This has been a bad year for Libya. July saw, at the time, the worst violence since the 2011 civil war. In August, a rebel group called Libya Dawn took over the capital of Tripoli and declared itself the real government. Since then, there have been two separate, weak governments, one in the east and one in west. And now there are ominous signs of an ISIS presence in the country's North.
Libya’s horrible, chaotic year, in one map
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. His book on democracy, The Reactionary Spirit, was published 0n July 16. You can purchase it here.
This map, made by Middle East mapper Thomas van Linge, will help you get a sense of what’s going on in Libya’s chaotic civil war:
The map is current as of December 16, so the details are a bit outdated. But here are the broad strokes:
- The two main factions, Libya’s internationally-recognized government and Libyan Dawn, together control the bulk of the country. As the Atlantic Council’s Karim Mezran explains, Libya Dawn is an amalgam of Islamists and militias from Misrata. They’ve been fighting against pro-government forces and General Khalifa Hifter, a nominal government ally, near the green area.
- Hifter’s main offensive is targeted against radical Islamists Ansar al-Sharia’s emplacements in Benghazi (yes, that Benghazi).
- The ISIS-aligned fighters are in Derna, a city in the northeast surrounded by government territory. The Guardian has a good report on the ISIS presence; as of right now, it’s still fairly small. There’s also no clear evidence it’s taking direct orders from ISIS HQ in Syria and Iraq.
- You’ll notice large swaths of tribal territory: mostly red, blue, and brown. It is important not to take Linge’s division of them into “pro” and “anti” government too strictly. For example, he lists both the Tuareg (reddish-pink) and Tebu (blue) miltias as “pro-goverment.” But, as Rebecca Murray notes in a Carnegie Endowment piece, the Tuareg and Tebu have been regularly clashing over territory in the country’s south since September.
So, in brief: Libya is divided into two main chunks, but there are many smaller tribal, Islamist, and militia players that complicate the war even further. And it’s been bloody: a December UN report said hundreds of civilians have died since Libya Dawn swept the west in August. The UN claims that it has gotten the warring factions to agree to a peace conference “in principle.” Hopefully, that principle will translate to reality — and fast.
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