4 The Failure of the Libyan Political Transition and the Descent Into Civil War

Emin Poljarevic

Introduction

Starting in mid-January 2011, a number of scattered protests in Libya – inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian mass mobilizations against their authoritarian rulers – seriously disrupted Qaddafi’s control of important cities, primarily in the eastern region (Abdel-Baky 2011). The rapid evolution of these demonstrations into an uncontainable mobilization surge and organized violence in mid-February is symptomatic of the socio-political convulsions related to the Libyan state’s distinctive arrangement and social order. What had begun as a series of peaceful protests against the regime’s administrative misconduct became a full-scale confrontation between frustrated crowds of protestors and ever more violent regime forces and their supporters, all of which revealed deep-seated grievances among a significant part of the population.

The Libyan case illustrates a sequence of events in which the initial mobilization process was premised upon the popular desire to reform the political structure from a totalitarian into a more representative, just, and free system, and which ultimately failed to sustain enough momentum to subvert and control the critical elements of the state and therefore establish full institutional control. This chapter explores how and why the country failed to achieve a peaceful transition, as well as why it descended into civil war. This is done by proposing a string of casual mechanisms that explain the trajectory of failed democratization in Libya. First, it is important to clarify the particularities at the onset of the popular uprising. Second, the chapter explicates the process of activating the spiral of violence. Finally, we explore the triggers that help in reproducing the civil war.

In order to contextualize and thereby link the causal mechanisms together it is important to describe and situate the underlying pretext of the uprisings and some structural elements that help frame the subsequent discussion. Initially, the chapter presents a socio-political and economic context within which the mass protests began in February 2011. It also explains some of the reasons behind the activation of a spiral of violence in light of the mass movement’s fragmentation in the immediate aftermath of the regime’s implosion. Within this process, we find in the framing of the Qaddafi regime’s brutal response to the protests an important contributory factor to the escalating violence on the part of the demonstrators.

It is also important to understand how the local interest groups led by political elites developed self-legitimizing narratives of socio-political separateness to maintain a sense of legitimacy and loyalty within their own social group. The conflict activation process demonstrates how the initially shared goals of the revolutionary protests (namely, dignity, freedom, justice, national unity and, not least, economic prosperity) were transformed in order to fit into the existential narrative of each separate socio-political group, thereby triggering a range of old and incipient military networks that in turn became a part of a set of reproducing mechanisms in the Libyan civil war. This has meant that the fallout of the anti-Qaddafi movement revealed the deeply fragmented civil society, weak state infrastructure, economic instability, and fluidification of internal and external borders – all of which have contributed to the failure of the peaceful political transition and the descent into civil war.

Fragmented state and society

The state structure that had developed during the four decades of Qaddafi’s rule had clear sultanistic characteristics (see Linz and Stepan 1996).1 As such, the regime’s repression strategies relied upon cultural and institutional components that were, in turn, directly based upon the existing patron-client networks. Qaddafi used the potential of these networks and institutions to his advantage by making any form of internal opposition highly risky and costly. More concretely, within a traditionally weak state administration, a tribal-based civil society, and a personality cult-based political system, Libyan state structures were unlike those of its regional neigh-bours. The civil society has traditionally consisted of a loosely bound entity held together through a mixture of traditional religious and cultural practices that have evolved slowly over the past two centuries.

Despite this gradual evolution, the civil society and state administration remained politically and administratively disjointed and underdeveloped for far longer than was the case for its neighbours. There are multiple reasons behind this institutional bankruptcy, ranging from the insufficient improvement of the infrastructure to effectively govern its vast territory in the post-colonial period, to the lack of interest on the part of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent Italian colonial administrations in developing the institutional foundation upon which to build a state (Ahmida 1994). The administrative and social fissures can also be addressed by highlighting the anachronistic dynamic of politics in Libya, at least when we compare it to some of its immediate neighbours. In sum,

Libyan society has been fractured, and every national institution, including the military, is divided by the cleavages of kinship and region. As opposed to Tunisia and Egypt, Libya has no system of political alliances, network of economic associations, or national organizations of any kind. Thus, what seemed to begin as nonviolent protests similar to those staged in Tunisia and Egypt soon became an all-out secession – or multiple separate secessions – from a failed state.

(Anderson 2011, 6)

This multi-layered fragmentation fuelled the continuation of the civil war. However, it is simplistic to describe the warring parties as tribe-centred adversaries, for the contemporary tribal discourse blends with and is clearly subordinate to a collective patriotism that forms the root of the current national struggle. Since this movement began, Libya’s tribes have issued numerous statements about the situation that largely reflected the patriotism that pervades these associations (Bamyeh 2011). Nonetheless, the traditional view is that the country’s tribal structure, usually complemented by sub-divided clans, has been a fundamental component of the Libyan state and civil society.2

In order to understand this fragmentation, it is important to present an overview of the transformation of state structures, and, partly, the Libyan civil society. After independence in 1951, a largely successful project was undertaken to unite these regions under a unitary rule. From 24 December 1951 to 1 September 1969, the British-appointed King Idris (d. 1983) provided a coherent political authority throughout what we know today as Libya. The National Congress (Parliament), comprised of tribal representatives and supported by the occupying British authorities, selected Idris, a provincial leader of Cyrenaica (the eastern region), and proclaimed him king of a unified Libya. This has also meant that the Senussi religious and political practices became part of a strategy by which to bridge tribal and regional differences and solve disagreements among the various social groups (McGuirk 2007).

The specific features of social fragmentation of the civil society have been considered an impediment to building a unified state since its conception. Recognizing this, the political elites, under the rule of the king, attempted to establish a federally organized constitutional monarchy that recognized the particularities of traditional and internally disparate political cultures. The expectation has always been that the institutional arrangement would allow increasing socio-political coalescence and thereby reduce the inconsistencies in political and economic influence among various tribes and regions.

The discovery of massive oil reserves in 1959 made state building significantly more difficult. One consequence of the increase in economic resources has in fact been the rapid growth of a new urban, economically prosperous, and politically sentient middle class. A political opposition thus resulted from the king’s failure to integrate the increasingly independent middle class into the state’s decision-making mechanisms. Other important grievances related to the king’s failure to distribute the ever-increasing wealth, the growth in administrative corruption, and the inadequate development of public services, all of which undermined the monarch’s political authority (Takeyh 2000). It is worth noting that many of the same grievances were echoed during the 2011 mass uprising, when the protestors’ main complaints concerned Qaddafi’s personality cult, state corruption, and the institutionalized state repression of every form of opposition.

The main result of the 1960s political opposition led by the middle classes was the 1 September 1969 coup d’état under the leadership of Colonel Muamar Qaddafi – together with ca. 70 of his army-officer colleagues, all of whom were members of relatively small and disadvantaged tribes. The coup-makers, the Libyan Free Officers, inspired by the Egyptian 1952 Free Officers’ overthrow of a monarch, proclaimed a republican system of governance anchored in Arab nationalism and socialism. Under the strict rule of Qaddafi, however, this political project gradually evolved into a totalitarian-style state characterized by the leadership’s popular rhetoric combined with brutal repression and control of all elements of civil and political life.

Subsequently, Qaddafi viewed state institutions as potential hotspots of opposition, leaving them underdeveloped and even abolishing the tribally based parliament. Moreover, the role of the military shifted over time, as power struggles between military officers increasingly threatened Qaddafi’s state control. We know of at least four incidents in which army officers were implicated in attempts to overthrow Qaddafi. These and other perceived internal threats caused the regime to purposefully weaken the regular army, instead creating parallel military structures with elite brigades, all of which were funded by and answered directly to the Qaddafi family (Barany 2011, 34).

Qaddafi further responded by strengthening interpersonal networks with the various tribes. These direct interpersonal dealings came to dominate the domestic administrative structures, which in turn, and among other things, allowed arbitrary dispersion of justice, personal favouritism, and unpredictable governmental rule. In practice, this meant that at the higher levels of government, Qaddafi would communicate personally with a limited number of representatives who would then oversee and follow up on the political decisions and their implementation (see Obeidi 2013).

In order to give legitimacy and ideological support to his system of repression, and perhaps in an attempt to create a political model for other countries to emulate, Qaddafi proclaimed a political theory of so-called Jamahiriyyah (self-rule of the masses) in 1977.3 Local popular councils (Popular Social Committees) were created to deal with neighbourhood issues (e.g. arbitration between individuals and land distribution) and to provide a form of representation for communal interests at the regional and national levels of authority. In reality, the new system recognized and strengthened the local elites with already established ties to the regime. The role of the local councils was in fact to strengthen the regime’s control over the growing urban populations. In return for overseeing the regime’s interests, the local and tribal elites received better housing, building permits, and employment.

The local governing groups and extended interpersonal networks with the regime were organized primarily around tribal allegiances and, sometimes, around Islamist loyalties. This power dynamic developed self-conscious politico-administrative units within which local elites functioned as public information exchange hubs through which informants could pass relevant information on to the mukhabarat (state security) and through which the local leaders dispensed relevant information from the regime. This exchange of information and the system of rule represented a point of interaction between the regime and the civil society. Qaddafi’s Jamahiriyyah project ultimately failed both to live up to, and to deliver, the implementation of people’s expectations of self-rule beyond the narrow paths of patrimonial networks between the local political elites and the Qaddafi family. The clientelist nature of local governance eventually backfired as the overwhelming majority of the population came to view it as inefficient, undesirable, and ultimately illegitimate.

This failure amplified the existing grievances, which eventually contributed to the development of the mechanism of political destabilization. As we shall see, in the wake of popular protests, a great number of local administrators and political representatives allied themselves with their extended constituencies: tribe, town, city neighbourhood, or region. However, there is more to this background. The primary, and perhaps most viable oppositional framework in Libya, much like in the rest of the region, has been formulated by Islamist groups. Islamist political opposition is important, as it often cuts through the traditional forms of social allegiance. The importance of Islamist opposition will be expanded upon as the chapter discusses the development of activating mechanisms and later the mechanisms of reproduction of the civil war.

Political destabilization: the erosion of totalitarian control

An Islamic awakening in the 1980s and early 1990s proved the backdrop of the formation of a violent Islamist opposition. During the early 1990s, when many of the Libyan mujahideen were returning from the Afghan-Soviet war, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) was formed and attached itself to a growing violent Islamist trend. The same period saw the rise of violent opposition groups in both Algeria and Egypt. In pursuit of its original goal – to depose the Qaddafi regime and establish an Islamist government – during 1995–98 it waged an intermittent low-intensity insurgency, which also staged several assassination attempts against Qaddafi himself (see Ashour 2012). It is important to remember that the already established Libyan Muslim Brotherhood (LMB) simultaneously developed its own oppositional, grassroots infrastructure through which they never challenged the regime through violent mobilization.

The Qaddafi regime’s response to the Islamist opposition and insurgency was initially designed to remove the ideological incentive for the mobilization in the first place. The regime started a series of nationwide Islamization programmes that focused on reforming the education system and a string of social programmes. These policies included the increase in funding for mosque-run social programmes, including the widening of religious education by boosting a national network of Islamic study circles across the country. At the same time, targeted repression allowed the security forces to arrest, kill, and incapacitate the backbone of the LIFG network. In 1996, during the height of the conflict, a prison riot broke out in Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison, known for housing a large number of political (Islamist) prisoners, resulting in the deaths of 1,200 inmates in a single day. The event, later described as a national trauma, has been invoked by anti-regime activists during the 2011 uprising. Given its powerful emotional significance for many families affected by the deaths and torture of inmates, this event triggered a mechanism of spiralling revenge.

The regime’s repressive measures against the LIFG were successful, so that by 1998 the group’s campaign of anti-regime violence had virtually ceased (ibid.). The Islamist network survived, however. The non-violent Islamist opposition in the form of the LMB had seemingly melted into the regime-supported Islamic social networks, where it remained socially active but politically dormant until the 2011 revolt.4 In the immediate aftermath of the breakdown of the Qaddafi regime in November 2011, in recognition of their long-standing opposition to the regime, some of the surviving leading figures of the LIFG came to be integrated into the National Transition Council (NTC) and later were active in the negotiation process between the warring parties (Ashour 2011; Euronews 2015). They were considered a significant asset in terms of their organizational and military capabilities in the ensuing civil war, in particular through a mechanism of the activation of military networks.⁵

During the 1990s, the regime’s repression and reformation measures stretched beyond its ideological opponents to include Libya’s largest tribe, the Warfalla. The animosity between the regime and the tribal leaders grew to the point of a rebellion that posed the greatest threat to the regime’s authority since the start of Qaddafi’s rule. The main grievance behind the 1993 Warfalla rebellion was the unbalanced distribution of power. Besides assassinating the most unrepentant tribal leaders, the regime’s most effective strategy was to incorporate the least critical Warfalla leaders as its tribal representatives into the Qaddafi clientelist governance network. Their participation was later rewarded by increased economic benefits for the majority of tribal members. By the end of the 1990s, the regime’s integration of the Warfalla tribe into the governing structure had been successful in deflecting any form of opposition from this important tribe. Warfalla and Maqarha tribal leaders were appointed to a number of the state institutions’ top positions, with the exception of any influence in the country’s military leadership, which was reserved for Qaddafi’s own Sirte-based tribe. In order to secure his unique position of power, Qaddafihad increased his personal control over the security forces by creating the ‘People’s Guard’, an elite military unit composed of select loyalists who were personally dedicated to protecting the dictator and his family, and targeting the potential ‘internal enemies’ of the state (Mattes 2004).

In order to integrate various repressive measures into a more comprehensive political system (Jamahiriyya), Qaddafi designed a ‘code of honour’ specifically addressing the Libyan tribes. Among other things, the ‘code’ explains the right of the regime to institute the collective punishment of any tribe, family, and/or extended network of anyone involved in ‘obstructing the people’s [i.e. Qaddafi’s] authority’. This means that anyone found to be engaged in any form of anti regime activities with or without ‘tribal’ implications would be severely punished (UNHCHR 1997). This totalitarian reform implied that any citizen and his/her (tribal or otherwise known) associates were now potential targets, which understandably resulted in widespread public fear and suspicion of anyone outside one’s family circle and tribe, even close friends. Many families and even entire tribes of certain detainees were pushed to denounce, disown, and even accuse their relatives who had been arrested for ‘plotting’ against the state (see Obeidi 2013). The intricate web of state security informants was responsible for identifying potential agents of political dissent, which increased pressure on the economic and religious elites (Black 2011).

This development is clearly indicative of the indiscriminate repression that was instituted well before the 2011 mass uprising. This was also visible in other instances of repression. In the summer of 2000, a spontaneous and brief eruption of anti-regime violence followed a football game in Benghazi. When the Tripoli-based soccer team of Saadi Qaddafi (the leader’s third son) made an apparently fraudulent attempt to win a match against the Benghazi-based team of the same name, Al-Ahly, several thousand fans stormed the field, interrupted the game, and later spilled out on the streets shouting anti-Qaddafi slogans (Mittelstaedt 2011). The regime deployed repressive tactics immediately. The Benghazi team’s management was imprisoned, some of its leading players and an unknown number of protesting supporters were sentenced to long prison terms, and a few were sentenced to death. These latter sentences were later commuted (ibid.). The fans and their teams have traditionally been a source of violent protest against the repressive regimes in North Africa (Dorsey 2016). It is worth noting that, immediately after the Egyptian uprisings on 25 January 2011, the regime cancelled all the planned soccer matches in the country without further notice. Nonetheless, during the 2011 uprising, some of the fiercest revolutionary units from Benghazi were organized by soccer fans supporting the local team.

Popular discontent also increased against a series of administrative reforms aimed at modernizing the state bureaucracy. In the summer of 2007, Qaddafi decided to lay off more than one-third of the civil servants, a total of 400,000 people (Reuters 2007).6 In order to soften the ensuing widespread criticism and to allow them time to find alternative jobs and means of survival, he stated that all of them would receive full pay for three years. This radical reform appeared to create additional tensions, given the Libyan demographics during the 2000s, with a population peak in the range of 15–24-year-olds, who made up more than 70 per cent of the unemployed and underemployed in comparison to the total employable numbers of Libyan citizens (ICG 2011b; UNDP 2011; see also Goldstone 2002). More specifically, the regime’s failure to meet housing demands was arguably felt most intensely by the young population, who comprised the bulk of the 2011 uprising (Abdel Baky 2011; Reuters 2011b). As a result, the urbanized and young segment of the population created a politically volatile socio-political force that perceived the corruption of local authorities as a direct result of Qaddafi’s patrimonial policies. During the same period, the regime had sponsored sending a significant number of university graduates to the EU countries to complete their doctoral studies in exclusively natural science disciplines (e.g., geology, chemistry, and biomedicine).

Even if justified as an attempt to address the public’s frustration with the high levels of corruption of the civil administration (Pargeter 2010), administrative reform also allowed Qaddafito appoint his immediate family members to a number of key positions and thereby to secure the allegiance of a handful of trusted people who had great influence on inter-regional/tribal networks and thereby local governance. The already strict clientelist system became even more tightly knit in the network of relationships between the Qaddafi family members and the leading representatives of various interest groups.

Despite the regime’s efforts to maintain a high level of repression, social changes had a long-lasting effect on the public’s rising expectations and hopes for greater participation and influence in political, social, and economic sectors of the state, usually dominated and controlled by a select few. The next section discusses some of the effects of the rising subjective anticipation for freedom manifested in the public’s objective claims-making, which clearly had a destabilizing effect on the political system’s patrimonial balance. This development of the mechanism we call political destabilization coincided with the sudden breakdown of Tunisia’s and Egypt’s authoritarian regimes between December 2010 and February 2011. The immediate effects of these uprisings in the neighbouring countries only added the important moral incitement to the existing anti-regime critique in Libya. The cumulative consequence of the above-mentioned processes of state repression, the mixed results of the regime’s reformation efforts, and people’s rising expectations was a delegitimization of the Qaddafi family rule.

The onset of mass demonstrations

In January 2011, inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, the Libyan protestors initially demanded improved state services and criticized the authorities’ economic mismanagement, including what they perceived as rampant administrative corruption (Al Jazeera 2011). Within the days and weeks ahead, however, popular calls for dignity, freedom, and justice rapidly evolved into revolutionary political claims and radical requests to overthrow the entire regime and reform the political system (Michael 2011). The rapid evolution of the grassroots request was facilitated by social media that represented an important ‘public’ forum for airing demands. The initially low cost of participating in online dissent contributed to the widespread diffusion of protest. The online claims and framing of the street protests, together with images of state authorities’ brutality towards the demonstrators, contributed to spreading a critique of indiscriminate repression. This in turn contributed to the militarization of protests, activating a mechanism of spiralling revenge. This meant that the gradual transformation of the initial demands and the state responses brought about a radical change in the protestors’ collective consciousness, adding a critical mass to the development of the mechanism of political destabilization. Furthermore, the absence of the middle-class bureaucrats and professionals in shaping the core of the cycle of the early protests seemed reflected in a rather spontaneous and unstructured process of mobilization (Lacher 2011).

The level of regime violence reached a turning point on 17 February 2011 – the anniversary of Benghazi’s anti-regime soccer rally – when oppositional activists called for a ‘Day of Rage’, modelling their call for regime change after Tunisia and Egypt. The day also contributed to the naming of the uprising as the 17 February Revolution (The Guardian 2011a; 2011b; Jacinto 2011). Indeed, it was then that the overwhelmingly peaceful protests began to turn violent, largely as a consequence of and a response to the Qaddafi security forces’ brutal repression of political dissent (Amnesty International 2011c).

Anticipating further destabilization from the increased protests, the regime authorities warned all mobile phone users through a text message that the state security would forcibly disperse any ‘collective activities that promote public sedition’ (see Reporters Without Borders 2011). In line with the long-standing authoritarian tradition, the regime responded by deploying brutal policing tactics, causing an escalation in protestors’ violence. So, when groups of protestors in the eastern city of Ajdabiya came out in large numbers to demand the fall of the regime, state authorities deployed snipers from the rooftops surrounding the main demonstration venue (Human Rights Council 2011, 23–6). The widespread availability of Internet connections and information technology devices such as mobile and satellite phones as well as communication radios made communication and information dissemination relatively inexpensive, enabling the coordination of political and military activities among the fragmented opposition groups.

This escalating spiral of violence created a sense of confusion within the vital segments of the ruling structure of the regime. Several high-level (political and military) regime defectors sided with the protestors, adding much-needed political and military management experience. The high-profile defectors coordinated the formation of basic political and military structures that could act as both the envoys of the revolutionaries and the military leaders and trainers of local militias, all of which sped up the political destabilization as well as the creation of military networks.

As a response to their deteriorating control over important parts of the country, the Qaddafi regime targeted key opposition leaders through Internet traffic surveillance. This had been an earlier and well-established strategy by which to target the intellectuals and other identifiable ‘high value’ individuals they considered a threat to the regime (see Freedom House 2009). One notable incident that demonstrated the regime’s repressive strategy in the initial stages of the protests (January–February 2011) is the case of Jamal al-Hajji, a lawyer and one of the better-known domestic dissidents, who had also defended political opposition figures in the past. He was arrested after posting anti-regime statements online and became a recognizable symbol of the arbitrary nature of judicial processes in Libya (Amnesty International 2011a; 2011b). However, the sheer number of critical posts, streams, and private forum discussions overwhelmed the state security’s capacity to oversee, follow up, and act upon the perceived anti-regime activities online.

Another instance of the regime’s brutal tactics was the murder of the famous amateur journalist Muhammed Nabbous, who, together with a number of his colleagues, had reported on the atrocities committed by the regime forces in the early days of the uprising. They had posted a large amount of video/audio material on his Internet-TV channel Al Hurra (Freedom), which showed various clips of authorities’ assaults on demonstrators and other civilians.7 Their work was arguably one of the contributing factors behind the UN’s requests for a ceasefire after Qaddafi’s troops started storming Benghazi (Media Spy 2011). Nabbous was killed by a sniper on 19 March 2011, while reporting on the temporary ceasefire between the regime and the revolutionary groups in the East (Wells 2011).

Despite Qaddafi’s efforts, Internet communication remained vital to the coordination of the opposition’s progressively more complex operations and their efforts to maintain its logistical connections in opposition-controlled ares. It also appears that the regime did not possess the necessary software to trace the vast amount of frequent Skype-based communications between the revolutionary groups in the East and West of the country. The (often live) reports on the regime’s indiscriminate repression could thus reach both domestic and foreign audiences instantaneously.

At the same time, the bulk of Libya’s economic sector turned against the regime, strengthening the opposition’s position. As early as March 2011, the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, the second-largest state-owned oil company in Libya, announced plans to use oil funds to support the anti-Qaddafi forces. Joined by a number of important Islamic religious leaders and clerics (notably the Network of Free Ulema–Libya), the key Warfalla, Tuareg, and Magarha tribes announced their support for the protestors. For example, the Zuwayya tribe, in eastern Libya, threatened to cut off oil exports from the region’s fields if the regime’s security forces continued to attack demonstrators. Such defections by economic and civil society functionaries severely harmed the regime, adding to the success of the uprising (ICG 2011; Small Arms Survey 2012).

Besides the large number of disillusioned and frustrated urban young men, important parts of the Qaddafi opposition consisted of previously exiled political opponents based mainly in the European Union and the United States; the domestic political opposition that grew rapidly in the early days of the protests, consisting of domestic political elites; and a significant number of women who became increasingly involved in organizing the logistics of support for the evolving urban militias.

The anti-Qaddafi activists in exile, who had actively protested for years in both the European Union and the United States, played an important role in the early stages of the popular uprising (see Ahmida 2012), building up information hubs for the domestic opposition. Several of them had lived in the United States since the 1980s, where they created the National Front for the Salvation of Libya under the guidance of Ibrahim Sahad. The majority of the organized opposition, including Sahad, were former Libyan diplomats and government and military officials. Right from the beginning, the Front worked closely with the NTC to establish independent communication networks in order to coordinate the revolutionaries’ anti-regime actions (Elkin 2012).

Internal regime-opponents included high-profile defectors such as Mustafa Abdul Jalil (former Minister of Justice), Abdul-Fattah Yunis (Minister of Interior), Mahmoud Jibril (former head of the National Planning Council of Libya, an intergovernmental body set up by Saif al-Qaddafi to introduce a neo-liberal economic system), Ali Essawi (former Deputy Foreign Minister), and Abdel-Salam Jalloud (a late defector and Qaddafi’s close aide). These and other prominent political leaders made up the bulk of the NTC members – among them well-educated émigré opposition figures and traditional tribe representatives – all of whom played a role in the initial stages of the uprising (Bell et al. 2011). Later, the NTC functioned as a de facto government by organizing the country’s first ever democratic elections (see Reuters 2011c).

Another important segment of the protest participants was women. The fact that the intermingling of the sexes was limited during the protests made the women a distinguishable group among the crowds (see OECD 2009). Their collective demands, especially in Benghazi, concerned the relatives killed in the Abu Salim massacre in 1996, as well as the freeing of the thousands of political prisoners still held in the regime’s prisons. During the increasingly violent clashes between the regime and opposition forces, women organized the medical support and food distribution to the armed anti-regime groups (ICG 2011b). Due to a deep-rooted culture of gender-based honour, women seem to have been frequent regime targets during the initial phase of the conflict (Wueger 2012). This clearly further antagonized the activists and increased the impact of the mechanism of spiralling revenge.

The militarization of the conflict

At the onset of the uprising, the Qaddafi regime initiated a media campaign to discredit the activists and deployed a significant number of Tuaregh mercenaries, considered a viable alternative to those army brigades that had defected to the camp of demonstrators-turned-revolutionaries (Amnesty International 2011d). Among other factors, the fluidification of borders between Libya and Mali and other neigh-bours to the south allowed a significant number of mercenaries to be employed by the regime. In addition, the activation and escalation of violence from the regime side in the months after 17 February 2011 make it hard to speak of activist protests in any conventional sense. As a result, the vast majority of demonstrators had begun to organize themselves into urban guerrillas by accumulating military equipment and using militia tactics. The overall security situation in Libya deteriorated significantly thereafter.

It is important to remember that the regime’s responses to the uprisings need to be understood in relation to the above-mentioned power networks among the various ruling elites, including government bureaucrats, military officers, state security service personnel, and the economically privileged – all of whom were necessarily entwined with the ruling family (see Dalacoura 2012). When these alliance networks started to disintegrate in the wake of mounting pressure from street protests, the regime started to lose the essential support of the key Libyan tribes and individuals within the government and the army. The traditional power structure imploded, as the growing opposition coalesced and various NATO members and Arab countries intervened militarily under the auspices of the UN Security Council starting on 19 March 2011. Such developments reinforced the fluidification of borders, dividing the country into the ‘rebel’-controlled and regime-controlled territories.

The militarization of the uprising spiralled as the European Union and the United States decided to intervene on the rebels’ side, supported by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, through which the council authorizes its member states ‘to take all necessary measures, . . . to protect civilians and civilian populated areas’ (UNSC 2011). This resolution justified primarily NATO’s systematic bombardment of the regime’s forces so that they could not advance on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi and other rebel-held populated areas. The direct military involvement of foreign actors was crucial in the regime’s disintegration. The involvement contributed both to the public’s polarization between regime supporters and opponents, and to the increased defections from Qaddafi’s inner circle. When NATO’s bombardment of military infrastructures prompted the regime to rely more heavily upon tribally based allegiances, the support of tribes loyal to the Qaddafi family was not enough to sustain the system.

The UN-approved NATO bombardment of Qaddafi loyalists was crucial in turning the tide of conflict in the rebels’ favour, thus activating a broad spectrum of military networks across the country. As the conflict continued during the subsequent months, the UN sanctioned the creation of the UNSMIL (United Nations Mission in Libya) as the primary international body for negotiating the settlement of hostilities between the warring parties.8 Nevertheless, the bombardment allowed various militias to regroup, to reinforce their supply routes and, subsequently, to advance on key regime bases in Tripoli and Sirte as well as areas in and around the cities of Zuwara and Ajdabiya. The anti-regime forces received much-needed help in terms of communication equipment, training and, above all, military support from a substantial number of countries (among others, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) as well as several NATO member-states in May 2011.

As the battles unfolded during the summer months of 2011, the opposition advanced towards the capital with constant support from NATO aerial forces. The fall of Tripoli on 20 August, and the killing of Mu’ammar Qaddafi and one of his sons in Sirte on 20 October, made it clear that the opposition had evolved into a political and military force composed of different tribes and ideological groups. The infrastructure for intra-state violence was taking shape, as clashes between numerous local rebel militias in the form of military networks only increased, despite the Qaddafi regime’s collapse. The everyday violence between armed militias had activated a mechanism of security deterioration, which came to be reproduced, as we shall see below, because the political elites failed to create a non-violent atmosphere for the political dialogue.

The reproduction of civil war

As outlined above, Qaddafi had a vested interest in maintaining social fragmentation, clientelism, and inter-tribal suspicion in order to maintain control over various potentially threatening socio-political factions within the state. Qaddafi’s control strategy over Libyan civil society had an immediate debilitating effect on its capacity to contribute to a political transition from authoritarianism to a plural and inclusive political system. For instance, from the very early days, the NTC found the opposition’s military organization and capabilities hard to control. Even before the July 2012 parliamentary elections, the NTC leadership had decided to dismantle Qaddafi’s military structure, effectively destabilizing the already brittle security situation. Instead, the hope was that various (armed) revolutionary organizations would be able to maintain order and that the newly installed General National Congress (GNC) with its 200 representatives would be able to agree on a strategy by which to establish the monopoly of violence and social control within the Libyan borders.

This hope was not fulfilled, however. Due to the power vacuum in the various regions of the country, as well as unclear political and military authority due to inter-militia fighting for control over resources, institutions, and territory in the aftermath of the Qaddafi regime collapse, the GNC proved to be inefficient, divided, and ultimately unable to gain control over the already fragile institutions. In fact, some armed groups took up weapons to settle old grudges with ‘old’ enemies. Others saw an opportunity to reposition themselves and their interests more favourably within the newly elected parliament (BBC News 2011). The ensuing disintegration of national security continued all through 2012 and 2013, despite numerous attempts to form a functioning central government.

The most important point of tension had been the power struggle between the political elites in the eastern versus western regions (Reuters 2011a). This became clear in January 2012, when the NTC drafted a new Constitution. The NTC had agreed to hold the first general elections in June 2012, which had to be postponed to July due to disagreement on the regional representation and distribution of the parliamentary seats (Kjaerum et al. 2013). The national public debates in the wake of the first parliamentary elections also revealed some of the regional tensions related to the majoritarian system of voting (ibid.).

The competing political parties’ agendas reflected much of the dynamic found in regional and ideological schisms and partisan interests. The largest party was the National Forces Alliance (NFA), which primarily represented the interests of the traditional political elite and that of Cyrenaica (see Lacher 2013). The majority of the elected parliamentarians were in fact Islamists, including the Justice and Construction Party (JCP), readily recognized as the Libyan version of the Muslim Brotherhood, together with a large number of independent, non-party-affiliated Islamists and Salafi-oriented Members of Parliament (Ashour 2012; Lacher 2013, 10ff). The NFA was a broad-spectrum alliance of a wide variety of regional and tribal networks that had few common goals besides political and economic stability. Some common features included populist nationalist agendas and liberal-based economic programmes that promoted the development of the state’s institutional infrastructure (POMED 2012). The alliance’s primary parliamentary rival was the JCP (Kirkpatrick 2012’ Libya Herald 2012; Salem and Kadlec 2012). Both the NFA and the JCP are coalitions that include a multitude of tribes and organizations that are usually bonded together through a range of vested interests, ideological, political, social, and economic. The political divisions that could not be resolved and the power struggle became obvious in the aftermath of failed government negotiations between July and November 2012.9 During the turbulent political impasse between July 2012 and June 2014, it became clear that the unitary government would collapse. The subsequent political split into two administrative governments supported by rival military networks became apparent in August 2014.

The NFA established the House of Representatives (HoR), initially the only internationally recognized government based in the eastern city of Tubruq. The main opponent to the HoR was formed several months after the split in Tripoli. It consisted of the remaining GNC parliamentarians, the New General National Congress (NGNC) and, under the leadership of the JCP, the largest Islamist party. The result of the political split was a further activation of military networks, which were eventually remodelled into two large alliances. On the one side, the military alliance supporting the HoR had been composed of the Zintan Brigades, based in the western city of Zintan, and the Libyan National Army, including by far its most powerful military ally: ‘Operation Dignity’, under the leadership of General Khalifa Haftar. Haftar, one of Qaddafi’s closest associates during the 1960s, defected to the United States during the 1980s. On the other side, the military alliance supporting the NGNC, the ‘Libya Dawn’, comprised largely of Islamist militias that had absorbed the most powerful militia group based in the city of Misrata and Amazigh tribal militias in Tripolitania and Fezzan (CFR 2014). This alliance also included the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROP), originally formed by Abu Sahmain, who belonged to an Amazigh minority and was himself the GNC president between 25 June 2013 and 4 August 2014 – the day of the unitary government’s official collapse (Maddy-Weitzman 2015, 2506; see also France Diplomatie 2013).

Operation Dignity, under Haftar’s leadership, had already begun its military attacks in early May 2014, targeting largely Islamist militias in Benghazi. Two weeks later, they expanded their attacks to Tripoli and other cities in Tripolitania. The clashes between the two sides intensified throughout the summer and fall of 2014, setting in motion a spiralling revenge. The two political adversaries – the HoR in Tubruq and the NGNC in Tripoli, both of which had claimed to be Libya’s elected governments – had with their respective military networks become the main parties in the civil war by fall 2014.

It is important to keep in mind that the growing tensions between the Islamists and their nationalist opponents in the original GNC escalated gradually, given the inability to agree on the vital issues concerning wealth and power distribution, but also due to different opinions about the role of the old, Qaddafi-era political elite in the new political system. Another contentious issue has been the political rivals’ inability to control their respective military units, with the ensuing increasing insecurity. This situation escalated during the late spring and early summer of 2014, resulting in full-blown battles in the capital (Kirkpatrick 2014). So, Misratan powerful militias, backed by other smaller Islamist militias and frustrated by the stalled political process, claimed that the nationalists (later the HoR) represented the old regime (adhlaam) and therefore needed to be excluded from the power-sharing process. The eastern-based nationalist militias – primarily those under the influence of General Haftar and backed by their allies from the western city of Zintan – were in turn concerned with what they saw as the growing influence of Islamist militias. As a response to the political destabilization and security deterioration, and in order to break the political stalemate, the GNC parliamentarians agreed to hold new elections on 25 June 2014. This time, only independent candidates were allowed to contest the 200 parliamentary seats, and no parties would be allowed to campaign. However, the voter turnout was as low as 18 per cent, resulting in only 30 seats for the Islamist representatives.

Underneath the rhetoric of ideological differences, militias are fighting mainly for the control of the capital and state institutions in order to obtain political power and economic resources (Wehrey 2014). Economic revenues are the key component of a group’s ability to wage war. Control of the oil fields, most of which are located in Cyrenaica – as well as the port cities of Ras Lanuf and al-Sidr, with their facilities to load crude oil onto tankers – are of highest strategic value (see Energy Information Administration 2014). These strategic points have in fact been some of the most important battlegrounds between Operation Dignity and the Libya Dawn (Malsin 2014; Wehrey 2015).

A prime example of this ongoing power struggle is General Haftar’s armed campaign. With no prior government mandate, he organized Operation Dignity in February 2014 to establish his control over the country’s most important cities and regions. By May, his campaign had gained enough momentum for him to demand the suspension of the GNC and of the government (Daragahi 2014). In order to defeat the Islamist militias, he demanded the dissolution of the parliament, where the Islamist party JCP was the second largest party. Considering the JCP as religiously extremist, Prime Minister Zeidan eventually agreed with Haftar and dissolved the government (Gerlach 2014).

Borders became all the more permeable. Due to the worsening security situation in Tripoli, with the Misrata-dominated alliance takeover of the city, the nationalist parliamentarians relocated to Tubruq in early August 2014 (Economist 2015). Haftar’s May offensive had apparently encouraged coalition building between a number of Islamist militias in Tripoli, all of which became loyal to the JCP. The coalition, composed of various Islamist and Misratan militias under the name of the Libya Dawn, quickly seized many of the vital functions in the capital (Daragahi 2014). The remaining members of the GNC, under the leadership of Abu Sahmain, reconstituted the National Assembly under the name of the New General National Congress. The House of Representatives in Tubruq came to be led by Abdullah al-Thini and received international recognition shortly after its relocation in August 2014. In November, Libya’s Supreme Court, most likely under the influence of the NGNC, denied the legality of the HoR (Eljarh 2014).

Sectarian identification in the different tribes was fuelled by the competition for economic resources and political control. Tribal and ethnic identifications are a major source of social and political mobilization (Bruce 2011; Obeidi 2013), including electoral behaviour. Tribes, town-alliances, and regional groups in fact offer a concrete sense of belonging and protection (ICG 2015), orienting towards selective and limited collective goals and commitments. As noted earlier, the Qaddafi regime’s purposeful sustainment of tribal divisions for the purpose of maintaining a patrimonial system of governance has had negative consequences in (re-)building the vital state institutions (Bruce 2011; Dehghanpisheh 2011). Inter-and intra-tribal relations produce social ties based on kinship affiliation which, in the case of Libya, jeopardized the development of civic allegiances to and membership in a larger socio-political entity, such as a nation-state. In the wake of the regime’s fall and the institutional disintegration, we have witnessed the rapid armament of tribal groups across Libya that have reopened old inter-tribal rivalries and provided opportunities to settle old scores (Markey and El-Yaakoubi 2014; Oborne and Cookson, 2012; Schruf 2014). In fact, a number of armed inter-tribal clashes in the southern regions of Kufra and Sabha (including the whole Fezzan region) confirm both the breakdown of central authority and the revival of a tribal political economy, including disputes about the distribution of revenue coming from the oil and gas exports (Abu Zayd 2012).

Sectarian identification was also fuelled by the ethnic tensions between self-identified Arab and Amazigh (i.e. Berber) tribes (Al Jazeera 2013). In the city of Zuwara, to the east of Tripoli, as well as the Nafusa Mountain on the border with Tunisia, Ibadi Muslim Amazigh tribes have been active in emphasizing their cultural distinctiveness vis-à-vis the Arab-Sunni majority. Their social mobilization has become increasingly political, raising the claim for the establishment of a federalized political system (Maddy-Weitzman 2015; Zurutuza 2013). Even though the Amazigh tribes are not a unified political or military force, they have shared similar negative experiences under Tripoli’s political control (Bruce 2011; see Cole and McQuinn 2015). In the far northeast, the armed conflict supported a renewed sense of ethnic pride and the struggle for cultural rights among the Amazigh tribes. Due to the continued political destabilization and the civil war between the Tripoli-based and the Tubruq-based governments, many Tuareg tribes and southern Tobou militias, in addition to transnational jihadi groups, have created security concerns for Libya’s neighbours: Chad, Niger, Algeria and, not least, Sudan and Mali. The fluidification of state borders has allowed the movement of people, goods (both legal and illicit), and arms, all of which continues to exacerbate the internal political and ethnic tensions (Economist 2015; ICG 2015; Maddy-Weitzman 2015; Malsin 2014; Reeve 2015; Poljarevic 2015).

What is more, ISIS entered the Libyan civil war through its alliance with the local jihadi militias in the eastern city of Derna (Joscelyn 2015). The prolonged nature of the Libyan civil war, and the sense of a rising desire for revenge among a segment of Libyan youth primarily in the cities in the Cyrenaica, have given rise to another militant group, the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) (Dalil 2015; Markey and Elumami 2015). This development has made the already precarious situation even more violent.

The (further) radicalization in the civil war

Within the spiralling dynamic of violence, insecurity, and the reproduction of hostilities discussed above, we also find armed groups mobilized around a militant and narrow interpretation of Islam. These groups are characterized by an uncompromising stance, often embracing indiscriminate war tactics by which to realize their military/political goals (see della Porta and LeFree 2012). In the context of Libyan civil war, Salafi groups primarily targeted what they considered to be signs of heresy in society. Their destruction of Sufi shrines at the al-Shaab Mosque in Tripoli, the tomb of Sidi Abdul-Salam al Asmar al-Fituri in Zliten, and Zubeida in Bani Walid are examples of violence against what they perceived as symbols of blasphemy (UNHR 2012). In the wake of security deterioration, the fluidification of borders, and the failure of institutional transition, this revolutionary form of jihadi militancy became a substantial mobilizing force that spawned several powerful militias, especially in Cyrenaica.

The Ansar al-Shari’ah (AS), headquartered in Benghazi, has probably been the country’s most powerful jihadist militia. The initial military success of the core group of members, their puritan religious narrative, and their (initially adamant) moral practices – including an uncompromising stance against old Qaddafi regime operatives – resonated well with a portion of the young urban youth in Benghazi and the surrounding areas (see Dettmer 2013; Maher 2012). The AS’s negotiation with the representatives of the HoR from Tubruq were halted before even beginning due to the AS leadership’s demand of excluding any known Qaddafi regime supporter from the institution-building process. This insistence put the AS on a collision course with Haftar’s Operation Dignity, which is the main backer of the HoR (Mahmoud 2015; MEMO 2014). Throughout the summer of 2014, a series of intense battles in and around Benghazi between the coalition of the AS-affiliated militias and Haftar’s nationalist alliance made it clear that there would be no reconciliation between the jihadist militias and the HoR (Ibrahim et al. 2014). These battles coincided with the rise of the new transnational jihadi group – ISIS – which has emerged from within the wars in Iraq and Syria.

Initially, battle-hardened militants from the Middle Eastern battlefronts, both Libyan and foreign, flocked to the coastal city of Derna. There, a local jihadist group, the Islamic Youth Shura Council (IYSC) – an offshoot of the larger Islamist Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade (ASMB) 10 – pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in November 2014 (Fowler 2014; Mustafa 2014). The ASMB was one of the first groups, led by the former political inmates of the notorious Abu Salim prison, formed in the uprising against the Qaddafi regime. Since its inception, the group has actively promoted its interpretation of the Islamic moral order within Libya, together with the public provision of social services in Derna. By April 2014, however, a new jihadi group, the IYSC, had emerged, directly challenging the ASMB. The IYSC’s demands and ambitions became transnational, indiscriminately violent, and visibly totalitarian, claiming authority over the entire city and beyond. The group soon after pledged its allegiance to ISIS and its caliph, making them the sole representatives of the Caliphate’s new province – Tarablous. The ASMB response was to form the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), a wider alliance of fighting groups, arguably connected to al-Qaida, in order to counteract the rise of ISIS in Libya.¹¹ The fighting in and around Derna continued unabated until May 2016, when the city was taken over by the MSC.

ISIS then moved its headquarters to the city of Sirte (Kirkpatrick et al. 2015). The main reason for ISIS’ branching out in Libya, besides the ambition to control the whole country, seems to have been the strategic disadvantage in Derna (Cruickshank 2015; Saleh 2015; Torelli and Varvelli 2015). The threat from the MSC was amplified by the aerial bombardment of their positions by the Egyptian and UAE warplanes, approved by the Arab League as a measure by which to support the HoR and Haftar’s Operation Dignity (Kirkpatrick 2015). The initial attacks by the Egyptian air force were a response to the ISIS militants’ execution of about 20 Egyptian guest workers, who had previously been abducted in Sirte and taken to Derna. ISIS had justified their execution on the grounds of Egypt’s covert backing of Haftar’s campaign against their positions as early as mid-2014 (Al-Warfalli and Laessing 2014).

Spiralling revenge continued to fuel the continuation of the conflict (Libyan Gazette 2016; Middle East Eye 2015; Tawil 2015). The prolonged nature of a civil war with little likelihood of peaceful solution gives rise to a generation of battle-hardened militants who are more willing to accept a radical form of political order, including an uncompromising stance against the perceived enemies and the use of indiscriminate violence. The conflict between ISIS and al-Qaida affiliated groups can be seen as a process of radicalization directly connected to the protracted civil war (see Bigo et al. 2014; Hellesøy 2013). This does not mean, however, that all Islamists – or for that matter all jihadist groups – are willing to accept ISIS’ internationalist or al-Qaida’s (inter)nationalist ambitions (Fowler 2014; Wehrey 2015).

A range of heterogeneous and largely uncoordinated militias often view not only Libya Dawn and Operation Dignity as enemies, but also other jihadi groups as rivals. One of the primary obstacles to a large-scale de-radicalization seems to be the effects of the discussed mechanism of (violent conflict) reproduction. The negative effects include the ubiquitous sense of insecurity among the population, spiralling cycles of revenge, and the growth of a war economy that fuel military networks’ activities. Such an environment facilitates the growth of uncompromising attitudes and extremist ideologies in the context of which these groups’ message has resonance among the most susceptible layers of the population, namely the youth. Evidence of this has been one of the latest efforts to bring the main warring parties to the negotiating table. Despite the UNSMIL-supported talks and the signing of a peace agreement between representatives from the NGNC and the HoR on 17 December 2015, there have been few signs of military de-escalation on the ground (BBC News 2015; Guardian 2016; UN News Centre 2015).

Conclusion

This chapter has analysed the context and evolution of the Libyan civil war, including the mechanisms behind the country’s failure to make the peaceful transition from totalitarian to democratic rule. The analysis of the causal mechanisms that have contributed to the civil war can be grouped into three main clusters: (1) contextual, path-dependent mechanisms at the onset of the conflict; (2) activating mechanisms that have solidified the war participants’ objectives; and (3) mechanisms of reproduction of war efforts.

The chapter demonstrated how the patrimonial networks withered rapidly as a result of the regime’s loss of political control. When those interpersonal alliances and the web of economic and political interdependency began to fall apart, the regime’s balancing between the important tribes and the defection of key regime figures resulted in the crumbling of the old system. Under the pressure of revolt by populations and foreign intervention, the Qaddafi family could not sustain its power structure.

The transitional period between mid-2012 and mid-2014 revealed the depth of the social fragmentation of Libyan society, including among the political elites. The divided society contained little capacity to produce a citizenship-based political narrative. The rivalry among the political, tribal, ethnic, and economic elites, which either controlled or were allied with an armed group, continued to sustain insecurity and the fluidity of territorial control in the entire country. As a result of the institutional failure, the political destabilization, the security deterioration, and the fluidification of borders ignited the ongoing civil war.

The chapter also discussed the role of military networks in sustaining the political elites’ pursuit of tactical goals reproducing the conditions under which the mechanism of radicalization could add a new layer to the war. What is more, the increasing tension between the population’s various segments – the Amazigh and Arab tribes, the urban and rural dwellers, ideological rival groups, but also the older and the younger generations – made extreme ideologies more attractive.

In sum, it has become increasingly clear that all signs of the loosely coordinated social movement mobilization that existed at the outset of the uprising have disappeared. The failure to sufficiently include, coordinate, channel, and institutionalize the multitude of political, economic, and social interests represented by various powerbrokers has ultimately resulted in wide-ranging lawlessness and state collapse (Di John 2008; Fund for Peace 2014). 12 The political elites, despite the repeated and foreign-assisted efforts to build viable state structures, remain deeply divided. Each political faction maintains its own military units and foreign helpers to deter possible political usurpers.

The political elites operate within the zero-sum-game framework. Libya’s existing social networks remain based on extended family ties, tribal and sometimes ideological allegiances, and ethnic groups that often serve as interest groups focused on meeting their members’ basic needs and their own survival. The endemic sociopolitical and economic insecurity, spirals of revenge, and activation of military networks have created opportunities for extreme political groups, such as ISIS and the MSC, to permeate important fragments of the disaffected civil society.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Donatella della Porta, Teije Hidde Donker, and not least the editors who have contributed with comments and advice on how to improve the text. The work behind this chapter was made possible by PDRA grant #1-0120-14121 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation). The findings achieved herein are solely the responsibility of the author.

Notes

1 Noteworthy historical examples are the Pahlavi regime in Iran, the Batista regime in Cuba, the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, and so on.

2 Libya’s three administrative regions, Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica are comprised of some 140 different tribes, 30 of which can be considered as having significant political influence (Bell et al 2011, 17): Al-Awager, Warfalla, Tarhona, Wershifana, Al-Fwatir, Awlad Busayf, Al-Zintan, Al-Rijban, Al-Awagir, Al-Abaydat, Drasa, Al-Barasa, Al-Fawakhir, Al-Zuwayya, Al-Majabra, Al-Msmare, Al-Qaddadfa, Al-Magarha, Al-Magharba, Al-Riyyah, Al-Haraba, Al-Zuwaid, Al-Guwaid, Al-Hutman, Al-Hassawna; and also a number of Tuaregh (Amazigh) tribes, Al-Zuwayya; Toubou, and so on.

3 Qaddafi explained his ideas to the nation in his The Green Book.

4 See www.ab.ly/ar/.

5 The most noteworthy leader of the LIGF is Abdelhakim Belhadj, who had fought with the mujahideen against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the late 1980s. He was later appointed the highest leader of the Libyan Revolutionary Army, and subsequently the leader of the al-Wattan Party; see http://wattan.ly

6 Libya’s population in 2007 was about 5.7 million, with a median age of 26, and a youth population that comprised nearly 20 per cent of the general population.

7 Some of these videos can still be accessed at www.livestream.com/libya17feb; see also www.mohamednabbous.com

8 By passing Resolution 2144, the United Nations Security Council created a UN body to facilitate national dialogue among various opposition and social groups in order to promote Libya’s transition to a democratic and liberal political order (UNSMIL’s mission statement: http://unsmil.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=3544&language=en-US)

9 One critical event that arguably prompted the solidification of military alliances is the 11 September 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, most likely by the Ansar al-Shariah militants (see Vandewalle 2012).

10 The group’s choice of name is connected to the infamous prison (Abu Salim), where numerous Islamist and other political prisoners were massacred during June 1996. This indicates their vehement opposition to working with any of the overthrown regime’s officials (see HRW 2003).

11 The formation of the MSC mirrors a similar change of tactics used by al-Qaida in Iraq during 2007. Most likely, it is a way to demonstrate its rejection of ISIS’ legitimacy and claims of political authority (see Felter and Fishman 2011).

12 See Ghani et al. (2006) for an overview of the definitional conditions of a failed state. Assertions of (popularly and internationally granted) legitimacy and administrative capacity are two necessary conditions, however insufficient and contingent, for a modern nation-state to function. It is also useful to critically examine the usefulness of the concept ‘failed state’ more thoroughly. An excellent critique is presented in Call (2010). I am aware of the limitations of such a use of the concept; nevertheless, the term ‘failed state’ here reflects the Libyan civil society’s inability to agree upon a unitary government and even less to sustain a stable institutional framework to represent and serve the country’s various groups.

References

Abdel-Baky, Mohamed. 2011. ‘Libya protest over housing enters its third day’, Ahraam Online, 16 January. Available at: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/4032/World/Region/Libyaprotest-over-housing-enters-its-third-day.aspx

Abu Zayd, Sarkis. 2012. ‘Has the tribal political life been revived?’ (ar.). Al-Safir, 12 April. Available at: http://assafir.com/Article/272156

Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif. 1994. The Making of Modern Libya State Formation, Colonization, and Resistance, 1830–1932. New York: SUNY University Press.

Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif. 2012. ‘Libya: social origins of dictatorship, and the challenge for democracy’. The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 3(1): 70–81. doi: 10.1080/21520844. 2012.666646.

Al Jazeera. 2011. ‘“Day of rage” kicks off in Libya’. 17 February. Available at: www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/02/201121755057219793.html

Al Jazeera. 2013. ‘Berber protesters enter Libya parliament’. 13 August. Available at: www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/08/201381314533399976.html

Al-Warfalli, Ayman, and Laessing, Ulf. 2014. ‘Libyan special forces commander says his forces join renegade general’. Reuters, 19 May. Available at: www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/19/us-libya-violence-idUSBREA4G04A20140519

Amnesty International. 2011a. ‘Libyan writer detained following protest call’. Amnesty. org, 8 February. Available at:www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libyan-writerdetainedfollowing-protest-call-2011–02–08

Amnesty International. 2011b. ‘Libya: Writer detained after calling for demonstrations’. Amnesty.org, 5 February. Available at: http://www.amnesty.org/ar/library/asset/MDE19/003/2011/ar/aa60397c-55b4–423e-af3c-6c20e906d1ea/mde190032011en.html

Amnesty International. 2011c. ‘Libya must end protest crackdown’. Amnesty.org, 16 February. Available at:www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libya-urged-end-protest-crackdown-2011–02–16

Amnesty International. 2011d. ‘The battle for Libya: killings, disappearances and torture’. Amnesty.org, 13 September. Available at: www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE19/025/2011

Anderson, Lisa. 2011. ‘Demystifying the Arab Spring: Parsing the differences between Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya’. Foreign Affairs, May/June.

Ashour, Omar. 2011. ‘Ex-jihadists in the new Libya’. Foreign Policy, 29 August. Available at: www.foreignpolicy.com/2011/08/29/ex-jihadists-in-the-new-libya/

Ashour, Omar. 2012. ‘Libyan Islamists unpacked: rise transformation, and future’. Brookings Institute, May. Doha/Washington, DC: Brookings Doha Center.

Bamyeh, Mohammed. 2011. ‘Is the 2011 Libyan revolution an exception?’ Jadaliyya, 25 March. Available at: www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1001/is-the-2011-libyan-revolution-an-exception

Barany, Zoltan. 2011. ‘Comparing the Arab revolts: the role of the military’. Journal of Democracy 22(4): 28–39.

BBC News. 2011. ‘Gunfight erupts near Tripoli airport in Libya’. 3 December. Available at: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16128837

BBC News. 2015. ‘Libya’s rival parliament reach tentative agreement’. 6 December. Available at: www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35020308

Bell, Anthony, Butts, Spencer, and Witter, David. 2011. ‘The Libyan Revolution: Part 4 – The tide turns’. Washington, DC: Institute for Study of War.

Bigo, Didier, Ragazzi, Francesco, Guittet, Emmanuel-Pierre, and Bonelli, Laurent. 2014. ‘Syria on our minds – fear of youth radicalisation across the European Union’. Open Democracy, 4 June. Available at: www.opendemocracy.net/didier-bigo-francesco-ragazzi-emmanuelpierre-guittet-laurent-bonelli/syria-on-our-minds-–-fear-of-youth

Black, Ian. 2011. ‘Libyans try to get back property seized by Gaddafi’. The Guardian, November 4. Available at: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/04/libya-gaddafi-property-restitution-demands

Bruce, Ronald. 2011. ‘A guide to protests in Middle East, North Africa’. National Public Radio, 13 April. Available at: www.npr.org

Call, C.T. 2010. ‘Beyond the “failed state”: toward conceptual alternatives’. European Journal of International Relations, 17(20).

CFR. 2014. ‘Is it too late for Libya?’ Council on Foreign Affairs, 3 October. Available at: www.cfr.org/libya/too-late-libya/p33548Cole, Peter, and McQuinn, Brian (eds). 2015. The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cruickshank, Paul. 2015. ‘United Nations warns of ISIS expansion in Libya’, CNN, 2 December. Available at: Edition.cnn.com/2015/12/01/politics/isis-united-nations-libya-expansion/

Dalacoura, Katerina. 2012. ‘The 2011 uprisings in the Arab Middle East: political change and geopolitical implications’. International Affairs 88(1): 63–79.

Dalil, Miriam. 2015. ‘Rival Libya factions reject UN deal but promise unity government’. Available at: www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/world/60332/rival_libya_factions_meet_in_malta?#.VnEjQDblw_V

Daragahi, Borzou. 2014. ‘Tripoli warns rival militias over airport battle’. Financial Times, 17 July. Available at: www.ft.com/cms/s/0/812d4f58–0db1–11e4–815f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3O3aJLMy0

Dehghanpisheh, Babak. 2011. ‘Tribes in Libya are changing the conflict’. Newsweek, 13 March. Available at: www.newsweek.com/tribes-libya-are-changing-conflict-66185

della Porta, Donatella, and LaFree, Gary. 2012. ‘Processes of radicalization and de-radical ization’. International Journal of Conflict and Violence 6(1): 4–10.

Dettmer, Jamie. 2013. ‘Jihadists are creeping into Syria’s rebel factions’. The Daily Beast, 4 January. Available at:www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/04/jihadists-are-creeping-into-syria-s-rebel-factions.html

Di John, Johnathan. 2008. ‘Conceptualising the causes and consequences of failed states: a critical review of the literature’. Working Paper No. 25. London: Crisis States Research Centre.

Dorsey, James M. 2016. The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. London: C. Hurst & Co.

Economist, The. 2015. ‘That it should come to this’, 10 January. Available at:www.economist.com/news/briefing/21638123-four-year-descent-arab-spring-factional-chaos-it-should-come

Eljarh, Mohamed. 2014. ‘The Supreme Court decision that’s ripping Libya apart’. Foreign Policy, 6 November. Available at: www.foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/06/the-supreme-court-decision-thats-ripping-libya-apart/

Elkin, Mike. 2012. ‘Exiles return to Libya contentiously’. Inter Press News, 17 February. Available at: www.ipsnews.net/2012/02/exiles-return-to-libya-contentiously/

Energy Information Administration. 2014. ‘Independent statistics and analysis, U.S. Energy Information Administration’. Available at: www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=ly

Euronews. 2015. ‘Libya’s Abdulhakim Belhadj: “We are working to find a solution to end this crisis”’. 3 February. Available at:www.euronews.com/2015/02/03/libya-s-abdulhakim-belhadj-we-are-working-to-find-a-solution-to-end-this-crisis/

Felter, Joseph, and Fishman, Brian. 2011. ‘Al-Qa’ida’s foreign fighters in Iraq: a first look at the Sinjar records’. West Point: US Military Academy.

Fowler, Evan. 2014. ‘From Raqqa to Derna: exceptionalism in expansionism’. Jadaliyya, 4 December. Available at: www.profiles.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/20182/from-raqqa-to-derna_exceptionalism-in-expansionism

France Diplomatie. 2013. ‘Election of Mr. Nuri Abu Sahmain as President of the General National Congress of Libya’. 26 June. Available at: www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/libya/events-7697/2013/article/libya-election-of-mr-nuri-abu

Freedom House. 2009. ‘Freedom in the World Report: Libya’. Available at: www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/libya

Fund for Peace, The. 2014. ‘Libya in 2014’, in Country Data and Trends. Washington, DC. Available at: http://ffp.statesindex.org/2014-libya

Gerlach, Daniel. 2014. ‘The General National Congress behaves like a dictator!’ Zenith, 12 June. Available at: www.zenithonline.de/english/home/politics/interviewwith-former-libyan-prime-minister-ali-zeidan/

Ghani, Ashraf, Lockhart, Claire, and Carnahan, Michael. 2006. ‘An agenda for state-building in the 21st century’. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 30(1): 101–23.

Goldstone, Jack A. 2002. Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies. London: Wadsworth Publishing.

Guardian. 2011a. ‘Libyan protesters clash with police in Benghazi’. 16 February. Available at: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/16/libyan-protesters-clash-with-police

Guardian. 2011b. ‘Libyan protesters prepare for “day of rage”’– 17 February. Available at: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/17/libyan-protesters-prepare-for-day-of-rage

Guardian. 2016. ‘Libya rivals announce unity government as part of UN-backed plan’. 19 January. Available at: www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/libya-rivals-announce-unity-government-un-planHellesøy, Kjersti. 2013. ‘Civil war and the radicalization of Islam in Chechnya’. Journal of Religion and Violence 1(1): 21–37.

HRW. 2003. ‘Libya: June 1996 killings at Abu Salim Prison’. Human Rights Watch. Available at: www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/libya2003.pdf

Human Rights Council. 2011. ‘Report of the International Commission on the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’. United Nation Document, 11 June. A/HRC/17/44, para. 36.

Ibrahim, Noora, Adam, Ali, and Ajnadin, Mustafa. 2014. ‘Benghazi Revolutionary Council damns revenge killings by armed demonstrators’. Libya Herald, 17 October. Available at: www.libyaherald.com/2014/10/17/benghazi-revolutionary-council-damns-revenge-killings-by-armed-demonstrators/#ixzz3Sfs98ZHS

ICG. 2011a. ‘Popular protest in North Africa and the Middle East (V): Making sense of Libya’. International Crisis Group. Middle East/Africa Report, No.107, 6 June. Available at: www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya/popular-protest-north-africa-and-middle-east-v-making-sense-libya

ICG. 2011b. ‘Holding Libya together: security challenges after Qadhafi.’ International Crisis Group. Middle East/North Africa Report No.115, 14 December. Available at: www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya/holding-libya-together-security-challenges-after-qadhafi

ICG. 2015. ‘Libya: getting Geneva right’. International Crisis Group. Middle East and North Africa Report No.157, 26 February. Available at:www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/North%20Africa/libya/157-libya-getting-geneva-right.pdf

Jacinto, Leela. 2011. ‘Benghazi’s Tahrir Square: Times Square style meets revolutionary zeal’. France24, 25 April. Available at: www.france24.com/en/20110425-libya-benghazi-tahrir-square-times-reporters-notebook-leela-jacinto

Joscelyn, Thomas. 2015. ‘Islamic State “province” in Libya claims capture of town’. The Long War Journal, 15 February. Available at:www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/02/islamic_state_provin_1.php

Kirkpatrick, Patrik. 2012. ‘Election results in Libya break an Islamist wave’. The New York Times, 8 July. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/world/africa/libya-election-latest-results.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

Kirkpatrick, David. 2014. ‘In Libya, parliament convenes amid battles’. New York Times, 4 August. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/world/africa/libyas-new-parliament-meets-amid-militia-rivalries.html

Kirkpatrick, David. 2015. ‘Egypt launches airstrike in Libya against ISIS branch’. The New York Times, 16 February. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/world/middlee-ast/isis-egypt-libya-airstrikes.html?_r=0

Kirkpatrick, David, Bubbard, Ben, and Schmittnov, Eric. 2015. ‘ISIS’ grip on Libyan city gives it a fallback’. New York Times, 28 November. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/world/middleeast/isis-grip-on-libyan-city-gives-it-a-fallback-option.html?_r=1

Kjaerum, Alexander, Lust, Ellen, Pedersen, Line Fly, and Wichmann, Jakob Mathias. 2013. ‘Libyan parliamentary election study’. Working Paper, Copenhagen JMW Consulting.

Lacher, Wolfram. 2011. ‘Families, tribes and cities in the Libyan Revolution’. Middle East Policy 18(4).

Lacher, Wolfram. 2013. ‘Fault lines of the revolution: political actors, camps and conflicts in the New Libya’. SWP Research Paper, Stiftung, Wissenschaft und Politik/German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Available at: www.swp-berlin.org/filead-min/contents/products/research_papers/2013_RP04_lac.pdf

Libya Herald. 2012. ‘Muslim Brotherhood formally launches party’. 3 March. Available at: www.libyaherald.com/2012/03/03/muslim-brotherhood-formally-launches-party/#axzz3PMh5v9uI

Libyan Gazette. 2016. ‘Haftar forces suffer major losses in battle with Ansar Al-Sharia and Co’. 29 July. Available at: www.libyangazette.net/2016/07/29/haftar-forces-suffer-major-losses-in-battle-with-ansar-al-sharia-and-co/

Linz, Juan, and Stepan, Alfred. 1996. ‘Modern nondemocratic regimes’, in Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce. 2015. ‘A turning point? The Arab Spring and the Amazigh movement’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 38(14): 2499–515.

Maher, Ahmed. 2012. ‘Meeting Mohammad Ali al-Zahawi of Libyan Ansar al-Sharia’. BBC News, 18 September. Available at: www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-19638582

Mahmoud, Khalid. 2015. ‘Libyan PM will not step down: cabinet source’. Asharq al-Awsat, 8 January. Available at: www.aawsat.net/2015/01/article55340228/libyan-pm-will-not-step-down-cabinet-source

Malsin, Jared. 2014. ‘Egyptian involvement sparked Libya oil port battle, expert says’. Times. com, 19 December. Available at: time.com/3642616/libya-oil-egypt-tobruk-tripoli/

Markey, Patrick, and El-Yaakoubi, Aziz. 2014. ‘Libya, security insight’. Reuters, 1 August. Available at: uk.reuters.com/article/2014/08/01/uk-libya-security-insightidUKKBN0G02382014080

Markey, Patrick, and Elumami, Ahmed. 2015. ‘Feuds and factions: no easy road to implementing Libya peace deal’. Reuters, 14 December. Available at: af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFL8N14328M20151214?feedType=RSS&feedName=libyaNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FAfricaLibyaNews+%28News+%2F+Africa+%2F+Libya+News%29&rpc=401&sp=true

Mattes, Hanspeter. 2004. ‘Challenges to security sector governance in the Middle East: the Libyan case’. Paper presented at Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) as a part of Security Governance in the Mediterranean Project, 13 July.

McGuirk, Russell. 2007. The Sanusi’s Little War: The Amazing Story of a Forgotten Conflict in the Western Desert, 1915–1917. London: Arabian Publishing.

Media Spy. 2011. ‘Online journalist Mohammed Nabbous killed in Libya’. 20 March. Available at: www.mediaspy.org/2011/03/20/online-journalist-mohammed-nabbous-killed-in-libya/

MEMO. 2014. ‘Al-Thini’s government calls for civil disobedience in Tripoli’. Middle East Monitor, 22 October. Available at: www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/14811-al-thinis-government-calls-for-civil-disobedience-in-tripoli

Michael, Maggie. 2011. ‘Protesters in Libya demand Gaddafiouster and reforms’. The Washington Post, 17 February. Available at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/16/AR2011021607292.html

Middle East Eye. 2015. ‘Libya’s Haftar confirms military support for Operation Dignity from Egypt and UAE’. 30 January. Available at: www.middleeasteye.net/news/libyas-haftar-confirms-support-operation-dignity-egypt-and-uae-1265705213

Mittelstaedt von, Juliane. 2011. ‘Libya’s soccer rebellion: a revolution foreshadowed on the pitch of Benghazi’. Der Spiegel, 15 July. Available at: www.spiegel.de/international/world/libya-s-soccer-rebellion-a-revolution-foreshadowed-on-the-pitch-of-benghazi-a-774594.html

Mustafa, Ajnadin. 2014. ‘Derna’s Islamic Youth Council declares allegiance to Daesh: report’. Libya Herald, 4 October. Available at: www.libyaherald.com/2014/10/04/dernas-islamic-youth-council-declares-allegiance-to-daesh-report/#ixzz3SlaS7dmU

Obeidi, Amal. 2013. Political Culture in Libya. London: Routledge Curzon.

Oborne, Peter, and Cookson, Richard. 2012. ‘Libya still ruled by the gun’. The Telegraph, 18 May. Available at: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9265441/Libya-still-ruled-by-the-gun.html

OECD. 2009. ‘Gender equality and social institutions in Libya’. Gender, Institutions and Development Database. Available at: www.oecd.org/dev/genderinstitutionsanddevelopmentdatabase.htm

Pargeter, Alison. 2010. ‘Reform in Libya: Chimera or reality?’. Mediterranean Papers Series. Available at: www.iai.it/pdf/mediterraneo/GMF-IAI/Mediterranean-paper_08.pdf

Poljarevic, Emin. 2015. ‘ Les Salafistes and a French reproduction of certainties in a world of uncertainties’. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33(2): 145–55.

POMED. 2012. ‘Backgrounder: previewing Libya’s elections’. 5 July. Available at: pomed.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Previewing-Libyas-Elections.pdfReeve, Richard. 2015. ‘Libya’s proxy battlefield’. Oxford Research Group, 13 January. Available at: www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers_and_reports/briefing_libya_proxy_battlefield

Reporters Without Borders. 2011. ‘The birth of “free media” in Eastern Libya’. Paris: International Secretariat – Reporters Without Borders. Available at: http://en.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/libye_2011_gb.pdf

Reuters. 2007. ‘Libya says it will lay off 400,000’. The New York Times, 22 January. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/world/africa/22libya.html

Reuters. 2011a. ‘Militias may drag Libya into civil war: NTC chief’. 4 January. Available at: www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/04/us-libya-idUSTRE80301120120104

Reuters. 2011b. ‘Libya sets up $24 bln fund for housing’. 27 January. Available at: www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/27/libya-fund-investment-idUSLDE70Q1ZM20110127

Reuters. 2011c. ‘Nervous Libyans ready for first taste of democracy’. 6 July. Available at: www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/06/us-libya-elections-idUSBRE86412N20120706

Reuters. 2015. ‘Libya’s rival factions agree date to sign U.N. peace deal’. 11 December. Available at: http://reut.rs/1IZWpGt

Saleh, Heba. 2015. ‘What is at stake in Libya talks?’ Financial Times, 11 December. Available at: www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b4fec58a-9f1b-11e5–85ae-8fa46274f224

Salem, Paul, and Kadlec, Amanda. 2012. ‘Libya’s troubled transition’. Carnegie Paper, June. Available at: http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/06/14/libya-s-troubled-transition/bzw4

Schruf, Naser. 2014. ‘Libya: Who’s fighting whom?’ Deutsche Welle, 2 September. Available at: www.dw.de/libya-whos-fighting-whom/a-17894115

Small Arms Survey, (2012. ‘Armed groups in Libya: typology and roles’. Research Notes: Armed Actors, Number 18, Available at:www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/H-Research_Notes/SAS-Research-Note-18.pdf

Takeyh, Ray. 2000. ‘Qadhafi’s Libya and the prospects of Islamic succession’. Middle East Policy, 7(2).

Tawil, Camille. 2015. ‘Operation Dignity: General Haftar’s latest battle may decide Libya’s future’. Terrorism Monitor, 31 May, 12(11). Available at: www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=42443&cHash=24a38c40982c66819e7196d24603335b#.VVRtEfntlHw

Torelli Stefano, and Varvelli, Arturo. 2015. ‘Competing Jihadist organisations and networks: Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya’. In Arturo Varvelli (ed.), Libya’s Fight for Survival: Defeating Jihadist Networks. Brussels: European Foundation for Democracy.

UNDP (2011), ‘Human Development Report’. United Nations Development Programme. Available at: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/271/hdr_2011_en_complete.pdf

UNHCHR. 1997. ‘Country analysis: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’. Committee on the Rights of the Child, 13–17 October. Available at: www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/d3d6f9f2d109255780256559005c5bc7?Opendocument

UNHR. 2012. ‘The destruction of cultural and religious sites: a violation of human rights’. UNHR Office of High Commissioner, 24 September. Available at: www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DestructionShrines.aspx

UN News Centre. 2015. ‘UN welcomes “historic” signing of Libyan Political Agreement’. 17 December . Available at: www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52845#.VnpuBzblyjQ

UNSC. 2011. ‘United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1973’. Security Council 6498th Meeting, 17 March. Available at: www.un.org/press/en/2011/sc10200.doc.html

Vandewalle, Dirk. 2012. ‘After Qaddafi: the surprising success of the New Libya’. Foreign Affairs, Nov./Dec. Available at: www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2012–09–16/after-qaddafi.

Wells, Matt. 2011. ‘Mohammed Nabbous, face of citizen journalism in Libya, is killed’. The Guardian News Blog, 19 March. Available at: www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/19/mohammad-nabbous-killed-libya

Wehrey, Frederic. 2014. ‘What’s behind Libya’s spiraling violence?’ Washington Post, 28 July. Available at: www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/07/28/whats-behind-libyas-spiraling-violence/

Wehrey, Frederic. 2015. ‘The battle for Libya’s oil: on the frontlines of a forgotten war’. The Atlantic, February. Available at: www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/the-battle-for-libyas-oil/385285/

Wueger, Diana. 2012. ‘Conflict profiles: Libya’. Women Under Siege. Available at:www.womenundersiegeproject.org/conflicts/profile/libya

Zurutuza, Karlos. 2013. ‘Benghazi “self-rule” resonates with Berbers’. Al Jazeera, 6 November. Available at: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/benghazi-self-rule-resonates-with-berbers-2013115122219533260.html