Alarming warnings from various international organizations have been arriving recently. The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said it was "following with concern the recent mobilization of military forces in different parts of the country." UNSMIL called on "all parties to show maximum restraint and avoid any provocative military actions".
A similar concern was expressed by the Delegation of the European Union in Libya: "The use of force would threaten stability in Libya and cause human suffering again." It should be avoided at all costs," the statement said.
Experienced connoisseurs of the conditions in that country are more direct. They warn that, after four years of relative peace in the country, civil war could flare up again.
All these warnings came to nothing after a major mobilization of the paramilitary forces of one of the two rival governments in Libya. Namely, that country has been divided into two parts since 2014, with opposing governments in the east and west of Libya.
The Government of National Unity (GNU), which is recognized by the United Nations, has its headquarters in the west of the country, in Tripoli. A rival government called the House of Representatives is located in the east, in Tobruk.
At different times during the last decade, they tried to overpower each other and take control of the entire country - but they failed.
Haftar's forces determined to take control of Tripoli
The government in eastern Libya is backed by former army general Khalifa Haftar, who has since become a politician and controls various armed groups. It was Haftar's forces that moved towards Tripoli at the beginning of the month. By the way, Haftar started a campaign against that city in 2019, but at the end of 2020 he was forced to sign a truce.
He stated that the troops under the command of his son Sadat, went to secure the Libyan borders, to fight against drug and human trafficking, but also to suppress terrorism. Military analysts, however, believe that behind this movement of his army there are other plans.
Haftar's forces have been wanting to take control of the airport in the city of Gadames for some time, as well as the surrounding area, Jalel Harchaoui, an expert on North Africa from the British think tank Royal United Services Institute, told the French newspaper "Le Mond". Control over Gadames would "significantly improve its territorial status in relation to Algeria, Tunisia and Niger," he says, while also blocking access to a rival government.
If Haftar's troops take Gadames, it would "officially mark the collapse of the 2020 ceasefire," Tarek Megerisi, a Libya expert at the Berlin-based think tank the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a post on IX.
In response to the troop movement, various other militias that support the Tripoli government in the west of the country have been ordered to increase their combat readiness.
Will there be a new civil war in Libya? A day after the mobilization of Haftar's troops was observed, there was a clash between two militias in the coastal zone not far from Tripoli, in which at least nine people were killed. Local media later reported that it happened because of an attempt to kill one of the militia leaders.
After that, the situation in Libya seems to have calmed down again. But the danger of a conflict outbreak is still there, experts told DW.
Emadedin Badi, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who focuses on Libya, says that Haftarov's latest moves are "playing with fire." "Many actors in Libya are engaged to see how far they can go in challenging, marginalizing or undermining their opponents," says Badi. Rival sides in Libya believe that one of them must end up leading the entire country - instead of working together for unity, says an Atlantic Council expert.
"Libya continues to quietly fall apart, and rival governments are regrouping and mobilizing for something big," Hafed al-Gwel, executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University Foreign Policy Institute in Washington, said in a column for Euronews. With various paramilitaries, Libya is in danger of becoming a "mafia state", he added.
Foreign interference preventing Libya from reaching the abyss?
Each of the two Libyan governments is supported by a number of foreign powers. The government in the west is supported by Turkey, and the one in the east by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. Previously, the UN and others advocated the withdrawal of various countries that support one government or another, that is, their soldiers from the country.
However, as Badi explains, the presence of foreign countries actually prevents violence in Libya. "Ironically, the only thing that really prevented a return to full-scale war was foreign influence in the country," he told DW. "There is a balance of power between Turkey and Russia, as well as other countries, but also a geopolitical reason that we should not enter into a new full-scale conflict."
Attempts to unite the two parts of the country by holding national elections, unifying security forces, administrative functions and the national budget, or forming a temporary unity government - have failed. In fact, the international community has grown accustomed to working with two administrations when working with Libya on issues such as oil supplies or migration.
However, analysts such as Badi, Al Gwel and Megerisi believe that simply accepting the status quo in Libya is no longer working.
"The actors in Libya are encouraged by the impunity provided to them by the international community," Emadedin Badi points out.
"Libya has been largely ignored by the international community since 2021, and many have deluded themselves into thinking that the country could remain stable in the long term, either with this status quo or by facilitating a deal between the factions and forces that have divided the country by acting in in accordance with their own interests. But such a policy of pretending that the conflict can be kept under control does not work," says Badi and concludes: "Now that mirage - that Libya is fine and stable - is slowly collapsing."
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