Fathi Bachagha, then interior minister of the United Nations-backed Libyan government, during an interview in Tripoli, Libya, January 6, 2021. HAZEM TURKEY / AP
The parliament-appointed head of the Libyan government, backed by the eastern camp of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, withdrew from the capital Tripoli on Tuesday (May 17) after trying to oust the rival executive branch and sparking fighting between rival armed groups .
This nearly two-year-long violence in Tripoli on an unprecedented scale, and the failure of Marshal Haftar’s attempt to seize it by force in June 2020, are symptomatic of the chaos that has engulfed Libya since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime 2011
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Fighting between rival militias began on Monday night following the arrival of eastern parliament-appointed Prime Minister Fathi Bachagha in Tripoli, accompanied by several ministers from his team, according to a correspondent for the local Agence France press, who reported on the clashing factions could not identify exactly.
On Tuesday morning, after several hours of fighting, Mr Bachagha’s press service issued a press release announcing that he and his ministers “have left Tripoli to ensure the safety (…) of the citizens”. Mr Bachagha, installed by parliament in March, intended to take office in Tripoli through this unexpected coup, despite the categorical refusal of the current executive, led by Abdelhamid Dbeibah, to relinquish power before elections are held. The election, originally scheduled for December, has been postponed indefinitely.
call for restraint
In the Tripoli region, the two camps are backed by armed groups that are still very influential in the west of the country, but whose allegiances are changing. Al-Nawasi, a major militia in the capital, particularly welcomed Mr Bachagha’s arrival before his withdrawal.
For its part, the Tripoli-based government, which emerged in early 2020 from a UN-sponsored political process, has not reacted to the events of the past few hours. According to Libyan media, Mr Bachagha’s departure from the capital was decided during a mediation led by an army brigade loyal to the Tripoli government to end the fighting.
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The UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Libya, Stephanie Williams, called for “restraint” on Twitter and insisted “the absolute necessity of refraining from any provocative action.” “The United States is deeply concerned by reports of armed clashes in Tripoli. We call on all armed groups to refrain from violence and political leaders to recognize that taking or maintaining power through violence will only harm the Libyan people,” he said. American Embassy in Tripoli.
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The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, spoke of a situation “that has become very serious in the last few hours”. “We expected something like this to happen because we didn’t have elections in Libya, but we have two governments (…) And sooner or later, when there are two governments, they clash,” he said in Brussels.
In a video broadcast by local media early Tuesday, Mr Bachagha, a former interior minister, said he had been “very well received” in Tripoli and announced he would be holding an evening press conference where he would “deliver a speech of unity to the Libyan people”.
oil blockage
Since 2011, Libya, a country of seven million people, has been plagued by divisions between competing East-West institutions and by insecurity. Oil exploration, the country’s main source of income, has been dogged by political divisions in recent weeks with a wave of forced oil site closures.
Seen as close to the camp to the east, the groups behind the blockades demanded Mr Bachagha hand over power and a better distribution of oil revenues.
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Between 2014 and 2021, the country had already found itself with two rival governments. But it is no longer an East-West conflict, but an arrangement between key players in both regions. Mr Bachagha, himself a heavyweight in western Libya, has forged alliances with both Marshal Khalifa Haftar and eastern-seated parliament speaker Aguila Salah Issa in the name of national reconciliation.