He was right about al-Qaeda but wrong about the Lebanese Shi’i group Hezbollah – there are no Sh’is in Libya and, in any case, Hezbollah was allied to Syria, which backed Gaddafi. Add to these the town- region- district- and tribe-based militias, and you get the perfect recipe for chaos. To complicate matters further, many militias received material support from Arab and foreign states, who found in them convenient tools for implementing their own agendas. Today the militias are blighting Libya, robbing it of its wealth and future and standing in the way of any meaningful path to democracy. After the downfall of the Gaddafi regime in October 2011, Assem stayed in Libya and started several businesses, and was involved in the 9th of November movement whose leaders were kidnapped, threatened or exiled for insisting on elections.

Source: Libya Today July 09, 2022 20:26 UTC