Libya's Fragile Peace Faces a New Threat

AI Summary

Libya's fragile peace is threatened as the corrupt power-sharing arrangement between eastern leader Khalifa Haftar and western Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah risks collapse due to rising citizen discontent. The competing factions control key geographic and oil infrastructure areas, raising concerns of potential return to civil war.

The mutually beneficial corruption arrangement between the rival Haftar and Dbeibah camps that has kept Libya from returning to civil war could be undone by a third force usually left out of political calculations: the citizens of Libya. For nearly six years, Libya’s eastern and western power centers have preserved an uneasy equilibrium. Haftar’s family controls the east, much of the south, and the military forces surrounding much of the key oil infrastructure. Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and the armed groups aligned with his…