financial strain the UN system has faced in recent months, the proposed interim models could offer a much-needed breathing space to reassess, alongside key partners, the trajectory and structure of the process ahead.

Ultimately, Libyans must define the terms of their political future, which will require more than elections alone. With all major political institutions mired in crisis, a renewed approach could involve sequencing parliamentary elections first, under a model in which executive authority is shaped by parliamentary legitimacy. A technocratic, legitimacy-grounded constitution-writing process could then follow.

Crucially, a new oversight phase must be introduced—one that is multilateral, time-bound, and rooted in local ownership—to shield the process from spoilers, prevent backroom power grabs, and guarantee that implementation matches intent. Only then can a political transition begin to gain the resilience Libya so urgently needs.

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Karim Mezran is a Resident Senior Fellow and director of the North Africa Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

Roberta Maggi is an Associate Fellow at the Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient (CARPO).

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