The Main forces in post-Gaddafi Libya
TRIPOLI: A multitude of rival authorities and factions are contesting power amid the anarchy that has gripped Libya since its 2011 revolution which ousted longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Below is list of the main warring forces.
Misrata dominates west
Located 200 kilometers east of Tripoli, the city of Misrata bore the brunt of the violence during the revolution and is now home to the country’s main armed groups. The groups, after having inherited much of the arsenal of the fallen Gaddafi regime, are the best organized and armed in Libya. Some of these groups have sided with the UN-backed and internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) as it struggles to exert its authority beyond Tripoli. They have since mid-May taken part in an offensive to expel the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group from the coastal city of Sirte that had been its stronghold inside Libya.
Misrata groups make up the core of the Fajr Libya coalition which seized control of Tripoli in the summer of 2014, ousting their rivals from Zintan who have since regrouped in their hometown, 170 kilometers to the southwest. Fajr Libya controls virtually all coastal cities between Misrata and the Tunisian border as well as southern towns such as Gharyan, Nalut and Jado in the mainly Berber mountain range of Nafusa. The tribes of Zintan, which have been largely isolated, support the controversial anti-Islamist field marshal Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar rules the east
Rival authorities in eastern Libya, which sits on top of most of the nation’s oil wealth, do not recognize the GNA and have extended their influence to swathes of territory reaching the south of the country. They are supported by the armed forces under Haftar’s command that in the space of three days in September seized control of Libya’s “oil crescent”, defeating a force of oil terminal guards which had announced its allegiance to the GNA. In July 2014, Islamist militias drove Haftar’s “Libyan National Army” (LNA) out of second city Benghazi, 1,000 kilometers east of Tripoli, taking refuge in towns such as Tobruk near the Egyptian border. It has since recaptured the city but still faces pockets of resistance from the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries, a coalition of anti-Haftar Islamist militias and radical groups. The LNA is composed mainly of former army officers from eastern Libya who defected at the outset of the 2011 revolt, including air force units and special forces.
Contested south
The Fezzan region with its oil fields is a smuggling hotbed, disputed by a myriad of tribal and ethnic forces. The factions are allied to Libya’s rival authorities but regularly switch allegiances. Clashes often break out between the Toubou minority allied to Haftar and Tuareg tribes, which largely control the borders with Algeria, Niger, Chad and Sudan. Arab tribes such as the Sebha and Koufra are allied with the authorities in western Libya. A former Gaddafi-era army officer, Ali Kennah, in a video posted on the Internet, has vowed to work to restore security in the south while maintaining neutrality between the two main camps in Libya’s power struggle. But the Haftar camp has accused him of trying to set up a “parallel army”.