Conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have caused the United States to lose focus on a part of North Africa that holds immense strategic value and is falling into Russian hands, according to security analysts.
Libya has vast oil wealth and ports that offer access to Europe via the Mediterranean.
But the country has been split among warring factions for years, with thousands of mercenaries from across Africa, Russia, and Syria joining local warlords battling for control.
In recent years, several political figures backed by Russia have risen to try to seize power, including Gen. Khalifa Haftar, leader of the eastern forces based in Tobruk.
Now, there is war-crimes-accused Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the 51-year-old second son of Libya’s slain dictator Col. Muammar Gaddafi.
Gaddafi’s more than 40-year rule ended in an Arab Spring uprising in 2011. As he tried to flee, he was captured and executed by rebels.
He denied the charges but was captured by a militia and sentenced to death.
Libya began splintering in 2014, with competing factions emerging in the east and west. The militia holding Mr. Gaddafi released him in 2017, and he was given “full amnesty” for his alleged crimes by Gen. Haftar.
In April 2019, Gen. Haftar advanced on Tripoli and the U.N.-backed government. Both sides received military and diplomatic support from different regional powers. One thousand mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group joined Gen. Haftar, but he failed to capture Tripoli.
A ceasefire in October 2020 led to the election of a new unity government in early 2021, and it was supposed to expel all mercenaries and take Libya to national elections that December.
Neither happened.
Instead, a Government of National Unity in Tripoli and a rival Government of National Stability in Tobruk are locked in constant dispute and battle for control. They can’t agree on a joint electoral law to put elections back on track.
“So now we have a political elite that’s wormed its way into power,“ Libyan peace activist and political researcher Asma Khalifa told The Epoch Times. ”We have two governments, neither of which has been elected by Libyans, but both of which are the product of continuous misdirection by corrupt politicians unwilling to let go of their positions of power and the wealth that those bring.”
“The majority of Libyans have lost hope,” Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa project director at the International Crisis Group, told The Epoch Times.
“They’ve been watching the repeated failure of processes backed by the United States and Europe that were supposed to lead them to democracy. They now have rulers they don’t trust and who’ve made it clear they want power even though they have no mandate.”
Former U.N. Special Envoy for Libya Stephanie Williams has said the country is now governed by “a transactional ruling class, part of whose network can be traced back to the days of the old regime.”
This class, she said, uses Libya’s state and sovereign institutions “as cash cows in what might be described as a ‘redistributive kleptocracy,’ regularly bringing enough of their compatriots into their circles to sustain the system.”
“The economy has collapsed, social services have deteriorated, poverty is rising and there’s insecurity. Libyans have lost faith in the political class and they’re now staging protests and riots,” Ms. Khalifa said.
This is the “perfect breeding ground” for a new political figure to rise to take advantage of the discontent, said Emadeddin Badi, Libyan expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
It’s clear, Ms. Khalifa said, that Mr. Gaddafi wants to be this figure.
“His name is certainly on a lot of lips in Libya. Believe it or not, there are people who have a certain nostalgia for the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, as murderous and repressive as it was,” Ms. Khalifa said.
Another expert on Libya, Vito Todeschini, who consults for the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said there are many former government officials, clans, and communities “that continue to support the Gaddafi ethos.”
“They have a significant demographic weight in parts of Libya,” he said.
Although Mr. Gaddafi never held an official position in his father’s government, he was part of the Gaddafi regime’s inner circle and often performed public relations and diplomatic roles on his father’s behalf.
As a younger man, he was known internationally for his playboy lifestyle, partying with supermodels at luxurious seaside resorts. Now, he says, he’s ready to lead Libya to “stability and prosperity.”
In November 2021, when announcing his presidential campaign, he told reporters: “You need to come back slowly, slowly. ... Like a striptease.”
Mr. Fabiani said Mr. Gaddafi has “some degree of support in Libya” and that his “fan base” is “very mobilized.”
But he added: “He’s a controversial figure. I don’t think he enjoys enough support from broader Libyan society in order to win a credible election. My opinion is that Libyans would look to new faces if given a democratic opportunity. The majority of them remember Gaddafi junior for trying to crush a people’s revolt in 2011 in the most brutal fashion. That’s not a good platform on which to run a campaign.”
However, Mr. Todeschini said Mr. Gaddafi is gathering support from powerful tribal leaders in southern Libya.
“Several important personalities came out in defense of Saif’s right to contest elections, in spite of the ICC charges against him,“ the analyst said. ”That says a lot.”
The head of the Supreme Council of Tribes and Cities in the southwest region of Libya, Sheikh Ali Mesbah Abu Sbeiha, recently declared that Mr. Gaddafi should be “respected” as a “legitimate candidate.”
Mr. Badi’s view is that there can be no free and fair poll in Libya while mercenaries, especially from Russia, are present.
“Wagner operatives have been involved in many activities in Libya. These include military operations, political advisory services, and social media disinformation and influence projects, mostly on behalf of Haftar,” he said.
In April 2023, international Arabic TV news channel Al-Jazeera revealed that Mr. Gaddafi had been meeting with Maxim Shugalei, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest “political influencers” and the director of Moscow’s Foundation for National Values Protection.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the organization in April 2021 for its part in attempting to influence and interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election “at the direction of the leadership of the Russian Government.”
According to U.S. intelligence agencies, Mr. Shugalei’s organization was among 16 entities and individuals that sought to “undermine public confidence in the election process.”
The Al Jazeera investigation revealed reports from several Western intelligence agencies showing that Mr. Shugalei remains active in Libya, “monitoring the field and military situation and sending information to Moscow on a daily basis. ... [He] held a series of meetings with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, with the aim of supporting him to run for the presidential elections.”
Mr. Badi also said there’s “credible evidence” that Mr. Shugalei and a team of Russian operatives have been setting up Libyan websites and opinion polls calling for Mr. Gaddafi’s return.
In April 2023, Mr. Gaddafi’s chief-of-staff, Abdullah Othman, denied that Russia was supporting and financing the Gaddafi campaign for office.
Whatever is or isn’t happening, Mr. Badi said, Wagner mercenaries remain “firmly entrenched” in the south and east of Libya and are occupying military airbases and oil fields.
“How this can be when the country is supposedly on a path toward peace is beyond me,” he stated.
“It’s clear that the Wagner presence is serving Russian geopolitical interests while also harming Western interests by strangling oil supplies to Europe and making global inflation that much worse.
“The threat that Russia could make the oil situation in Europe worse is contributing to a passive European tolerance of Wagner’s presence in eastern and southern Libya. There’s also a mistaken perception that the Russian presence is preserving a shaky peace.”
What such a “misguided” analysis ignores, Mr. Badi said, is that Wagner is a “well-funded proxy army of the Kremlin,” using Libya as a base from which to increase its influence across Africa, including in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad, Mali, and Sudan—all while supporting the hold that Gen. Haftar’s Libyan National Army has over Libya’s south and east.
“What kind of an election will Libya have if we still have people like Wagner running around the country, causing all kinds of mayhem and spreading all kinds of lies?” Ms. Khalifa asked.
“We now have two leading presidential candidates, Haftar and Gaddafi, apparently backed by Moscow. If one of them manages to win the presidency, it is a recipe for further disaster in Libya, and a very bad outcome for the U.S. and its allies and democracy everywhere, because both will be beholden to Moscow.”
Mr. Badi said there’s an urgent need for Washington to “re-energize” its efforts to counter Russia in North Africa.
“The Biden administration is obviously preoccupied in the Middle East, and to a lesser extent in Ukraine. But any further neglect of Russian expansion in Libya and the Sahel could potentially threaten NATO’s southern flank. Russia could feasibly deploy more forces in Libya, and before we know it, Moscow will have a bustling port in the Mediterranean,” he said.
