Libya is a north African country that should be the continent's oil-richest state. Muammar Qaddafi was overthrown in the Arab spring of 2011. Since then the country has been divided between an internationally recognised government in the west, based in Tripoli, and Khalifa Haftar, a strongman who with his sons rules the east from Benghazi. The Dbeibas and Haftars have obstructed elections and muzzled civil society for nearly a decade.
Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh was appointed caretaker prime minister by the UN in February 2021, with elections promised within ten months. They have never been held. Dbeibeh is a construction tycoon from Misrata. His hold on power depends on a coalition of militias in the west.
Haftar controls the parliament in the east, most oilfields and roughly 80% of the country. His bloody siege of Tripoli failed in 2020, but he has since wooed allies in hope of a comeback.
In May 2025 Tripoli erupted into its worst violence in five years. The immediate cause was money: falling oil prices shrank Dbeibeh's ability to pay off his militias. His guards killed Abdul Ghani al-Kikli, one of the capital's most notorious militia leaders, on May 12th. They then turned on the Special Deterrence Force (Rada), a Salafist force that controls Tripoli's main airport and its most populous neighbourhood. Rada fought back until it held half the city.
Thousands of protesters demanded an end to Dbeibeh's rule, elections and reunification of east and west. On May 19th parliament in Benghazi declared Dbeibeh "illegitimate". Many Tripolitanians see him as one of the fulul, or remnants of the Qaddafi regime.
Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, a son of Libya's late dictator and the country's most popular public figure according to opinion polls, was killed on February 3rd 2026 at his home in Zintan. Some suspect Saddam Haftar, the strongman's son, ordered the killing.
Oil production in 2025 was nominally steady, yet analysts say $8bn of more than $30bn in expected revenues vanished. The Dbeibas and Haftars have captured oilfields, eroding the National Oil Corporation's monopoly on production and sales, and have cajoled the central bank to release diminishing revenues as letters of credit. Liquidity is scarce; banks restrict withdrawals; the dinar slides on the black market and the cost of staples climbs.
In January 2026 representatives of Dbeibeh and the Haftars met a senior American intermediary in Paris and pledged to keep splitting the spoils. Soon after, they announced the first new bidding round for oil concessions since 2007. Western majors, led by Chevron, Eni and Repsol, were among the winners. But exploration requires stability and legitimacy, both of which are dwindling.
Khalifa Haftar's forces have helped Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) smuggle fuel, cars and weapons into Darfur, according to the UN. The RSF has training camps in southern Libya. In June 2025 a militia loyal to Haftar helped the RSF overrun the Chevrolet garrison in Sudan's Northern region, near the Sudan-Libya-Egypt border triangle.
Lemmings don't grow older, they just die.