Iraq and Syria are failed states - it’s splashed all over the headlines. Armed militiamen hold power in Yemen, where government authority is also flailing. The remaining gaps in world news (between the battle for Kobani and George Clooney’s various wedding parties) are filled with the looming Gaza rebuild. But today’s biggest untold story is unfolding in north Africa. Western powers now worry that Libya will soon collapse completely if its weak central government can’t manage the competing militia vying for political control.
Media have declared the Islamic State a catalyzing factor in the dissolution of established Middle East nations, but leading the region back to a warlord era requires a backdrop of pre-existing social, political and economic conditions - a more nuanced series of dance steps than that opportunistic band of murderers can choreograph on their own.
Since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has careened towards anarchy. The rebel forces that helped topple the dictator have turned their guns on each other, battling over political governance and control of the country’s vast oil resources. Absent a strong national army, the new administrators depended on those militias to restore order. The current government now seems ill-equipped to take back control. “It is almost like the whole regional order that was built in the 20th century is collapsing,” Nadim Shehadi, associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House in London, told Bloomberg. “Non-state actors are filling the vacuum.”
The situation is also complicated by regional interference. Qatar and Turkey are allegedly backing parliamentary opponents and there is evidence of Egyptian support for the parliament in Tobruk. Meanwhile, foreign fighters, many coming via Sudan, flow into Libya to join Islamist groups in Benghazi and Derna.
With such a complex web of domestic and regional factors dashing Libya's post-Gaddafi hopes of democracy, we think it's high time we exposed the 19 things you need to know about Libya’s forgotten conflict.
