War / Africa
Ethiopian Civil War
Pretoria is dead: TPLF installs Debretsion, Eritrea coordinates multi-front pressure, and Addis Ababa restructures Tigray administratively.
Pro-GNU
No linked actors classified on this side yet.
Pro-LNA
Conflict
Libya has been at war with itself since 2011, when a NATO-backed uprising killed Muammar Gaddafi and destroyed the institutions he had hollowed out over 42 years of one-man rule.
The country split in two in 2014 and has stayed split. The Government of National Unity (GNU) holds Tripoli and the west, backed by Turkish troops and drones. The Libyan National Army (LNA) under Khalifa Haftar holds the east, backed by the UAE, Egypt, and roughly 1,500 Russian personnel now operating as Africa Corps. A UN ceasefire froze the front line in 2020.
It also froze Russian and Turkish forces fifty miles apart on Libya's coast, where they remain.
Trajectory
The assassination of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in Zintan in February 2025, timed days after secret Paris talks between rival factions, marks the most consequential phase shift in Libya's political landscape since the 2022 ceasefire consolidation.
His removal eliminates the last structural constraint pushing dominant factions toward elections, clearing space for the dynastic power-sharing arrangement that the April 2026 Boulos-brokered budget deal now formalizes.
Weekly net escalation pressure, last 90 days
Analysis
The timing of Saif al-Islam's assassination, days after secret Paris talks, is almost certainly not coincidental and points to a faction with both intelligence access and a direct interest in foreclosing an election.
The Boulos roadmap's four-pillar sequence has no enforcement architecture and mirrors the structural failure mode of the 2022 Emirati-brokered arrangement.
Africa Corps' retreat from Kidal and Russia's broader Sahel failures directly erode the coercive credibility underpinning Haftar's eastern position.
Historical Context
Muammar Gaddafi seized power in a military coup, ruling Libya for 42 years and centralizing authority while suppressing independent institutions that could have governed after him.
A NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed Gaddafi, but also destroyed state institutions, leaving a power vacuum immediately filled by competing regional militias across the country.
Libya fractured into two rival governments — an internationally recognized authority in Tripoli and a rival parliament backed by General Khalifa Haftar's forces in the east — marking the formal start of the multi-faction civil war.
Haftar launched a 14-month offensive to capture Tripoli with support from the UAE, Russia, and Egypt; Turkey intervened militarily on behalf of the Tripoli government, halting the LNA advance.
A UN-brokered ceasefire in October froze front lines roughly along the coastal road near Sirte, with Russian and Turkish forces entrenched on opposite sides, institutionalizing the east-west split.
A UN-facilitated process produced the Government of National Unity (GNU) under Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, intended to unify Libya ahead of elections, but the elections never took place and a rival government was appointed in the east.
Catastrophic flooding in Derna killed over 11,000 people, exposing the total collapse of infrastructure and governance under factional rule, with international aid fragmented by the ongoing political split.
Proxy Network
Africa Corps (formerly Wagner, approximately 1,500 personnel) sustains LNA military logistics and secures Russian strategic access to eastern Libya.
Turkey-backed western militias provide the GNU with drone capability, training, and force projection under the 2019 military cooperation framework.
Ukrainian covert specialist teams, deployed to Misrata and Mellitah in coordination with the GNU.
Subul al-Salam, a Haftar-affiliated militia, manages overland fuel smuggling through LAAF-controlled ports and documented arms transfers to Sudan's RSF.
Ahmed Gadalla, a Dubai-based commercial broker tied to Haftar, converts wartime financing channels into peacetime leverage over eastern Libyan credit and oil.
PRO-LNA
Continue With
All conflictsWar / Africa
Pretoria is dead: TPLF installs Debretsion, Eritrea coordinates multi-front pressure, and Addis Ababa restructures Tigray administratively.
War / Africa
Sudan's drone-attrition war grinds on as the Quad ceasefire sits unaccepted and the Ethiopia rupture opens a new regional escalation.