A surge in fighting between rival Libyan militias continues to rage in the country—killing at least 55 people in a week in Tripoli, the country’s capital city, according to a report in The New York Times.

The paper said there are dozens of rival armed groups fanned out across the country backed by other countries like Turkey, UAE, and Russia. About 146 people have been injured in these clashes. Al Jazeera reported that major warfare in the country has been stopped since a 2020 truce between eastern and western rivals, but conflicts have broken out since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising.

The report said the latest clashes were sparked after Col. Mahmoud Hamza, the head of the 444 Brigade, was detained while trying to fly from the country on Monday. 

The Special Deterrence Force, which is a top rival to his 444 Brigade, controls Tripoli’s Mitiga airport, the report said. The Special Deterrence Force was described in the report as a strong, “ultraconservative militia that acts as the capital’s police force.” The 444 Brigade is another armed group tied to Libya’s Defense Ministry. The commander was eventually released.

The two militias were identified in the report as two of the top militias trying to seize power in the country that seems to be split down the middle, with no clear leadership. There is an interim government in Tripoli that is internationally recognized, and another government in the east, the BBC reported.

The fighting was fierce. The BBC, citing Libya’s Emergency Medicine and Support Center, reported that 234 families had to be evacuated from the frontline area of fighting and three field hospitals were set up to deal with the casualties from the 24-hour gunfight.

Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the prime minister of the Government of National Unity, warned militias to calm down or face the consequences. Both militias in the clash have supported Dbeibah in the past.

“Every day people are terrorized. People’s lives are not a game. There will be other measures against them, we have to be harsh,” he said, according to AfricaNews.com.

TRENDPOST: The mainstream media, when reporting on the country, fails to mention that the Libyan people once enjoyed the highest living standard in Africa and received more benefits from the state than many advanced societies.

Additionally, the media avoids mentioning that former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. President Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy of France—with the insistence of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice; and Samantha Power, senior director for multilateral affairs and human rights on the National Security Council—were the murderous maniacs responsible for death and the destruction of Libya… and for its current crisis.

Therefore, count Libya as another disaster in U.S./NATO foreign policy. The once-thriving African nation has been in a state of political chaos since President Barack Obama’s effort to oust Muammar Gaddafi. (See “LIBYA: NATO POWERS GET OUT THEIR CARVING KNIVES” 5 Feb 2020 and “LIBYAN CAPITAL BREAKS OUT INTO VIOLENCE” 24 May 2022.) 

There were reports that Obama called the situation in Libya a “shit show” when behind the scenes. One British envoy warned that the country could look like “Somalia on the Mediterranean.”

AfricaNews reported that militias in the country have grown richer and more powerful since Gaddafi’s murder and profit from kidnappings and human trafficking. 

Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote that Hillary Clinton was the biggest promoter of Libyan intervention. Indeed, she famously took a victory lap and said after Gaddafi’s brutal murder: “We came, we saw, he died.”

Bandow wrote, “Gaddafi carefully balanced interests in Libya’s complex tribal society and kept the military weak over fears of another coup. He was a geopolitical troublemaker, supporting a variety of insurgent and terrorist groups. But he steadily lost influence, alienating virtually every African and Middle Eastern government.”

He concluded, “The Obama administration did not plan to ruin Libya for a generation. But its decision to take on another people’s fight has resulted in catastrophe. Hillary Clinton’s malignant gift keeps on giving. Such is the cost of America’s promiscuous war‐​making.”

TRENDPOST: The general public does not have a clue about the U.S./NATO overthrow of Gaddafi. Here are a few articles regarding their murderous actions that destroyed the most prosperous nation in Africa where people had more benefits and Rights than much of the world:

● “WAKE-UP CALL: CONFRONTING THE ABUSE OF POWER HEAD-ON” (14 May 2014)

● “STAY AND DIE” (16 Sep 2019)

● “LEBANON: ARAB SPRING 2.0” (22 Oct 2019)

● “MURDEROUS YEMEN WAR: MILLIONS IN PERIL. WHO CARES?”(19 Oct 2021)

● “EASTERN LIBYA: LIFE UNDER EX-CIA AGENT HAFTAR” (25 Feb 2020)

● “LIBYA: ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER” (21 Jan 2020)

● “ARAB GOVERNMENTS MUST MAKE ECONOMIC REFORMS, IMF WARNS” (Feb 2021)

● “LIBYA: IT’S RIOT TIME!” (5 Jul 2022)