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Libyans Dig for Water in Latest Test for Capital’s Residents
Reuters, Oct. 27, 2017
TRIPOLI--Across Libya’s capital residents have started drilling through pavements to access wells in a desperate search for water after the taps ran dry in a new low for living conditions.
After years of neglect, workers turned off the water to do urgent maintenance earlier this month, cutting supplies to many Tripoli households. Then an armed group sabotaged the system, prolonging the misery.
The water crisis is a powerful symbol of state failure in a country that was once one of the wealthiest in the Middle East but has been gripped by turmoil since a 2011 uprising unseated Muammar Gaddafi.
For Libyans the chaos has meant power cuts and crippling cash shortages. These are often made worse by battles between armed groups vying for control of the fractured oil-rich state and its poorly-maintained infrastructure.
“We haven’t had water for ten days. The state does nothing,” said Nasser Said, a landlord in Tripoli’s upmarket Ben Ashour district.
Already equipped with a generator to keep the power running during outages that sometimes last more than a day, he hired drillers to dig some 31 meters to extract groundwater for the six apartments in the residential block he owns.
“No water, no electricity. You become a state in a state,” he said, standing next to his building on a leafy sidestreet. “We last had to do this maybe 20 years ago.”
Like many Libyans, Said is skeptical about the chances of U.N.-led peace talks unifying rival factions that have been fighting for control.
The talks were adjourned last week with little sign of progress in creating a government that could stabilize Libya and stand up to armed groups that have repeatedly seized oil facilities and other state assets to make demands.
Parts of Tripoli offer a semblance of normality and power cuts have eased since the summer.
But security is still fragile. A former prime minister was abducted in August for nine days by one of the two most powerful armed groups, while the other engaged in a battle this month that shut down the airport.
A Reuters reporter recently saw a traffic clogged commercial street suddenly empty as a man was fatally shot by militiamen. Kidnapping for ransom is rife.
Public health services are failing, inflation has spiraled, and the start of the school year has been delayed by several weeks because teachers are striking over salaries.
Shutdowns crippled oil revenues so little has been spent on repairs and maintenance, and the water network and other infrastructure have been corroded.
Most government spending goes on public salaries, including for former rebel groups that forced their way onto the state payroll after Gaddafi’s overthrow.
A reporter’s journey through Tripoli: Long lines, kidnappings and murder
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, August 1, 2017
TRIPOLI, Libya--The line at the bank was two blocks long and Abdul bin Naji was once again praying for the doors to open. He desperately needed his $60.
With Libya in the throes of a currency crisis, that was the weekly limit for withdrawals. For the past month, though, the bank hasn’t had any cash. That didn’t stop Naji and hundreds of others from arriving every night to get a good spot in line.
On this morning, the unshaven airline employee was third from the door. At 10 a.m., the bank still hadn’t opened. “Thirty-two days and no money,” he sighed.
Excruciatingly long bank lines are the latest misfortune for Libyans trapped in a cycle of war and economic upheaval.
Six years after the revolution that toppled dictator Moammar Gaddafi, the mood in this volatile capital is a meld of hopelessness and gloom. Diplomatic and military efforts by the United States and its allies have failed to stabilize the nation; its denouement remains far from clear. Most Libyans sense that the worst is yet to come.
Increasingly, decisions that were once mundane are potentially life-altering.
Is it safe to visit parents in a neighborhood across the city? Which car will kidnappers be less likely to notice? Will a $60 bank withdrawal stretch until the next one is available?
“Every day, our future is getting darker and darker,” said Naji, 57, leaning against an ATM that hasn’t worked in years.
Under Gaddafi, oil-producing Libya was once one of the world’s wealthiest nations. Even as the economy struggled in his last years, Libyans enjoyed free health care, education and other benefits under the eccentric strongman’s brand of socialism.
The insecurity that followed Gaddafi’s death has ripped apart the North African country. Rival governments and an array of armed groups compete for influence and territory. The economy is on the verge of collapse. Criminal gangs prey on the vulnerable.
In Tripoli, the parliament and other buildings are concrete carcasses, shattered by heavy artillery fire, rocket-propelled grenades and tank shells. Clashes often erupt suddenly, trapping residents in their homes and creating new no-go zones.
A journey through the city revealed how Libyans are adapting to the vicissitudes of the civil war.
In the southern Tripoli district of Salaheddin, a main thoroughfare bustles during the day but is deserted at night.
Once a typical middle-class enclave, it has become a focal point of the contest to control the capital. On one side of the street, militiamen aligned with a self-declared, Islamist-leaning government-run checkpoints. The other side is controlled by fighters loyal to a U.N.-installed unity government.
By 9 p.m., many residents have locked themselves inside their homes. Gunfire usually starts around that time, residents said. Those who dare to venture out are careful not to bring any valuables.
“I leave my iPhone and carry a cheap Nokia,” said Ibrahim El Worfali, 31, a shop owner. “All these guys have guns and they can do anything they want to you.”
At the western entrance to the city, fighters with the Knights of Janzour, a militia aligned with the unity government, stop and search cars for weapons being funneled to their rivals.
“It’s obvious they want to control the capital,” said Mohammed Bazzaa, 29, the militia’s thickset commander who wore tan camouflage fatigues and stood next to a pickup truck mounted with a heavy machine gun.
One of the militia’s biggest rivals is a group led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, whose army controls much of eastern Libya. Hifter, who lived in exile in Northern Virginia for two decades, is aligned with a third government based in the east.
“He’s another Gaddafi,” said Bazzaa, who fought in the revolution.
But the militia’s primary threat, Bazzaa said, were the fighters from a rival tribe controlling an enclave less than two miles down the main highway between Tripoli and the city of Zawiyah. Last year, they had fought fiercely. Now, they are both aligned with the unity government.
The tensions and mistrust, however, still run deep.
Not far from the checkpoint, Sulaiman Abu Hallala was kidnapped.
He was pulled out of his car by three masked gunmen and taken to a farm outside the capital. Held there for 19 days, he was deprived of his diabetes medication until his family agreed to pay a $11,000 ransom.
“I was so scared,” recalled Hallala, a businessman who is in his 80s. “My nephew was kidnapped three months earlier. He was killed after we paid the ransom.”
Kidnappings have become so common in the capital that residents constantly trade detailed information about the enclaves and roads where abductions have occurred. Once predominantly motivated by political or tribal rivalries, kidnappings have become a criminal enterprise fueled by the worsening economy.
“All they want is money,” said Mohamed Grabli, another businessman. “There are shortages of cash in the country. There are no jobs.”
Grabli was kidnapped and held for 63 days last year in a room smaller than a walk-in closet with a steel door and iron bars on the windows. His hands were cuffed with cable wire, and his legs were chained, he said. His captors fed him pieces of bread “like a dog.” His family paid about $31,000 for his release.
Osama Labib has not driven his maroon Lamborghini in months.
The architect has been waiting for spare parts, which take weeks to arrive because fewer ships are willing to dock in Tripoli. But even if he repairs the car, he plans to keep it under a tarpaulin behind the high walls of his compound near Salaheddin.
“If I drive it, it will draw too much attention,” he said. “If I enter Salaheddin in this car, I am never coming out.”
Many Libyans are keeping their expensive cars out of sight, said Ali Kabous, a luxury car dealer. Others, he added, have sent their cars to neighboring Tunisia to “keep them safe.”
His worst-selling vehicle these days is a Toyota Landcruiser. “It’s the most dangerous car to drive,” said Kabous. “The militia commanders really like them.”
Some customers, he said, are buying luxury cars and sending them outside Libya because they don’t trust leaving their money in the banks.
“It’s a way of safeguarding your money,” he added.
But few residents of Tripoli residents have such options.
As he stood in the snaking bank line, Allama el-Motamed lamented his declining health, and the money he must spend on doctors. But what made him more despondent, he said, were the deepening social and cultural divisions he has noticed.
“Before, we never asked where a person is from. We always saw ourselves as part of one country,” said the 67-year-old airline employee, a colleague and friend of Naji. “Now, when someone stops you, he asks, ‘Where are you from?’”
“Sometimes he will kill you if you are, for example, from the east,” he said. “Or maybe he will kill you if you are from the west.”
At that moment, Naji interrupted, expressing a sentiment shared by many in the capital.
“The revolution was not the right thing,” he said. “Before, people were happy. Before, I was a king. I had a job. I felt like a man. Now, I can’t even take out my own money.”
At 11 a.m., the bank was still closed.
They planned to return again at night.
A day in Libya’s capital, just as the civil war reignites
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, May 26, 2017
TRIPOLI, Libya--The young militia fighters carried in a comrade who was covered in blood and motionless. It was 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Al Mokhtar Clinic, and Libya’s civil war had just reignited in this fractured capital.
“Move on, clear the way,” one fighter screamed. “He’s dying.”
Five hours earlier, on the eve of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, fierce clashes erupted between rival militias. They tore apart a two-month lull in the violence and upended the lives of countless Libyans in neighborhoods that turned into battle zones overnight.
The fighting also underscored the security and logistical challenges British investigators could face if they consider visiting Libya to pursue clues in the Manchester concert suicide bombing that killed 22 people this week. The bomber, Salman Abedi, was of Libyan origin, and his father and brother were arrested in Tripoli. Both are in the custody of a counterterrorism militia aligned with the Western-backed government.
Those challenges were evident during an hours-long drive Friday in a city fragmented as much by politics, ideology and geography as it is by violence and the thirst for power. In the southeastern enclaves, militias deployed tanks and used heavy artillery, leaving families trapped inside their homes and sending many civilians and fighters to hospitals with injuries. Authorities could not provide reliable casualty figures.
But in the northern neighborhoods, untouched by Friday’s violence, Tripoli residents surreally socialized in cafes and water-skied in the Mediterranean Sea, even as the sound of explosions and gunfire thundered nearby. Huge plumes of black smoke from burning buildings rose over the city.
“This has become normal for us,” said Shukri Salim, 27, a Libyan Airlines employee, who was having coffee with friends in a cafe and watching a televised soccer match.
“I knew it was Ramadan and the war is going to start,” said his friend Ayoub Aldabaa, 27, an accountant, who was with him. “We’re so accustomed to this.”
Last year, too, fighting engulfed the capital during Ramadan. That time, the clashes involved different militias.
It has been mostly like this since the 2011 populist uprising, part of the Arab Spring, that ousted Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi and led to his killing. A constellation of tribal and regional militias emerged, seizing advantage of the power vacuum and abundance of weapons in a quest for power and wealth.
Today, militias have carved up the oil-producing country into fiefdoms, each aligned with one of three competing governments. And Tripoli, as expected, has been a major battleground with armed groups fighting for control of neighborhoods, even streets and buildings.
Friday’s violence pitted militias aligned with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) against Islamist-leaning forces of the self-declared National Salvation government who are trying to reclaim territory lost in recent months, according to security officials.
A spokesman for the National Salvation government said a GNA-aligned militia erected a fake checkpoint to kidnap some of its fighters. “So we decided to attack the GNA boys,” said the spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mahmud Zaghal.
But there has also been speculation for weeks that the National Salvation militias were planning a counterattack. A Facebook page created by its supporters carried a post on Thursday night announcing that it would launch assaults against rivals in southern Tripoli.
The clashes Friday mostly unfolded in the neighborhoods of Abu Salim, Salahedeen and Al Habda. Fighting also erupted in areas near the Rixos Hotel, which has been used by officials and lawmakers aligned with the GNA government.
Last October, their new legislative body was ousted from the buildings by the Salvation militias. In December, the area was the scene of heavy fighting over several days. Militias aligned with the GNA currently are in control of the complex and surrounding neighborhoods.
“We will retake the Rixos,” Zaghal vowed.
At the Al Mokhtar Clinic, the toll of the fighting was obvious. Doctors and nurses were inundated by the wounded. One man arrived with blood splattered on his legs.
“My brother was injured,” another man said as he waited outside. “He was just standing in front of his house when the shells landed.”
But the militia fighters were most visible at the clinic.
“I want to get inside the room,” one fighter screamed, as others held him back from accosting the doctors and nurses.
Other fighters, clad in black and clutching AK-47 rifles, stood outside.
At 1:53 p.m., screams filled the room. Some militia fighters cried, their faces now filled with anguish.
Their comrade had died on the operating table.
An hour later, Aldabaa and Salim were in the cafe. As they have done during previous clashes, they called friends and family around the city to make sure they were safe. They also checked Twitter and Facebook to see which neighborhoods had turned into no-go zones.
Salim had just spoken to a friend who was stuck in his home as fighters pummeled each other outside.
He and Aldabaa had both taken part in the revolution. Salim said he did not regret fighting against the Gaddafi regime, but “regretted the people who came after the revolution.”
Aldabaa blamed the Western countries for helping the rebellion that ousted Gaddafi, and now regrets that the revolution happened at all.
“We were expecting to take the country in a better direction,” he said. “Unfortunately, we left it in a worse condition.”
At 3:15 p.m. near the Rixos Hotel, militia fighters in pickup trucks waited for the next offensive. Graffiti on the wall of the complex read: “Free Libya.”
By 4:30 p.m., drivers were in lines at gas stations around the city, preparing for shortages that usually come after each clash.
And the people of Tripoli were certainly expecting more fighting.
Heavy fighting between rival militias erupts in the Libyan capital
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, May 26, 2017
TRIPOLI, Libya--Heavy clashes have erupted between rival militias in the Libyan capital Friday morning in the latest sign of the North African oil-producer’s fragility despite efforts by Western and regional powers to bring stability.
Large explosions and intense gunfire, even artillery rounds, could be heard across the city, emanating from southeast Tripoli, apparently from the vicinity of the Rixos Hotel, a well-known landmark in the capital. Large plumes of black smoke billowed from the area, where clashes between militias have frequently occurred.
The violence, arriving before the start of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan this weekend, began around 8 a.m., and was continuing through the morning.
It’s unclear which forces are battling each other, but the tensions appear to be between militias aligned with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord or GNA, and those belonging to its rival, the self-declared National Salvation government, according to security sources.
The Rixos Hotel, and surrounding buildings, have been used by officials and lawmakers aligned with the GNA government. Last October, their new legislative body was ousted from the buildings. In December, the area was the scene of heavy fighting between rival armed factions over several days. Militias aligned with the GNA currently are in control of the complex and surrounding neighborhoods.
Instability and violence has plagued Libya since its 2011 revolution that led to the ousting and death of Libyan dictator, Moammar Gaddafi. Since then, competing militias have carved up the country into fiefdoms in a quest for power, authority and control over the nation’s oil and other natural resources.
Three rival governments--the GNA, National Salvation, and a third one that controls the eastern part of the country--have been vying for power.
Fighting in Libya’s Capital as One Government Seizes Another’s Compound
Reuters, March 15, 2017
TRIPOLI, Libya--Armed groups aligned with a Libyan government in Tripoli that is backed by the United Nations took over a compound occupied by the leader of a rival government on Wednesday after heavy fighting that spread to several parts of the city.
The offices of a television station sympathetic to the self-declared government opposed to the one backed by the United Nations were burned down in the clashes, and the channel went off air. A hospital was also hit.
The fighting apparently was set off on Monday by a dispute over control of a bank in the Hay al-Andalus neighborhood. It then escalated into power struggles between militias loyal to the rival governments: the Government of National Accord, which is backed by the United Nations, and the self-declared National Salvation Government.
Tripoli, Libya’s capital, is controlled by a patchwork of armed groups that have built local fiefs and vied for power since Libya’s 2011 uprising.
Gunfights continued for much of Tuesday in western Tripoli before spreading to southern neighborhoods after sunset. Gunfire and explosions could be heard late into the night, with tanks and other heavy weapons deployed on the streets.
By Wednesday, the Government of National Accord had posted guards outside the Rixos hotel complex, where the leader of the National Salvation Government, Khalifa al-Ghwell, had established a base.
Mr. Ghwell suffered a minor injury as he tried to leave the Rixos at dawn on Wednesday, one of his aides told a local website, Afrigatenews.
No details about casualties were available, but a 14-year-old girl was killed when a residential building in central Tripoli was hit, according to her relatives.
Offices and hotels near Tripoli’s western seafront were also hit by missiles or shelling, and a hospital in the Abu Salim district caught fire when it was hit during the fighting.
Classes at schools in central Tripoli were canceled on Wednesday because of the violence. Sporadic gunfire could be heard across the city.
Tripoli, Libya 1968
Old city Tripoli Libya