The groups that rose in 2011 had little in common other than hatred of Kadafi. Once he was shot to death after being captured in a drainage pipe in the coastal city of Surt, militias that had been organized along tribal or ideological lines turned on each other. With no true national actor among them (politics is a local affair in Libya, a result of Kadafi playing off different sides so a clear challenger would never emerge), the country fractured into a vicious free-for-all. Criminal and Islamist groups, including Al Qaeda and Islamic State, operated in full view of a government unable (and often unwilling) to do anything about them.

Source: Libya Today May 26, 2019 09:56 UTC