Itar-Tass
November 12, 2013
Libya falls into pieces controlled by armed groups
MOSCOW: Libya is practically disintegrated, and the real power is in the hands of numerous small armed groups, the president of the Institute of Middle East Studies, Yevgeny Satanovsky, told Tass on Tuesday in comments on the recent developments in the country.
“De facto, Libya does not exist as a country. Certain people possessing sufficient amounts of weapons are fighting for oil exports, for control over the territory, and nothing more,” he said.
“These groups are divided into tribal unions, territorial militias, like Zintan or Misuratah ones, Berber militia, Islamist formations of different kind, including Al-Qaeda supporters,” he said. “There are several hundred such groups, as Libya has more than 200 Arab tribes alone, and they have always been in thorny relations with each other. Besides, there are clans inside tribal groups,” he added.
Satanovsky also noted that as a result, the traditional geographic division of Libya into Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica was losing any sense. “This is a mosaic, a very intricate one, much more intricate than three territorial units,” he said.
“Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica with their hydrocarbon resources can live quite well separately, but inside these territories there is a ‘snake pit of like-minds’,” the expert said.
He believes the country could be once again united by western tribes under a strong leadership, like for example the former Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi. “Libya as a country will have a chance only if western Libyan tribes get together under the leadership of some new Qaddafi and manage to establish law and order on the whole territory,” he said. “So far such a leader is not even on the horizon,” he added.
The situation in Libya worsened once again on Monday, when the government announced its decision to pull additional military units into the second biggest city of Benghazi, where local radicals had been for several months continuously attacking law enforcement officers. Also on Monday it became known that gas exports to Italy had been stopped upon the demand of Berber tribes demanding that their right to revenues from gas sales be recognized.
Source