To date, many Libyans may mention the story of the “Alabaster Arch”, or the “Filani Arch”, a memorial designed by famous Italian architect Florentano de Fausto, at the request of Libya’s Italian Governor, Marshal Italo Balbo in 1937, and placed by the Italians as a border marker The buffer between the two provinces of Tripoli in the west and Cyrenaica in the east (both regions were under the authority of the Italian ruler), before the monument was later demolished and detonated with dynamite in 1973 by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who considered the monument a legacy of Italian colonialism, and a legacy of the legacies that enshrined the division between Libyans in the east and west.
Although nearly 5 decades have passed since the monument was demolished, and more than 7 decades after the independence of a united Libya and the writing of the country's first constitution in 1951, mouths still whisper to the details of the famous legend of the Filani brothers, whose roots go back to the third century AD, as a sign of the depth of the historical division between East and West that It imposes itself again on Libya today, and, as legend tells, a conflict occurred between the Greeks who occupied the Barqa region and the eastern part of the Libyan coast, where they established their capital known as Qirina "the city of Shahat Al-Youm", and between the Carthaginians who ruled the Libyan West, including Tripoli, over the borders. The separation between them, and while the area extending between Carthage "in Tunisia today" and our Qirina was a sandy desert that lacks any geographical terrain suitable to be a sign between the two competing entities, the two parties agreed on a new and unprecedented way to draw the borders between them.
As the historical references indicate, the Greeks and the Carthaginians colluded that the runners started from both cities on a specific day, provided that the meeting place between them is the boundary between the two regions, and the Carthaginians chose the Felani brothers to represent them in this race, and they seem to have been much faster than the representatives of our villages, This enabled them to travel far more than their competitors, but the Greeks rushed to accuse the Carthaginians of cheating and claimed that their hostilities had started the journey ahead of time, and they required to accept the result of the competition that the two winning brothers be buried alive in the area they reached, or that our hostile enemies be allowed to advance to Another point is defined in the West, provided that we also bury them alive, as it was not from the Felani brothers except that they immediately accepted that we bury them for the sake of their countries, so that the Carthaginians erected at this spot a memorial to commemorate the two brothers, a monument that the Italians rebuilt before the Second World War .
This myth always reminds Libyans of the ghosts of the division that has long imposed itself on the country as a self-fulfilling prophecy, although the Libyan society remains a homogeneous society in terms of religion and sect with a historical ethnic harmony between the Amazighs and the Arabs, the provinces of Libya that we know today in the east, west and south have failed to integrate Together, under a unified political authority throughout the bulk of the country's history, and for the insignificant irony, Italian colonialism, which seized sovereignty over the territory of Libya from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, was the one who united Barqa, Tripoli, and Fezzan in one country at the end of the 1920s, taking advantage of the divisions Among the Libyans to defeat the rebellious tribes over his authority, control over the lands, and unify the colonies under his political and military authority, Sert city has since then gained increasing strategic importance as the meeting point, and the new dividing line, between East and West.
With Libya gaining independence at the end of the 1940s, the common legacy of anti-colonialism helped the ruling Senussi family maintain unity between the provinces of Libya, but the legacy of the old division remained present in the monarchy federal system by which the country was ruled, as well as in the selection of the new kingdom for two political capitals, Bani Ghazi in East (Burqa) and Tripoli in the west, and later in the aftermath of Qaddafi's seizure of power in 1969, the secular military background to the colonel, and his descent from the city of Sirte, the agreed meeting point between the east and west, helped facilitate acceptance by various tribes in both parts of the country, despite From Gaddafi he rose to power criticizing tribal authority as one of the manifestations of reactionary rule, except that in the end he was forced to rely on tribal alliances to give his rule the necessary social and political depth, after he realized the impossibility of governing Libya without involving the tribes, and without considering the historical rivalries between East and West.
During the long years of Gaddafi's rule, the political nature of Libya has changed significantly, and those with influence from tribes, especially in the capital Tripoli and the western part, in favor of the new political class of army leaders and security services that Gaddafi relied on to counter attempts to overthrow his rule, most of which came from the east, and as a result, did not Not surprisingly, when the spark of the Libyan revolution against Gaddafi erupted in 2011, the Libyan leader tried to fortify himself in the capital, Tripoli, and the western regions, in the face of the burning rebellion in the east, before NATO decided to intervene and overthrow Gaddafi, so that the Syrian revolution has since launched a new chapter of the division. The historical Libyan between East and West.
The fall of the Qaddafi regime was the most serious test of the extent of the sustainability of the unity between the two parts of Libya. Preparations are well underway to elect the Constituent Assembly charged with writing the new Libyan constitution. Hundreds of tribal, political and military figures gathered in Benghazi and demanded the establishment of a federal government in Libya similar to the 1951 constitution, according to which Libya was divided into three federal regions, which are Burqa in the east, Tripoli in the west and Fezzan in the south.
The federalists' demands faced widespread criticism from the ideological revolutionary forces that took power in Tripoli after the departure of Gaddafi and headed by the National Transitional Council and its president Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who accused the federalists of seeking to divide the country. In response, the federalists boycotted the political process and withdrew their recognition of the central government and called for a boycott of the conference The General Patriot, and with the progress of time in the transitional period, the gap between the East and the West was significantly increasing, after the traditional tribal forces in the East saw that they were deprived of their traditional influence in the new system in favor of the new revolutionary forces, foremost of which are the currents of political Islam, through the exciting laws of political isolation. Controversially, allegedly related to the old system.
This new chasm widened between the two parts of Libya with the increase in violence in Benghazi, and the launch of a campaign of assassinations by armed and revolutionary groups against the leaders of the security services and symbols loyal to the Gaddafi regime, which made many tribes change their view of the revolution from being an uprising to a political correction to being a "revenge act of The civilized elite of the West against the tribal sectors of society. "On the other hand, the ideological revolutionary forces in urban areas viewed the tribes as" hostile forces for change ", and the end result of this misunderstanding was that the tribes - in the east in particular - decided Mobilize its political and military power bent on defending its position within the new political system, even if it required it to use force.
Under the broad headings of this new division, the 2014 Parliament elections that caused the biggest rift in the country since its unification took place, with the Islamists and the new revolutionary forces in Tripoli rejecting the results of the elections that showed the progress of the traditional tribal forces and those associated with the old regime at the expense of Islamists and ideological forces, and the issuance of the court Constitutionalism in Tripoli ordered the dissolution of the new parliament. Libya was eventually divided almost formally between two governments, one in the east operating from Tobruk, the seat of the new parliament, and one in the capital, Tripoli.
Simultaneously, the name of General Khalifa Hifter had begun circulating in eastern Libya as a possible alternative to restore the old power balances that have been known since the time of Gaddafi, and Gaddafi's former ally, who turned against him and was sentenced to death in absentia to spend two decades of his life in exile in the United States, In turn, it seeks to play a greater role in the rule of the new Libya, which eventually led to the emergence of a new alliance of interests between Haftar on the one hand and the Libyan eastern tribes on the other hand, an alliance that has crystallized and its features have been clearly defined with the inauguration of Haftar for what is known as "Operation Dignity" with the aim of uniting Libya is under his authority and defeating what he calls "pro-government Islamist militias" backed by the outgoing GNC in western Libya.
Tribes rushed to join the ranks of Operation Dignity, and recruits from the large Awaqir tribe specifically formed the largest proportion of the early recruits in the Haftar Army which was dubbed the “Libyan National Army”, where they formed their own brigades and assumed leadership roles, and later the tribes began in the eastern cities Others such as barracks and slaves in joining Haftar's military machine during the Benghazi battles that were aimed at driving out Islamist opponents from the city in 2014, for many tribes, Haftar's support was the best way in which to serve their political interests and protect their influence and their share of resources, and in At the same time, getting rid of the revolutionary, urban, and Islamic powers that they saw as alien forces to the east and accused them of failing to establish a just and stable political system, and the Libyan general provided his secular military background, his previous association with the Gaddafi regime before he later joined the revolution against him, and not descended from one of the strong competing tribes In the east, an ideal façade for the protection of tribal interests, although this did not prevent the emergence of differences after the two sides soon was being absorbed and rectified.
In other words, Haftar was, in relation to the eastern tribes, a compromise between the old and the new. Therefore, although the tribes were concerned about Haftar’s personal ambitions, although the Libyan general had a very poor autobiography on the level of actual accomplishments and even personal and leadership traits Compared to Qaddafi, tribal leaders were willing to overlook all of this and throw their weight behind him. This alliance between Haftar and the tribes paved the way for the Libyan general to gain more territory and provided him with powerful allies after his support base was limited to a handful of former officers and ancient social elites associated with the Gaddafi regime For his part, Haftar has always been on time as he succeeded in co-opting and manipulating tribes in the old Qaddafi way in distributing financial benefits and positions in the security services, the police, and local government structures.
Given the limited military capabilities of the Libyan National Army, the winning of tribal sheikhs and notables became the main element in the "Haftar" strategy to expand his authority, as the Libyan General succeeded through this strategy in controlling the strategic oil ports of Hilal in September 2016, and proceeded In using similar tactics in the south by negotiating with the Fezzan sheikhs and pro-Gaddafi tribes such as al-Magarhah, al-Hasawna and al-Qadhafa, unlike the major southern tribes such as al-Zawiya and the Suleiman Sons, which enabled Haftar in the end to claim control of large areas of the Libyan south, although his effective hold on them remained weak very.
This great tribal support, in addition to the support received by Haftar from many regional and international powers, led by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France and Russia, enabled Haftar to cling to his plan to control the whole of Libya by force and the coup against the political agreement that was brokered by the nations. The United Nations was formed in 2015, whereby the National Accord government was formed, while the new internationally recognized government led by Fayez al-Sarraj suffered in dealing with the tribes and involving them in a meaningful way, and this failure was not surprising to all, given the prevailing urban view of the authorities in Tripoli and Misrata. And the government's association with the various Islamic components, and the dominance of the suspicious attitude towards the tribes as part of the previous regime, and in light of this legacy, it was natural that the limited attempts of the Al-Wefaq government to formulate a coherent policy towards the tribes failed utter failure.
Otherwise, the internationally recognized government has also suffered in obtaining any real military or political support from the international community, and its military capabilities have been severely affected by the restrictions imposed by the United Nations on the supply of arms to Libya, despite the fact that Haftar's allies have repeatedly violated these restrictions, and he has been tempted. This weak position of the reconciliation government, Haftar, by extending its influence from east to west, and extending its control over all of Libya. In April 2019, we launched a massive military operation aimed at controlling western Libya and the capital Tripoli, and dismantling the national reconciliation government.
However, given the fact that the Libyan West is less tribal than the East and South, Haftar faced great difficulties in using the same old tactics to control the capital and western regions, and with Haftar being too weak to control the capital Tripoli by military force, and with the fact that many of the eastern tribes supporting him did not Not interested in the loss of her children in battles to control the urban West, Haftar was forced to rely more on external support to continue his campaign against the capital, as the Libyan General received during this year intensive doses of military, financial and intelligence support from the UAE, Egypt, Russia and France, including aircraft. Chinese-made drone and Russian air defense systems provided by the UAE, as well as missiles and ground equipment supplied by Cairo, not to mention the foreign mercenaries provided by Abu Dhabi from Sudan and other African countries as well as the mercenaries of the Russian Wagner Company (whose numbers range from 1200 to 2000 people) who flocked to The vicinity of Tripoli to fight alongside Haftar.
Foreign military support succeeded in granting the kiss of life to Haftar's campaign on the Libyan West and enabled the general to attract some western regions that enjoy a strong tribal backer such as the city of Tarhuna (90 km south of Tripoli) and their tribal extensions in Ain Zara, Wadi Al-Rabi` and Qasr Bani Ghashir, which are areas that were previously famous By providing recruits to the Republican Guard for the Gaddafi regime, the seizure of Tarhuna was precisely the most important strategic gain of Haftar’s Western campaign as he succeeded in annexing powerful Caniyan militias to the Libyan National Army and gained an invaluable foothold on the southeastern gateway to the capital.
However, the Western Haftar campaign soon proved to be very short-sighted, after the Libyan general found himself stuck for a whole period of time with endless military battles with the powerful Misrata brigades and other factions loyal to the al-Wefaq government, but the event that really changed the rules of the game in western Libya was It is Turkey's decision to intervene militarily in Libya in support of the Al-Wefaq government. Following the signing by Ankara and Tripoli of an agreement to share maritime borders and a memorandum of military cooperation in November 2019, the Turkish parliament in early 2020 approved the government's request to send military forces to Libya with advanced military equipment, most notably aircraft without pilot.
Within a few weeks, Turkish military support for the Al-Wefaq government had succeeded in changing the balance of power in the battles of the West, and in mid-April, the Al-Wefaq forces, backed by Turkish drones, succeeded in capturing several cities along the coastal road between Tripoli and Tunisia, including Sabratha. Later, on May 18, the national reconciliation government achieved its most prominent victory by seizing the Al-Wataya airbase, before it announced control of Tripoli airport on June 4, and the next day the legitimate government announced its success in regaining control of the city of Tarhuna and the Sharara oil field. And, she stressed that she intends to continue her path to drive the militia of Haftar from the vital city of Sirte, which has long been considered the historic border between East and West.
It seems that the military setbacks that Haftar and his militias have faced in western Libya recently have had their effects crossed the military aspects, towards a wide process of reorganization in the eastern camp. First of all, the military failures that the general suffered in the West caused noticeable cracks in his camp in the east and south, with the accumulation of discontent over his war against the capital for more than a year and its high costs with its lack of any feasible targets for Haftar's tribal allies other than support The general's personal ambitions, in response to this discontent and in an attempt to create a theatrical victory, Hifter announced a televised coup in which he canceled the Skhirat political agreement and installed himself as governor of Libya.
But Haftar’s theatrical adventure backfired and caused his allies ’alienation, especially in the southern tribes, some of whom declared loyalty to the National Accord government, while some eastern tribes began to hedge their bets, and this was clearly demonstrated in the refusal of the Speaker of the Libyan Parliament belonging to the Abidat tribe Aqila Saleh Issa, for Haftar's coup and his declaration of his desire to seek a diplomatic solution, an effort supported by many eastern tribes that made public threats to Haftar warning him of attempts to harm "Saleh".
Simultaneously, many international powers supporting Haftar began reviewing the feasibility of their support for the Libyan general, and some of them began to actually communicate with Aqila Saleh, as an acceptable political alternative, and a possible representative of the East in any possible negotiations with the Al-Wefaq government, but the real problem facing these forces It is that attempts to get Haftar out of the Libyan political scene have failed again and again, as the general succeeded time and time again to insert himself as part of the political and military equation in the east, taking advantage of the failure of the eastern powers in a meeting on an acceptable alternative, including the elected Speaker of Parliament Aqila Saleh himself And, taking advantage of external support in the presence of some countries, led by the United Arab Emirates and France, and to a lesser extent Russia, still believes that its interests in Libya will be better served by Haftar's survival.
This expanded foreign participation on the Libyan arena makes the conflict in the country more complicated and dangerous, especially with the different levels of participation of these forces and the clear variation in their goals. As Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut points out in his article published on “Geological Futures” website, among all the powers involved in the conflict, the UAE remains the most present and most ambitious force, with Abu Dhabi, through its involvement in the Libyan conflict, aiming to achieve three Main goals, the first of which is the defeat of the National Accord government, which it sees as a representative of political Islam in the country, and the second is preventing Turkey from establishing a permanent presence in Libya, the last being ensuring a foothold in Libya as part of its plan to control weak states in the Middle East.
In comparison with the Emirates, Egypt has relatively limited targets in Libya mainly related to Cairo's fears of Islamist militants infiltrating from Libya to Egypt across the border spanning 1150 km between the two countries, and Egypt's desire to obtain its share of the reconstruction pie as well as the return of more than 1.5 million An Egyptian worker who fled the country because of the war, contrary to the requirements of traditional geopolitical competition with Ankara, but the capabilities of Abu Dhabi and Cairo to provide meaningful military support to their Libyan ally soon proved limited when the two countries found themselves facing a strong and resolute opponent like Turkey, which also has its own geopolitical goals Own from participating in the Libyan conflict.
For Ankara, participation in the Libyan war is the most important step in Ankara's plan to confront the desperate attempt of Cyprus, Greece, Egypt, and Israel to isolate and exclude it from the energy equation in the Eastern Mediterranean. In this context, Ankara's insistence on signing the border demarcation agreement with Libya that gives Turkey influence can be explained. Maritimely in the region through which the EastMed pipeline extending through which Mediterranean gas is exported from Israel and Cyprus - via Greece - to Europe, not to mention Turkey's ideological fears of the anti-Arab Spring axis led by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which also lead the campaign To isolate Turkey in the Islamic world.
Looking at Russia, being in Libya is a low-cost means for Moscow to control the southern gateway to Europe and pressure the old continent in vital files such as energy security and migratory flows, and more importantly, the Kremlin may seek to secure a new presence on the Mediterranean coast in the ports of the eastern Libyan adds to the presence Russia is already in Syria, while France seems more interested in reaching Fezzan, which is a vital gateway to sub-Saharan countries in which France has a noticeable presence, and with Paris focusing its African policy on fighting Islamic organizations and stemming the flow of migrants, it finds in Haftar an ally suitable.
For its part, the United States believes that it does not have vital interests in Libya at the moment, which has prompted it to effectively withdraw from the Libyan policy since the incident of the American ambassador’s death in Benghazi in 2012, to suffice to support the United Nations efforts in a subdued way, before the Trump administration appears biased. Limited in favor of Haftar with the start of his campaign against Tripoli, but Washington began to review its policy towards Libya in recent weeks with Russia intensifying its presence in the country, stressing its support for the government of national reconciliation and criticizing Moscow of sending military reinforcements to the Al-Jafra base in support of Haftar in the wake of his loss of Al-Watiyah base, Noting its intention to establish a presence in neighboring Tunisia, close to the Libyan conflict.
It is likely that the interactions between these foreign powers will play the most important role in determining the future of the Libyan conflict in the coming weeks and months. Despite the recent victories, the National Accord government, and Turkey, behind it, understands that they must invest a lot of military effort to preserve the current lands Under their control as well as the control of new areas, it is logical to assume that Ankara specifically realizes that any attempts to penetrate the customary boundaries separating East and West and the incursion into the tribal areas beyond Sirte will come at a high cost as many eastern tribes will deal with them as an occupying power and not As an ally of the legitimate government, and last but not least there is Russia which seems to seek by withdrawing its mercenary fighters from the western regions and placing its plane at the base of Al-Jafra to send a message to Turkey that it recognizes its right to progress and control the western regions, provided that the actual red lines start from the east and specifically After Sirte.
The historical divisions and the imprints of foreign powers were present in shaping the history of Libya and it seems that it will continue to play the same role in determining its future. After all, Tripoli and Barqa were subject to the authority of the Ottoman Empire for decades, but they never joined under a unified political authority, while Italy occupied Libya In 1912, it apparently succeeded in unifying it only on the surface, and while the United States and Britain worked in Libya against German and Italian forces during World War II, and Stalin's Russia attempted to secure the Mandate over Tripoli in 1945, and France occupied Fezzan two years earlier, these The powers - all of them - failed to extend their control over the whole of Libya, and only exercised the influence defined by the previously defined fault lines.
Today, it does not seem that the situation today will be much different from that, as Libya remains effectively divided while foreign powers are rushing to share the influence cake, but the good news here is that the Libyans are well aware of this division, and they have been told to deal with it during different periods in their history, The biggest challenge will be if the Libyans and the external players will succeed in reaching a political formula that takes into account this division and the minimum achieved the interests of all parties. Fortunately, the first step in this path is known to all, which is to grant Hifter a compulsory retirement leave, and to join it with the tyrant and criminals club Former war of the owners of luxury palaces on the shores of the Gulf