Libya is in civil war now. Here's what's going on.
10 replies, posted
I know you're busy reading about Ukraine and Gaza but this is happening now too. (Also remember Syria? Holy shit that's STILL going on, when was the last time you heard about that?)
You think Ukraine's complicated with its Russia-linked separatists and information warfare? You ain't seen nothing yet.
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/07/28/whats-behind-libyas-spiraling-violence/[/url]
[quote]In a region with no shortage of human catastrophes, Libya seems determined to elbow its way into the headlines. Rival militias are fighting for control of Tripoli's international airport. In the east, a breakaway faction of the Libyan armed forces led by a retired general, Khalifa Hifter, is shelling Islamist militias in and around Benghazi. Foreign diplomats, businesspeople, the U.N. mission and now the U.S. Embassy have evacuated.
Libya is clearly entering a dangerous new phase, but conventional readings of its politics misdiagnose the problem and offer solutions that will fail or even make things worse. Here's why.
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My attempt to write a TL;DR came out 7 paragraphs long. I guess I'll post it anyway:
[quote]So there's a bunch of militias duking it out, some of which are genuinely fighting for a noble cause and some of which just want to grab power, and you have no way of knowing which are which. The closest you'll get to 'sides' in this conflict are Islamist militias and liberal militias. But as I said, within both sides there are elements who are fighting for the people and elements who are fighting for themselves.
The Islamist side is broken down into some militias which claim loyalty and support for the government, and some militias like Ansar al-Sharia who are right proper fuckin against the government and want an Islamic state (they don't quite do ISIS-tier atrocities though). The liberal side is sort-of-led by General Hifter, who started this civil war by launching an assault on Benghazi and trying to seize it from the Islamists. Some people think that Hifter did nothing wrong and he is fighting for democracy, but some people think he's just going to take power for himself and it'll be a Gaddafi boogaloo.
You've got the government, which was democratically elected but is made up of various political parties with ties to different militias, who have been trying to fuck each other over, leading to deadlock. It's about to hand power to a new parliament which was elected recently, but that's not going to magically solve all the problems and it might just be the same shit.
You've got the Libyan public who mostly just want all the militias to go away and be replaced by a proper army and police force. Broadly most Libyans would side with the liberals, but they're still a militia and not accountable to anyone. Many people would rather everyone stopped fighting and there was a national dialogue to resolve the tension instead. Benghazi residents recently [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/world/middleeast/libya-benghazi-march-protests-militias.html]marched[/url] against the Islamist militias in Benghazi, telling them to fuck off.
The fighting started in May, when General Hifter launched Operation Dignity. Several liberal militias in Benghazi, who had previously been obeying government orders, went rogue and started bombing the shit out of Islamist militias in Benghazi, saying if the government was unwilling to 'liberate' Benghazi, then they would. Operation Dignity is still ongoing. What's really pushed this into being seen as a full-blown civil war is the outbreak of major fighting in Tripoli over the past few weeks. The militias have been fighting over Tripoli international airport, so they can fly in more supplies and stuff. The fighting got so intense that [url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/30/uk-libya-security-idUKKBN0FZ1JL20140730]they had to stop for a day in case they up the whole airport[/url].
Many Western countries have withdrawn their diplomats and closed their embassies and are [url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/27/libya-western-citizens-leave-civil-war]urging their citizens to get the fuck out[/url], and [url=http://www.libyaherald.com/2014/08/01/tunisia-shuts-border-after-violence/]Tunisia has closed its border[/url] with Libya. [url=http://www.libyaherald.com/2014/08/01/214-deaths-and-981-injuries-in-recent-clashes-up-to-30-july-min-of-health/]Hundreds of people have been killed[/url] as the country has descended into civil war.
One thing we really haven't seen is the international community helping out and trying to negotiate a solution or a ceasefire or really doing anything at all to help. A lot of Libyans are dismayed that everyone seems to have forgotten about them. They have no one to turn to for help. They're just like 'shit'.[/quote]
"Hifter did nothing wrong"
smurfy you posted this entire story just for that, didn't you?
But, I hope hostilities cool down soon and sanity returns.
That's some good work you've done here, I really appreciate the condensed information.
These armed conflicts are just piling up by the end of the year we'll be hearing nothing but bad news in SH. How depressing.
Great post and tl;dr version.
Again?
[QUOTE=ProgramFiles;45569377]These armed conflicts are just piling up by the end of the year we'll be hearing nothing but bad news in SH. How depressing.
[/QUOTE]
Meanwhile, the about 5 dozen nations throughout the world are not in any civil war and continue to go unreported as such.
Yeah, I've seen on the news that we evacuated our diplomats in Libya recently. Honestly not a lot of countries managed to get trough the spring well. Tunisia is one of the successes though.
I'm currently living in Malta, which is about 60 odd km from the Libyan coast. Not long ago an american who just got back from some business in Libya was at my restaurant and told us about all the shit that's going down there. He had to go back, and was so frightened I could see it in his eyes. He was talking about all these conflicts between different factions and gangs, innocent people getting shot point blank just for proving a point to someone else. Also he talked about driving through these towns that were completely empty because apparently everyone was massacred. scary stuff..
I feel like i live in middle earths shire over here in Denmark, and is hearing dark tales of trouble brewing.
Oh and i also feel thankful to be born in such a calm and functional part of the world.
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